I’m a senior staff writer who has covered Wi-Fi networks and other interconnected computer hardware for Wirecutter since 2018. In a previous life, I was an IT technician and manager. I have been testing and writing about PCs and networking for over 20 years, reviewing thousands of devices in that time.

For this guide:

• I have evaluated more than 110 Wi-Fi routers over hundreds of hours.
• I have built, maintained, and updated a separate Wi-Fi network in my home dedicated to testing Wi-Fi routers, extenders, and network-attached storage.
• I evaluate the measured performance of each router, its price compared with its peers, its ability to stay up-to-date over the next five to 10 years, and how easy each router is to set up and keep running.
• Like all Wirecutter journalists, I review and test products with complete editorial independence. I’m never made aware of any business implications of my editorial recommendations. Read more about our editorial standards.
• In accordance with Wirecutter standards, I return or donate all products I’ve tested once my assessment of them is complete, which may involve longer-term testing by my colleagues and me. I never hang on to “freebies” once testing is done.

If you’re happy with your Wi-Fi, you don’t need a new router—it’s as simple as that. If you’re having problems with range, speed, responsiveness, or reliability, though, and your router is more than a couple of years old, it might be time for an upgrade. An older router that doesn’t support Wi-Fi 6/6E (802.11ax) or Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be) and drops connections constantly, needs frequent reboots, or provides slow speeds even when you’re just in the next room can hold you back significantly.

This guide covers standalone Wi-Fi routers. Our top picks easily outperform most routers more than a few years old and are likely to save you money if you’re currently renting a basic router from your internet service provider. These routers are a good fit for apartments or small to medium-size houses with three to five people on the network.

If you have more people or a large house—more than 2,300 square feet, or more than two stories—take a look at our mesh-networking guide. A good rule of thumb is that if you’ve considered adding a wireless extender or an extra access point to an otherwise satisfactory router, get a mesh system instead.

What you shouldn’t do is buy either the cheapest router or the most expensive router you can find. Quality doesn’t necessarily scale with price, and a router with a bigger number on it or a plethora of antennas may not actually solve your Wi-Fi problems.

For every round of testing, we research routers from each of the major router manufacturers, including Asus, D-Link, Linksys, Netgear, and TP-Link. We also look for routers from lesser-known manufacturers.

Instead of solely testing for maximum speed, we position five laptops around a 2,300-square-foot, two-story suburban home to simulate the real-world activity of a busy home network. We test for top speed (aka throughput) while simulating 4K streaming and file downloads, as well as for long range and responsiveness (aka short latency or waiting time on a busy network). See How we tested below for more details.

We’ve found that the following features matter the most:

• Current-generation technology: Since we look for routers that can improve your Wi-Fi, we consider only routers that support the Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E, and Wi-Fi 7 standards. Any phone or laptop that you can buy today or may have bought in the past few years relies on one of these standards.
• Good speed-test results: In our tests, network speed, or throughput, varies from “this YouTube video will never finish loading” to “you can download a video game update in an instant.”
• Good range-test results: You should be able to connect to a well-placed router from anywhere in an apartment or a small house. We test each router to confirm whether it can stream high-quality videos to the far side of a living space.
• Quick responsiveness: Slow internet sucks. Latency—or lag—is the time you have to spend waiting for the next thing to happen. A great router minimizes that wait even if the rest of the network is busy.
• Multiple Ethernet ports: Ethernet ports give you unfettered access to the internet bandwidth you’re paying for.
• Nice-to-have extras: Fast, reliable Wi-Fi is what matters the most, but more expensive routers add features that bring other benefits. The things we like to see that justify spending more include built-in security utilities and speedier Ethernet ports.
• Price: You can buy a router for $20, and you can buy one for $800. But we don’t consider the cheapest or the fastest to be the best. When considering both features and our test results, we look for “the best for the most for the least.” Right now, paying around $130 for a router buys you excellent performance and features that offer real benefits.

In addition, we consult router-owner reviews, plus professional router reviews from Dong Knows Tech, PCMag, and SmallNetBuilder, to generate our list of contenders. After identifying every model that meets all of our criteria, we thoroughly test the most promising routers ourselves.

The TP-Link Archer AX3000 Pro offers the best combination of price, features, and performance. Most people are best served by a Wi-Fi 6 router like this one, as Wi-Fi 6E is not worth the extra expense, and it’s too early to recommend expensive Wi-Fi 7 for everyone. The Archer AX3000 Pro is speedy both at close range and at a distance, easily punching a Wi-Fi signal through multiple walls in a home. The Archer AX3000 Pro can handle a busy network 99% of the time, so it’s reliable too. It also has some future-proofing, notably a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port, so it’s ready for 2-gigabit internet service (2,000 megabits per second) once that becomes commonplace.

It’s ready for multi-gig internet. Over the past couple of years, 2-gig has surpassed 1-gig as the fastest internet speed available to most US residents. The Archer AX3000 Pro’s 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port can connect to 2-gig fiber service or a 2-gig cable modem. As home internet speeds get faster, this router won’t be a bottleneck like those equipped with only a 1 Gigabit Ethernet connector.

Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 speed-test results (Mbps)

It delivers fast Wi-Fi at long range and close to the router. The Archer AX3000 Pro performed better than competitors at long range with the signal passing through several walls. The Acer Predator W6, for example, costs two times what our top pick costs but was four to five times slower at long range in our tests. At close range, the benefits of the Archer AX3000 Pro’s solid Wi-Fi radios were clear: Whereas the Archer AX3000 Pro averaged 887 megabits per second (almost full-gig speed), alternatives such as the Linksys Classic Micro Router 5 were relatively slow at about 90 Mbps. Gigabit speed near the router is fast enough for most gaming downloads.

Browsing the web on a busy network

It is responsive, even when the network is busy. Many networks are prone to lag and delays, making you wait for sites to even start loading. In our responsiveness test, which shows how routers handle the added stress of multiple devices accessing the network simultaneously, the Archer AX3000 Pro posted short lag times better than those of the Acer Predator Connect W6, even though it’s considerably less expensive than that router. It also bested routers with more comparable prices such as the TP-Link Archer AX55 Pro and D-Link M60. Based on these tests, we can say that the Archer AX3000 Pro won’t keep you waiting, even when multiple family members are using the Wi-Fi at the same time.

It has all the wired connections you need. The Archer AX3000 Pro provides five Ethernet ports: one 2.5 GbE WAN/LAN internet port for connecting your cable modem, fiber terminal, or network-attached storage, plus four gigabit ports for wired devices. That’s enough for you to hardwire your most demanding gear—streaming set-top boxes, TVs, and game consoles—if you keep your router close by.

The Archer AX3000 Pro also has a USB 3.0 port for connecting a shared portable hard drive or SSD. This setup can’t replace a full-featured NAS unit, but it can help you back up your laptops regularly. In contrast, less expensive routers are limited to much slower data transfers over USB 2.0 (as with the Archer AX21, for example) or lack USB connectivity entirely (like the Eero 6).

It’s easy to set up. All routers walk you through initial setup, but TP-Link’s administration page for the Archer AX3000 Pro is neither too simple nor too complicated. The overall setup, whether you handle it through TP-Link’s Tether smartphone app or the administration website, is quick. Note that you have to sign up for a TP-Link Cloud account if you want to use Tether.

TP-Link’s smartphone app lets you quickly configure settings. Tether for iOS and Android allows you to customize the router’s parental controls, security, and performance. Among the parental controls are basics such as time limits, content filtering, and bedtime settings. (I’ve written about how I used parental controls, among other tools, to stop my teen from gaming all night.) If you want to prioritize functions such as streaming over gaming or vice versa, QoS (quality of service) settings are also included and easy to adjust.

You can expand its reach with TP-Link’s OneMesh and EasyMesh Wi-Fi extenders. We recommend the compatible TP-Link RE315 if you need to add a single extender. You can also use TP-Link’s EasyMesh feature to connect multiple TP-Link routers and extenders in your home to create a DIY mesh network. However, if you have more than one or two dead spots in your home, you might want to upgrade to a full mesh-networking system instead.

Its warranty is longer than others. TP-Link covers this router with a two-year warranty, which matches the coverage period for our other picks. D-Link, Linksys, Netgear, and Ubiquiti routers have one-year warranties.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

It isn’t exactly aesthetically pleasing. Four adjustable but nonremovable antennas connected to the back panel make the Archer AX3000 Pro stand out visually, and not necessarily in a good way. Although it is basic black, its antennas and its bulky chassis are guaranteed to clash visually with nearly any decor. Our budget pick, the Eero 6 router, is much smaller and easier to ignore.

It has a single 2.5-gigabit port. While this isn’t a drawback for most people, the Archer AX3000 Pro’s single 2.5-gig port forces you to choose: You can use it for your internet connection (as a WAN port) or for hooking up a 2.5-gig NAS box or PC (as a LAN port). In contrast, our upgrade pick, the TP-Link Archer BE550, has multiple 2.5-gig ports, so you don’t have to decide which part of your network gets the fastest connection.

It’s a Best Buy exclusive. The Archer AX3000 Pro should be easy to find at your local Best Buy or shipped from one farther away, but you don’t have an alternative when the retailer is out of stock. Our upgrade pick and budget pick are available from a wider range of brick-and-mortar and online stores.

It requires an online login for setup through TP-Link’s Tether app. You can kind of get around that by using the built-in website interface to set up the router instead. Some shoppers actively look for routers that don’t have any online logins because they’re worried about companies mining their data and tracking them. However, more router companies are requiring online accounts for convenience, remote monitoring, and paid subscription services. If you’re concerned about such things, we suggest an alternative such as our former upgrade pick, the Synology WRX560, which you can set up and administer without an online account.

Still, a lot of the functionality of the Archer AX3000 Pro and some of its settings are found only in the Tether app, so if you want to have parental controls or monitor IoT (Internet of Things, aka smart home) security, for example, you need a TP-Link Cloud online account. You can set up a burner email address for this purpose if you don’t want the account connected to your primary email.

Some features are locked behind an optional paid subscription. Advanced parental-control software costs $3 per month or $18 per year. TP-Link also offers a $5-per-month or $36-per-year plan for Security+ network protection and IoT security. If you don’t pay, you still get some basic functionality such as the ability to block websites and to manually toggle internet access on your kids’ devices, but advanced settings, automatic timed internet control, most protection, and reporting are disabled after the one-month free trial. That said, the Archer AX3000 Pro will continue to provide solid Wi-Fi connectivity even if you don’t sign up for the added plans.

If you’re splurging on a gigabit—or faster—internet service plan, the TP-Link Archer BE550 is the router you should get to make the most of the bandwidth you’re paying for. It’s also future-proofed, which could be worth the extra $100 over our top pick if you’re itching to get the latest technology in your home.

It’s faster than our top pick. The Archer BE550 was one of the top performers in our test group, handily beating our top pick, the TP-Link Archer AX3000 Pro. Investing in such advanced performance will pay off if you’re one of the lucky people who have 750 Mbps or faster internet service, including multi-gig service. The Archer BE550 has five 2.5 GbE (Gigabit Ethernet) ports, which can connect to your cable modem or fiber network terminal, to network-attached storage, or to a PC with a 2.5 GbE adapter.

Using our newly upgraded laptop’s 6 GHz Wi-Fi, we measured top speeds of 1,256 Mbps in the same room as the router, faster than the Verizon Fios gigabit service we have in our test home. Speeds dropped to about 600 Mbps and 112 Mbps farther away, but these results were still faster than what we got from other Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 routers, particularly at our long-range test location, where the signal had to pass through four walls.

Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 speed-test results (Mbps)

Wi-Fi 7 is ready for the future. Though Wi-Fi 7 isn’t a must-have just yet, the Archer BE550 is ready for the improvements that Wi-Fi 7 promises. Wi-Fi 7’s additional 6 GHz Wi-Fi channel offers extra capacity and steady connections in the same room for Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 laptops, tablets, and phones. Other features, such as Multi-Link Operation (MLO) and 320 MHz–wide Wi-Fi channels, also help speed and performance on congested networks. For more details, read our article on Wi-Fi 7 and how it could improve your life.

It isn’t as hideous as other routers. While no router is beautiful, the Archer BE550’s internal antennas make it as visually tolerable as a rectangular plastic box can get. Other routers, including the TP-Link Archer AX3000 Pro, the TP-Link Archer AX55 Pro, the Acer Predator Connect W6, and the MSI Radix AXE6600 have multiple external antennas sticking out, with some models resembling giant multi-limbed arthropods.

It supports mesh networking, if you need that. As with the Archer AX3000 Pro, you can add TP-Link EasyMesh routers and extenders or OneMesh extenders to the Archer BE550 to create a mesh-connected network.

It’s ready for the fastest internet connections. In addition to support for 2.5 GbE modems, the Archer BE550 has four 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports, allowing you to connect EasyMesh routers and extenders to the base router with Ethernet cables, an arrangement that’s faster than wireless mesh. As we’ve seen in our wireless mesh testing, each additional wireless “hop” reduces the speeds you can achieve; wired networking bypasses the losses incurred when you connect to a wireless network over distance and through walls.

Not everyone needs the extra performance. If you don’t have a gigabit or multi-gig internet plan, and if reading about the Archer BE550’s extra features makes your eyes glaze over, you’re likely to find our top pick, the TP-Link Archer AX3000 Pro, or our budget pick, the Eero 6, more than enough for easy internet access. Even more expensive home routers exist, but they mostly offer a bit more speed or maybe an additional 5 GHz Wi-Fi channel for more connectivity in exchange for their sometimes exorbitant price tags. Unless you’re downloading and uploading humongous files, such as uncompressed high-resolution audio, over Wi-Fi every day, you’re unlikely to notice the difference between the 1,604 Mbps from the Netgear Nighthawk RS700S, for example, and the 1,256 Mbps you can get from the Archer BE550.

Our budget pick, the Eero 6, worked well with our mix of Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 5 laptops in our tests, and it’s the router we recommend if you want to spend around $80, or if you live in a smaller space such as an apartment or a compact home. Our top pick and upgrade pick were faster and more reliable at range than the Eero 6, but at long ranges it still outperformed some routers costing two to four times as much. It’s also the router that’s the most compact and the easiest to hide, and that can be a game-changer.

Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 speed-test results (Mbps)

It’s speedy, especially at long range. The Eero 6 was able to broadcast a strong, steady Wi-Fi 6 signal from 15 feet away as well as from 50 feet away and through four walls, reaching about 140 Mbps to 150 Mbps in both locations.

It’s cute, and you can hide it easily. The Eero 6 router measures about 4 by 4 by 2.5 inches—smaller than a 12-ounce coffee mug—and it has internal antennas. Consequently, it’s easy to hide behind non-metallic objects on a bookshelf or, say, in a wicker basket.

Its responsiveness is excellent. When we tested the Eero 6 with a full onslaught of Wi-Fi traffic, it held its own against our upgrade pick, the TP-Link Archer BE550, and our top pick, the TP-Link Archer AX3000 Pro.

You can expand it with Eero extenders, Amazon Echo Dot speakers, or additional Eero routers. If you find that the Eero 6 base unit works pretty well but can’t quite reach a stubborn dead zone, you can extend its range with compatible Eero 6 extenders.

You can set it and forget it. In addition to easy setup, Eero routers automatically update on a regular basis, in contrast to some other routers, which have that as an opt-in setting. Also, Eero’s app has very few settings that you can change, so you don’t have to worry about possibly screwing things up. The app can monitor the network when you’re away from your home and alert you, and you can reboot the router remotely if any issues crop up. That last feature is a boon for people who need to set up and support Wi-Fi for relatives, including parents.

Its limited wired connections are a drawback. Whereas most other routers we reviewed have at least three Ethernet ports for wired connections in the same room as the router, the Eero 6 has only two. That isn’t an issue if your TVs, media boxes, phones, laptops, and tablets are all on Wi-Fi, but it may be a problem if you have more than one wired gaming PC.

Our other router picks offer faster top speeds. In comparison with the performance of the TP-Link Archer AX3000 Pro and Archer BE550, the Eero 6’s speed limits make it more suitable if you’re subscribed to a low- to mid-tier internet plan (under 500 Mbps), but this router is certainly sufficient for a compact home or an apartment with fewer smartphones and PCs. For many people, 140 Mbps feels fast enough, even if the household is streaming two or three 4K videos at once.

If you have more technical needs: The Synology WRX560 is our former upgrade pick. Although this model remains an excellent router, it has been surpassed by the Wi-Fi 7–compatible TP-Link Archer BE550, which is future-proof, has additional 2.5 GbE ports, and is easier to set up. We still recommend the WRX560 for folks who want to set up a small-business network or need IT-level controls, such as the ability to configure and administer more than two named Wi-Fi networks on the same router.

Every time we do a router review or a mesh-networking guide, readers ask us about enterprise-level networking options such as Ubiquiti’s UniFi networking line. Although its rack-mounted models are decidedly overkill for most homes, we were intrigued by the Ubiquiti UniFi Dream Machine (UDM) and the UniFi Dream Router (UDR), a Wi-Fi 6 follow-up to the UDM, both of which are tailor-made for home offices and small businesses. Their control panels are more complicated than those of the TP-Link routers and the Eero 6; if you’re an IT tech, that level of control may be appealing to you. In our tests, both Ubiquiti routers performed well but finished in the middle of the pack.

Other publications usually test Wi-Fi routers by connecting a single device to Wi-Fi at various distances, trying to get the biggest throughput number possible, and declaring the router with the biggest number and the best range the winner, at least in raw performance. The problem with this method is that it assumes that a big number for one device connected to the router divides evenly into bigger numbers for all connected devices. This is usually a valid assumption for wired networking, but it doesn’t work well for Wi-Fi.

How we tested Wi-Fi

Because we were testing in the real world, external variables—competing signals, walls, network traffic—affected our results, just as they’re likely to affect yours. The purpose of our testing was not to choose a router that was slightly faster than others; it was to see which routers could deliver consistently strong performance without encountering major issues in real-world conditions.

Instead of running just a single speed test, we used multiple laptops at different distances from the router in a 2,300-square-foot, two-story suburban home to simulate the real-world activity of a busy home network.

We used a mix of 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) USB Wi-Fi adapters and 802.11ax (Wi-Fi 6) and 802.11be (Wi-Fi 7) internal Wi-Fi adapters to simulate a home network serving 4K video streams, browsing the web, and downloading a large file (such as a game update) all at the same time.

Our laptops ran the following tests:

• One laptop sat in the downstairs master bedroom and simulated a 4K video streaming session. It tried to download data at up to 30 Mbps, but we were satisfied if it could average 20 Mbps to 25 Mbps or better, which is what Disney+ recommends for 4K UHD.
• The second laptop sat in the garage and simulated a web-browsing session. Once every 20 seconds or so, it downloaded 16 files of 128 KB each simultaneously to simulate loading a modern web page; ideally pages should load in less than 750 milliseconds.
• The third laptop sat in the living room across the house, simulating a second browsing session. It also downloaded 16 128 KB files simultaneously, and on this laptop we looked for the same quick load times.
• The fourth laptop sat in a spare bedroom downstairs at close range and downloaded a very large file. For this large-file download, we didn’t care about latency—the amount of time between when the computer made a request and when the router responded to it—but we did want to see an overall throughput of 100 Mbps or better.
• The fifth laptop, dedicated to Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 testing, sat in the same room as the router. This laptop also downloaded a very large file. This test allowed us to measure each router’s best-possible speeds while also stressing high-end routers more strenuously than the other models.

We ran all of the above tests simultaneously to simulate a realistic extra-busy time on a home network—after all, those busy times are when you’re most likely to get annoyed.

This mix of tests and devices allowed us to evaluate each router’s speed (throughput), range, and ability to multitask (latency or lag). We placed one of our test laptops approximately 15 feet from the router, with one interior ceiling between router and laptop; we also performed a long-distance test at about 50 feet, with four interior and two exterior walls in the way. If Wi-Fi 6E or Wi-Fi 7 was available on a router, we tested it from a 5-foot distance and in line of sight so that we could find its best potential speed. We tested throughput using a real HTTP download, the same protocol you use to view websites and download files, to better expose differences in general performance.

Top speeds

We characterized a router’s speed by looking at the combination of performance when downloading a large file at both short and long range (which gearheads call throughput). A decent number of the routers were able to top 500 Mbps to 800 Mbps at close distances, with some of the best-performing routers, such as the TP-Link Archer BE550 and Netgear Nighthawk RS700S, reaching 1,200 Mbps to 1,600 Mbps in this test. Only a couple of stragglers, the TP-Link Archer AX21 and Linksys Classic Router Micro 5, fell far behind at 5 Mbps to 27 Mbps, particularly at long distances and when the signal passed through multiple walls.

Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 speed-test results (Mbps)

Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 speed-test results (Mbps)

Note that we saw these speeds on a connection between two PCs on each router’s Wi-Fi network. Your internet service plan acts as a speed limit on your connection to the internet. For example, if you’re paying for a 50 Mbps service plan, 50 Mbps is the best you can expect when you’re downloading from the internet. If you’re on a gigabit (a 1,000 Mbps connection) or multi-gig (faster than 1,000 Mbps) plan, you’re more likely to max out your connection speeds using any of our top routers.

Browsing on a busy network (measuring responsiveness)

Raw speed isn’t everything, so in addition to evaluating top speeds at various distances, we measured responsiveness on a busy network, otherwise known as latency or lag. Latency measures the time you spend between clicking a link and waiting for the next web page, streaming video, or file download to come through. We ran this test concurrently on two laptops while other laptops were downloading files and simulating a 4K video stream, further stressing the Wi-Fi network.

Browsing the web on a busy network

During our multi-client responsiveness testing, we evaluated how well each router performed when everything was working as normal, as well as how poorly it did ramping down to its worst moments. This process allowed us to determine how frequently the network became unresponsive, and how much the experience may frustrate you.

The top routers passed this test with flying colors; any of them will give you good to great responsiveness while you’re browsing, even while other family members are using the Wi-Fi at the same time.

The TP-Link Archer BE550, our upgrade pick, speedily served each client simultaneously, with a minimal wait on a busy network; the TP-Link Archer AX3000 Pro, our top pick, was actually a smidgen faster when the network was running smoothly but was measurably less responsive than the Archer BE550 about 1% of the time. The Eero 6, our budget pick, managed to stay true and steady, with no web-browsing hiccups, during a session with 4K video streams and large file downloads happening at the same time.

At the other end of the chart, the higher numbers for the D-Link M60, the Linksys Classic Micro Router 5, and the Acer Predator Connect W6 show that you’re likely to be sitting there waiting for a few seconds (or more) when other devices are stressing the network at the same time. If you click a link and then have to wait a few seconds (or more) for something to happen, it’s the definition of slow internet.

Typical home networks today don’t look like they did in the early 2000s. Without even getting into the explosion of smart-home devices (everything from smart light bulbs to doorbells to washing machines now relies on a decent Wi-Fi connection), most homes these days have two or more personal Wi-Fi devices (phone, laptop, tablet) per person, as well as smart TVs or media streaming boxes such as Roku or Apple TV devices.

A busy evening in a typical home could have one person downloading game updates in a bedroom, a second listening to music from a smart speaker, a third watching TV in the living room, and a fourth browsing the web while sitting on the couch—and all of that traffic demands a router that can provide fast performance for lots of devices at once. The resulting network congestion that such homes experience has made us a lot pickier about what routers we accept as the best for the most people, as well as a lot more interested in features such as Wi-Fi 6 support and mesh compatibility. These features cost more, but they’re worth the expense.

What is a router?

A router is a box that connects your home network to the internet, through your cable modem or fiber internet connection. All communication on the internet, whether it’s a website, a streaming movie, a FaceTime video call, or an email message, is made of data packets. The router takes the signals from your modem (see below) and determines that a streaming movie, for example, is one group of data packets and is meant to be routed to your iPad for viewing, or that another group of packets is an email that you will be reading and responding to on your laptop. Most current home routers handle both wireless (Wi-Fi) and wired (Ethernet) connections.

What is the difference between a modem and a router?

As we describe in our article explaining modems versus routers, a modem is a box that connects your home network to your internet service provider (ISP). A router is a box that allows all of your wired and wireless devices to use that internet connection at once and lets them talk to one another directly. Think of the modem as the box that deals with all the data packets to and from the outside world, and the router as the one that deals with all the communication inside your home or business.

What are dual-band routers and tri-band routers, and what’s the difference between them?

Although all modern routers are at least dual-band—offering one slower but longer-range 2.4 GHz band and one faster but shorter-range 5 GHz band—taking full advantage of both bands isn’t easy. On most cheap (or old) routers, you have to create two separate network names, such as “mynetwork2.4” and “mynetwork5,” and then decide which of your devices should join which network. If you don’t give your networks different names, or SSIDs, in practice all your devices end up piling onto the one 5 GHz band, and you experience slower speeds, delays, and even dropped connections when several of them are online and busy at the same time.

Tri-band and Quad-band routers have extra 5 GHz bands or 6 GHz bands in addition to the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands of a dual-band router. Each additional band allows more devices to connect and be busy at once without slowing the network down so much.

What’s the difference between a regular router and a mesh router?

A regular or standalone router is just that: It stands alone, and it sends data packets (streaming videos, music, Slack messages, and so on) from a central location in your home to all your wired (Ethernet) and wireless (Wi-Fi) devices. A mesh network consists of a system of two to four boxes—usually sold in a package—that work together to relay the Wi-Fi signal around your house or business. Those boxes might be called mesh routers, mesh extenders, satellites, or nodes, depending on the manufacturer. We advise using a mesh network if the Wi-Fi signals from a single router are too weak to reach all the corners of your home, causing dropouts.

What are Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E, and Wi-Fi 7? And how does anyone choose between them?

Wi-Fi 6 brings improvements that help routers and mesh networks better handle the increasing number of wireless devices, using technologies such as OFDMA (orthogonal frequency-division multiple access) and TWT (target wake time). However, devices must be compliant with Wi-Fi 6 to take full advantage of them.

Wi-Fi 6E, an extension of Wi-Fi 6, uses many of the same technologies but adds them to the 6 GHz radio band (PDF). As with Wi-Fi 6, you can use Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 4 devices with Wi-Fi 6E routers.

Wi-Fi 7 (aka 802.11be) is the newest of the Wi-Fi technologies. Like Wi-Fi 6E, it uses the 6 GHz radio band in addition to the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radio bands. Wi-Fi 7 promises to improve throughput and bandwidth by widening the radio channels (320 MHz channels), more efficiently packing those channels with data (4K QAM), allowing connections on two separate channels simultaneously (MLO), and transferring data in unused portions of an otherwise congested channel (Multi-RU puncturing). We’ve been testing Wi-Fi 7 routers with a Wi-Fi 7–upgraded laptop, and we’ve noticed some improvement while using the new technology.

In 2024, most people should buy a Wi-Fi 6 router or a mesh-networking kit. Wi-Fi 5 routers are still usable if you want to save some money, but Wi-Fi 6 has reached the mainstream saturation point and now gives you the best performance for a moderate amount of money.

Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 routers are forward-looking and may be relevant for a longer period of time, but to make the most use of either technology, you have to upgrade your laptops, tablets, and phones, as well. Look for routers that have been fully certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, a group that guarantees that wireless devices work with one another and can use all the functions advertised. Note that some routers, such as the Netgear Nighthawk RS700S, haven’t fully implemented vaunted features like MLO at this writing. Our newest upgrade pick, the TP-Link Archer BE550, is the first Wi-Fi 7 router we’re recommending to early adopters.

What is a 5G router?

“5G” is a sometimes-confusing term because people use it for two different and separate wireless technologies. First, it can refer to the 5 GHz band in your dual- or tri-band router (see above); just about every Wi-Fi router sold today has a 5 GHz band.

It also refers to 5G cellular technology, which is faster than 4G LTE. 5G cellular is used for current smartphones, as well as for 5G home-internet service from ISPs such as T-Mobile and Verizon. 5G home internet can bridge that “last-mile” connection between the ISP and your home, potentially replacing the coaxial (cable TV) or fiber connection drilled into the side of your apartment building or house. Right now, you don’t have to buy your own router if you subscribe to 5G home internet; T-Mobile and Verizon each provide a 5G home Wi-Fi router so you can use the service right away.

The Wi-Fi Alliance has officially approved the Wi-Fi 7 standard, and new routers are on the way. Wi-Fi 7 delivers faster speeds, lower latency, and improved simultaneous connections, though few devices are capable of taking advantage of the new features at the moment. Wi-Fi 7 routers such as the TP-Link Archer GE800 for gaming are on our short list, along with the TP-Link Archer BE900, TP-Link Archer BE3600, and Netgear Nighthawk RS300. We’re also looking forward to testing the Acer Predator Connect X7 5G CPE, which was announced at the CES 2024 trade show and has 5G cellular backup built in in case your primary internet goes down.

We’re also tracking Wi-Fi 6 and 6E routers. The Asus RT-AX86U Pro and RT-AX88U Pro, the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000 and Rapture GT-AXE16000, and the TP-Link Archer AXE200 Omni are on our short list for testing soon.

Wi-Fi 7 testing was new this time around. In addition to our upgrade pick, the TP-Link Archer BE550, we tested the Asus RT-BE88U, the Asus RT-BE96U, the Netgear Nighthawk RS700S, and the TP-Link Archer BE800. Notably, the Nighthawk RS700S achieved some of the fastest and most lag-free results in our testing, but at four times the price of our upgrade pick. The Asus RT-BE88U, a Wi-Fi 7–updated version of our former upgrade pick (the Asus RT-AX88U), was the fastest at a simple top-speed test from 15 feet away, but it wasn’t as responsive as our upgrade pick when the network was busy. The RT-BE88U also omits 6 GHz Wi-Fi channels, which isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker. We dismissed the other Wi-Fi 7 routers either because they fell short on our tests or because of their high pricing.

Our former top pick, the TP-Link Archer AX55, is still a good router, but it has been around since late 2021, and it lacks the 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port found on our new top pick, the TP-Link Archer AX3000 Pro.

The TP-Link Archer A8 and the TP-Link Archer A7 were budget picks in previous versions of this guide and have been serving strong networks in the homes of several Wirecutter staffers, but they’re starting to show their age in comparison with newer options, such as the Wi-Fi 6–based Eero 6.

The Linksys Hydra 6 MR20EC and the Netgear RAX5 were good alternatives in the previous version of this guide, and either model is fine if you can find it on sale, but our new top pick and budget pick are better choices at this writing.

Linksys released the Linksys Classic Micro Router Pro 6, Classic Micro Router 6, and Classic Micro Router 5 this year. All three were easy to set up and administer, but they landed near or at the bottom of our performance rankings.

We also tested the TP-Link Archer AX55 Pro, and while it is similar in price and features to our top pick and available in more stores, it did not run through our performance tests quite as well. In particular, it started strong but became overwhelmed when confronted with a congested Wi-Fi network.

We tested several Wi-Fi 6E routers, including the Acer Predator Connect W6, the Asus RT-AXE7800, the Linksys Hydra Pro 6E MR7500, the MSI Radix AXE6600, the Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300 and Netgear RAXE500, and the TP-Link Archer AXE75, Archer AXE95, and Archer AXE300. Though most of the Wi-Fi 6E routers performed well, at this time we don’t think they’re worth the investment. Wi-Fi 7 has leapfrogged Wi-Fi 6E in most respects, offering more features and increased speeds on the 6 GHz radio band.

The D-Link M30 and M60 are Wi-Fi 6 routers that use D-Link’s new Aquila Pro AI mesh protocol, and we will be testing them for our upcoming mesh roundup. As standalone routers, the M30 did poorly on some of our performance tests, while the M60 was just adequate. Also, we docked points because Aquila Pro AI mesh is incompatible with D-Link’s previous Eagle Pro AI and COVR mesh systems.

We’ve tested dozens of routers for previous versions of this guide but dismissed them because they lacked features, cost significantly more, or lagged behind our picks in some way.

Asus models we’ve tested include the Asus RT-AX55, RT-AX3000 (aka RT-AX58U), RT-AX82U, RT-AX86U, and ROG Rapture GT-AX6000.

From D-Link, we’ve tried the D-Link R15, DIR-X1560, and DIR-X1870. Tested Linksys models include the E7350, E8450, Hydra Pro 6 MR5500, and MR7350.

We dismissed the Netgear RAX20, RAX40, RAX50, and RAX70. We also no longer recommend the Synology RT2600ac, a former runner-up, and we dismissed the Synology RT6600ax.

Finally, the TP-Link Archer AX10, Archer AX21, Archer AX73, Archer AX75, Archer AX90, Archer AX5400 Pro, Archer AX6000, and Archer GX90 rounded out our testing of TP-Link models.

This article was edited by Signe Brewster and Caitlin McGarry.