RISC-V Router

> StartWRT: Start9's fork of OpenWrt, including a modern GUI, that reimagines the router experience from first principles.

I wish them the best of luck with their hardware venture, but a custom fork of OpenWRT is not what I'd want for a router from a small startup.

I can't even begin to count how many startups have done crowdfunding projects for new hardware and tried to get too custom with the software stack before the company went under.

Others already covered the high price for the specs, but we really need to see some benchmarks for things that matter: Routing throughput, VPN throughput, and other real numbers. Faster ports aren't helpful if the CPU can't process packets fast enough.

Love this in theory, but can't do it with only 2 ports. I need backup WAN.

Is Start9 a well known company? The page by itself seems indistinguishable from a scam, but maybe they have a reputation that justifies their asking for $250,000?

Since this has a foreign-made processor and WiFi module, would this be blocked by the Trump FCC's foreign-made router ban?

BananaPi already sells boards with same CPU for around $100 with maybe $15-20 extra for case

https://docs.banana-pi.org/en/BPI-F3/BananaPi_BPI-F3

Is it doing anything different ? I assume at least made in US so it can be sold as router and not dev board ?

Single WAN, Single LAN, is not actually what I would (or do) use for "home-based self-hosting". That hosted stuff gets its own network.

Turris Omnia NG is also "open source" and has 2x 10 Gbps SFP+ and 4x 2.5 Gbps ethernet ports. StartWRT and Turris OS are both forks of OpenWRT, which is kind of annoying. The Turris project has been around a long time and has an active community.

> Router

> Ethernet: 1 WAN Gb, 1 LAN Gb

> $250000

Awesome.

> Ethernet: 1 WAN Gb, 1 LAN Gb

Really? In 2026? Pass.

It needs to be _at_ _least_ two SFP+.