Ubiquiti routers, which to choose?

[Humbie]

I'm planning out my network setup for when I move into my new house & am in doubt of which router to choose.

As I'll be installing a wallmounted rack, I prefer a rackmountable router.

 

Currently I'm thinking of the UniFi Security Gateway Pro 4, though recently I've heard & seen a lot of videos, comments and general information leading me to an EdgeRouter Pro instead.

For general home use, what does an EdgeRouter Pro do differently from a USG Pro?

The new EdgeRouter 4 also has an optional rackmount solution, so this is an option as well...

I'll be connecting it to a US-48-500W switch & will have an UAP-AC-PRO access point on each floor of my house.

 

The USG would mainly look nice in the controller software when the controller lights up all components.

It seems handy for me to be able to configure the entire network from a single interface as well.

[Zygizz]

First the all why you need pro version of this router ? in my huosehold there is around 10 people and using Usg and its working just fine 

 

btw if you want configure everything on single interface i suggest using unifi gateway of course if you more advange user you should buy edgerouter

[Humbie]

1 hour ago, Zygizz said:

First the all why you need pro version of this router ? in my huosehold there is around 10 people and using Usg and its working just fine 

 

btw if you want configure everything on single interface i suggest using unifi gateway of course if you more advange user you should buy edgerouterI

I'm going with the Pro version either way to be able to rackmount them.

I'd like to have all my networking gear tucked away in my wallmount rack as mentioned in my initial post.

Another reason would be to have the SFP ports for when ISPs in Belgium start providing those types of connections for residential connections as well, so basically future-proofing.

 

Are there any other "integration" differences with the other UniFi products I'm putting in my network, except for UniFi Controller vs EdgeRouter?

Integration as in, settings being propagated across all UniFi devices instead of having to configure every device separately...

 

I'm also planning to build my own home lab environment, are there any features in the EdgeRouter that might be beneficial in this scenario?

[brwainer]

1 hour ago, Humbie said:

I'm going with the Pro version either way to be able to rackmount them.

I'd like to have all my networking gear tucked away in my wallmount rack as mentioned in my initial post.

Another reason would be to have the SFP ports for when ISPs in Belgium start providing those types of connections for residential connections as well, so basically future-proofing.

 

Are there any other "integration" differences with the other UniFi products I'm putting in my network, except for UniFi Controller vs EdgeRouter?

Integration as in, settings being propagated across all UniFi devices instead of having to configure every device separately...

 

I'm also planning to build my own home lab environment, are there any features in the EdgeRouter that might be beneficial in this scenario?

If you set up VLANs (which you will probably end up doing with a home lab) then Unifi is easier - it will create that VLAN on the router, switches, and APs all at once. Anything that isn’t Unifi will have to have VLANs manually created. For a server/software focused homelab, there isn’t anything you’d need or want that the USG can’t do.

[scottyseng]

23 hours ago, Humbie said:

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Since you plan to buy a USG Pro-4, I want to comment that there's an ongoing memory issue with some models which causes them to restart over and over. I had one of these and gave up on it (Yeah, I could've fixed it by buying a stick of RAM, but eh, the edgerouter 4 launched). The new models should have no issues though. 

 

Edgerouter is capable of Layer 3 where UniFi isn't quite there yet. Also, know that edgerouter and UniFi attend to different markets. 

UniFi products are designed to be controlled by a controller (Easier to remote manage). 

Edgerouter products are designed to be standalone (You must configure them individually). This is better for places that don't need remote operation. 

 

UniFi is definitely easier with vlan setup. 

 

Also, the edgerouter 4 is complete overkill for a home network. I can't even get this thing to go over 10% CPU usage at any time. It's quite the monster of a router. I have the edgerouter connected to some netgear desktop switches (US-48 500W will replace eventually) that feed out to two AC-Pro access points (plan to get a 3rd later). 

 

The USG Pro-4 was quite fast as well. Do note that enabling features such as IPS will cripple the max bandwidth to 150Mb/s for the Pro-4. Also, the USG Pro-4 isn't exactly silent. If you can't deal with the noise, you can swap the fans in both the US-48 switch and the Pro-4 to noctua fans to silence them 

[Humbie]

2 hours ago, scottyseng said:

-snip-

Thanks for the advice!

I think I will be sticking to the USG Pro-4 initially for ease of configuration.

Prior experience with a Linksys PoE+ switch has taught me that these types of devices can indeed generate quite the noise & I actually opted to replace them with Cooltek Silent Fan 4020 as they seem to have the best CFM/dB ratio (while only generating 13.5 dB).

 

The Noctua that came closest was an NF-A4x20, but in the end the ratio was better on the Cooltek fans so I went with those.