what is the difference between business router and home router?

[buklu]

don't say price

[sokolian]

10 minutes ago, buklu said:

don't say price

pretty sure a business router is used for multiple machines and so it has more LAN ports

[brwainer]

Between a “Small Business” router and a typical home router - usually nothing, in fact this whole category is known as “SOHO Routers” meaning Small Office / Home Office (the term was coined before it was common for every home to have one, and instead was only common for people who worked from home).

 

The next step up is small/medium business routers that are similar to SOHO routers, but also include features like telephone support (analog or VOIP), subscription based security updates and filtering, and many more ports.

 

At the final step, routers split into two specialized categories. On the one side is pure routers, which ONLY perform the task of routing traffic - they have no wireless, no firewall or other security features, no VPN support either server or client. These are used by ISPs or where the ISP(s) enter a large office. The other side is known as Hardware Firewalls, which includes the sub categories of “Next Generation Firewall” (NGFW) and “Unified Threat Management” (UTM). Hardware Firewalls inspect every bit of traffic going in or out and apply a variety of rules. They almost always are supported by subscription based updates. 

[Acedia]

13 hours ago, Taikinakulho said:

pretty sure a business router is used for multiple machines and so it has more LAN ports

Welllllllllll...... If you compare your standard 4 Port home router for something like a small SonicWall, FortiGate, Sophos they usually have at least 8 ports.

On the other hand many cisco routers only have 1 or two ports since they assume you use switches w/ vlan colors.

 

It's the added features like proper ACLs, the ability to connect to more than 3 subnets (business usually got wan, lan and sometimes dmz), use proper routing tables or dynamic routing protocols. UTM features since most of the time they are bundled with firewalls and an overall higher session limit.

[Donut417]

17 hours ago, buklu said:

don't say price

Besides price. Id say features is the big thing. For example looking at some of the Edge Routers, they can support dual WAN, with fail over or load balancing. This is a feature you wont find in "Most" consumer grade routers. Like others have said Vlans and other features also show up. They might also offer QoS options that work. Instead of the shitty ones the consumer grade routers have. Mainly features most home users wont need or use. Though there are some out there that will use these features. But someone like me, no.