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The Best Wi-Fi Routers

By Joel Santo Domingo
Updated
Two of the Wi-Fi routers we tested for this guide, displayed side by side in front of an orange background.
Photo: Michael Murtaugh

If your router is more than a couple of years old and is struggling to give you fast speeds or dropping connections altogether more often than not, a new router or a mesh-networking kit will improve your Wi-Fi’s range, stability, and speed all over your home.

Over the past five years, we’ve spent hundreds of hours testing and evaluating more than 100 routers, and we’ve determined that the best router for wirelessly connecting your laptops, your smart devices, and anything else your daily life depends on is the TP-Link Archer AX55.

Everything we recommend

Our pick

This router created a speedy, responsive network throughout our test house. You have to spend a lot more on a router—or a mesh kit if you have a very large home—to get anything even a little better. It’s our latest Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) pick.

Buying Options

Upgrade pick

If you have gigabit or multi-gig internet service, or if you need to fine-tune your network settings for children’s internet access or working from home, this Synology router is worth its higher price.

Buying Options

Budget pick

This TP-Link model is relatively inexpensive but still performs better at close range than pricier routers. It’s a reliable option for a small home or an apartment with a few people and their devices.

Buying Options

How we picked


  • Up-to-date tech

    Our top picks support Wi-Fi 6, which can handle busy networks with a wide variety of connected devices. Wi-Fi 7 is too early in its life cycle to recommend for most people.

  • Fast connection

    We simulated a busy network on opposite ends of a real 2,300-square-foot home to find the fastest, most reliable routers.

  • Solid range

    A well-placed router should connect you to the internet anywhere in an apartment or a small house.

  • No lag or very little lag

    A great router minimizes your wait even if the network is busy serving other devices.

Read more

Our pick

This router created a speedy, responsive network throughout our test house. You have to spend a lot more on a router—or a mesh kit if you have a very large home—to get anything even a little better. It’s our latest Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) pick.

Buying Options

Hitting the sweet spot between price and performance, the TP-Link Archer AX55, which usually costs $100 to $125, broadcast a reliable and responsive Wi-Fi 6 network in our test home. You can find routers that offer faster speeds and models that cost less, but the Archer AX55 is the one in the middle that we recommend for most people right now. It provides strong Wi-Fi service even throughout a 2,000-square-foot or slightly larger home.

Upgrade pick

If you have gigabit or multi-gig internet service, or if you need to fine-tune your network settings for children’s internet access or working from home, this Synology router is worth its higher price.

Buying Options

The Synology WRX560 was one of the highest-performing Wi-Fi 6 routers in our latest round of testing. Though it is more expensive than the TP-Link Archer AX55, it’s much closer in price to our top pick than previous upgrade picks were. This model is great if you want to spend an hour or two over the weekend tweaking your router settings to create separate networks for smart devices, for example, or to control your kids’ internet access, because it provides more options for customization than our other picks. Chart-topping performance, an IT-grade control panel for network settings, subdued styling, and future-proof features like a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet (GbE) ports add to this router’s appeal.

Budget pick

This TP-Link model is relatively inexpensive but still performs better at close range than pricier routers. It’s a reliable option for a small home or an apartment with a few people and their devices.

Buying Options

If you’re looking to save money, or if you have modest needs, the TP-Link Archer A8 can provide a solid network for a small home or a multiroom apartment. At longer distances, it’s measurably slower than our more expensive picks, so it’s not well suited for multistory houses, and the connection may stutter if the router isn’t centrally located in an apartment or home with more than two bedrooms. But over shorter distances in our tests, the Archer A8 outperformed some routers that cost over $150. The Archer A8 also has modern features such as WPA3 and compatibility with TP-Link’s OneMesh extenders, eclipsing our previous budget pick, the Archer A7, in that regard.

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, 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 5 (also known as 802.11ac) or Wi-Fi 6 (802.11ax) and drops connections constantly, needs frequent reboots, or is slow 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 or four people on the network.

If you have more people or a large house—more than 2,300 square feet, or more than one floor—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 blindly 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 speedy throughput (simulated 4K streaming and file downloads), long range, and short latency (wait time on a busy network). See the How we tested section below for more details.

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

  • Current-generation technology: Since we’re looking for routers that can improve your Wi-Fi, we consider only routers that support the Wi-Fi 5, Wi-Fi 6, and Wi-Fi 6E 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 on the far side of a living space.
  • Low latency-test results: Slow internet sucks, and 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 network is busy.
  • Multiple Ethernet ports: Ethernet ports give you unfettered access to the internet bandwidth you’re paying for.
  • Fast processor and RAM: A router with a speedy multicore processor and extra RAM can handle more connected devices and offer improved performance. The slow processors found in cheap routers can drag things down.
  • 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, extra Ethernet and USB ports, and parental filtering.
  • Price: You can buy a router for $20, and you can buy one for $500. 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 $110 for a router buys you excellent performance and features that offer real benefits. Spending twice as much would buy only small improvements, and spending only half as much would mean giving up a lot.

In addition, we consult router-owner reviews, plus professional router reviews from CNET, 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.

Our pick for best Wi-Fi router that costs more but has better speeds, the Synology WRX560, shown in front of an orange background.
Photo: Michael Hession

Upgrade pick

If you have gigabit or multi-gig internet service, or if you need to fine-tune your network settings for children’s internet access or working from home, this Synology router is worth its higher price.

Buying Options

If you’re splurging for a gigabit—or faster—internet service plan, the Synology WRX560 is the router you should get to make the most of the bandwidth you’re paying for. In our tests, it outperformed other routers in speed and latency, and it includes upgrades that will keep it relevant as internet speeds increase from hundreds of megabits up to 2.5 gigabits. Though it does a great job operating on basic settings, this Synology router also has more settings and options for you to tweak your network further.

It’s faster than our top pick. The WRX560 was one of the top performers in our test group, handily beating our top pick, the TP-Link Archer AX55. Investing in such advanced performance will pay off if you’re one of the lucky people who have 750-megabit or faster internet service, including multi-gig service. The WRX560 has a 2.5 GbE (Gigabit Ethernet) port, which can act as the WAN port to connect with your cable modem or fiber network terminal, or a LAN port for an external network switch, network attached storage, or direct connection to a PC with a 2.5 GbE adapter.

Its customizability is unrivaled. If you like to tweak your network settings for better performance, need to segment your network for parental or guest controls, or have specialized needs such as dual WAN support, we recommend the WRX560. If you don’t need to tweak all those settings, just know that this Synology router is one of the fastest routers we’ve tested in the past five years.

It can run multiple wireless networks simultaneously. Separate SSIDs (network names) are useful for creating a time-controlled network for guests or kids, setting up a standalone network for your smart-home devices, or keeping your work-from-home and household networks separate. In contrast, routers such as the TP-Link Archer AX55 and Archer A8 usually default to a single main wireless network and a second guest network.

It’s not as hideous as other routers. While no router is beautiful, the WRX560’s internal antennas make it as visually tolerable as a featureless plastic box can get. Other routers, including the TP-Link Archer AX55, the Asus RT-AX88U, and the MSI Radix AXE6600 have multiple external antennas sticking out, resembling giant multi-limbed arthropods.

A close-up of the WAN and LAN ports in the back of the Synology WRX560 Wi-Fi router.
The WRX560 has a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet port and three gigabit LAN ports for connecting wired devices in your living space. Photo: Michael Hession

It supports mesh networking, if you need that. You can add extra WRX560 routers, the tri-band Synology RT6600ax, or the older Synology RT2600ac to extend the mesh network. We’ll be testing multiple WRX560 routers along with the RT6600ax for our mesh-networking guide later this year.

It’s ready for the fastest internet connections. In addition to support for 2.5 GbE modems, the WRX560’s 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet LAN port lets you connect meshed WRX560 or RT6600ax routers 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 “hop” reduces the speeds you can achieve, but wired networking bypasses the losses incurred when you connect to a wireless network over distance and through walls.

You have no extra fees to pay. Synology doesn’t charge a subscription fee for use of the WRX560’s parental controls and network security. While the security offerings here are not quite as robust as the separate Firewalla Purple firewall we’ve tested, Synology routers have myriad settings that you can explore and tweak to help secure your home network.

A close-up of the three status lights at the bottom of the Synology WRX560 Wi-Fi router (two of them are on and one is off).
The Synology WRX560’s status lights are minimal. The Synology web interface and mobile app have more detailed information if you need it. Photo: Michael Hession

The settings are kind of complex. The WRX560’s few drawbacks include a slightly more complicated administration interface than you can find on most other routers, but if you regularly navigate your laptop’s control panels, you should be able to get used to this interface, too. As for other downsides, this model lacks 6 GHz (for Wi-Fi 6E or 7) support, but that technology is not yet a must-have at this point.

Upgrading to this model is necessary only if you require the extra performance. If you don’t have a gigabit or multi-gig internet plan, and if reading about the WRX560’s extra features makes your eyes glaze over, you’re likely to find our top pick, the TP-Link Archer AX55, more than enough for easy internet access. Even pricier home routers exist, but the next step up from the WRX560 is practically a commercial-grade router, and in that realm you get features that most people would never touch (and might need an IT degree to understand).

The Linksys Hydra 6 Wi-Fi Router, a recommended router for its simplicity and relatively good price (when it's on sale).
Photo: Michael Murtaugh

If you want a simpler router and are willing to wait for a sale: The Linksys Hydra 6 MR20EC exhibited very little lag or latency on our tests, landing right behind the chart-topping TP-Link AX90 and Synology WRX560 in that regard. It posted mixed results on the throughput tests, as it wasn’t the fastest at close range but surpassed more expensive routers when we moved farther away. When we tested the Hydra 6, it was at a low price of around $150 and was a top-pick contender. We decided not to award the Hydra 6 that title this time around because it is a relatively new model with scant third-party reviews, and because its price subsequently bounced back to its suggested retail price of $180. We’ll keep an eye on the Hydra 6’s price and reputation. It has the potential to claim the top spot, but for now we can recommend it only if it’s on sale for $150 or less.

If you hate antennas sticking out of your router and shop at Walmart: The Netgear RAX5 is a relatively inexpensive Wi-Fi 6 router that produced very good numbers on our latency tests, particularly on a busy network. Better yet, it’s one of the few routers that don’t have ugly antennas. Though it’s priced in between our budget pick and top pick, it doesn’t offer quite enough advantages to dethrone either model. It’s another alternative, if you can live with its Walmart exclusivity and can tolerate (or ignore) drawbacks common to Netgear’s standalone routers, namely a lack of mesh support, a mere one-year warranty, and an optional Armor network-security subscription.

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 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 that of the Synology WRX560, our upgrade pick; if you’re an IT tech, that level of control may be appealing to you. Both routers performed well in our tests but finished in the middle of the pack. We’ll be updating our review of the UDR soon.

Testing for most Wi-Fi router reviews consists mostly of 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.

A top-down blueprint of a house with markers representing the Wi-Fi router and computers using internet throughout the house.
We’ve labeled this top-down sketch of our test house with the locations of our router and our four main clients for our latest testing setup. The drawing isn’t perfectly to scale, but it is a close approximation of the various rooms, closets, and walls that our routers’ signals needed to pass through. Illustration: Wirecutter

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 6E) 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 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 25 Mbps or better, which is what Disney+ recommends for 4K UHD.
  • The second 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.
  • One 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.
  • One laptop, dedicated to Wi-Fi 6E testing, sat in the same room as the router. This laptop also downloaded a very large file. This test allowed us to measure the 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 was available, we tested 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.

Speed (throughput)

We characterized speed by looking at the combination of performance when downloading a large file at short and long range. The majority of the routers were able to top 500 Mbps at close distances, with some of the best-performing routers, such as the Synology WRX560, reaching over 640 Mbps in this test. Only a couple of stragglers, the TP-Link Archer AX10 and D-Link DIR-X1560, fell far behind at 100 Mbps.

A chart comparing the top speeds for six routers we tested, across fifteen feet and one wall, and across fifty feet and four walls. The Synology WRX560 had the highest speeds overall, and the Archer AX55 had the third best.
Synology, Linksys, and TP-Link routers were our overall speed leaders at both long and short distances. Chart: Wirecutter

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 the top routers.

Multitasking (latency or lag)

Speed isn’t everything, so in addition to evaluating throughput, we measured latency on a busy network. Latency refers to 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.

A chart comparing the browsing speeds for six routers we tested, during ideal and during congested network hours. The Synology WRX560 had the best speeds overall, and the Archer AX55 had the third best.
Most of the top performers ran through our tests with few delays, except in the worst instances. Chart: Wirecutter

During our multi-client latency testing, we evaluated how well a 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 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 or devices are using your network’s bandwidth. The routers near the bottom of this ranking, such as the TP-Link Archer A8 and Archer A7, still performed admirably but petered out quicker than the leaders. One notable outlier, the TP-Link Archer AX21, performed poorly on a congested network.

The Synology WRX560 speedily served each client simultaneously, with a minimal wait between requests; the TP-Link Archer AX55 wasn’t far behind. At the other end of the chart, the higher numbers for the TP-Link Archer AX21 show that you’re likely to be sitting there waiting for a few seconds (or more) if other devices are stressing the network at the same time. If you always have to wait a few seconds for something to happen, it’s the definition of slow internet.

Three of the Wi-Fi routers we tested for this guide, shown grouped together on a wooden table.
Photo: Rozette Rago

A typical home network today doesn’t look like networks of a few years ago. 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 a media streaming box such as a Roku or an Apple TV.

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 mentioned 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 routers have an extra 5 GHz band or 6 GHz band in addition to the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands of a dual-band router. That third 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 is 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 Wi-Fi 6 compliant 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. However, unless you just upgraded to top-of-the-line Android phones, MacBook Pros, and Windows laptops, you probably don’t have Wi-Fi 6E devices in your home to take advantage of these premium routers’ 6 GHz connectivity features.

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’ll of course test all those claims when Wi-Fi 7 laptops become available, but suffice to say, Wi-Fi 7 is engineered to increase speeds and function efficiently in an increasingly crowded wireless environment.

In 2023, most people should buy a Wi-Fi 6 router or a mesh-networking kit. Wi-Fi 5 routers are totally 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. Wi-Fi 7 routers, which were introduced this year, are particularly expensive, and you’ll have to wait to reap their benefits fully.

Wi-Fi 7 routers are currently running on so-called draft versions of Wi-Fi 7. They should work, but they’re being released before the standard has been fully certified by the Wi-Fi Alliance, a group that guarantees that wireless devices work with each other and can use all the functions advertised. Wi-Fi 7’s time will come, but it’s not here yet.

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 router with Wi-Fi 6 support so that 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, but routers that support the new standard are extremely expensive, and few devices are capable of taking advantage of the new features — yet. New Wi-Fi 7 routers such as the Asus RT-BE96U, Netgear Nighthawk RS700S, and TP-Link Archer GE800 for gaming are on our shortlist, along with TP-Link’s Archer BE550, Archer BE800, Archer BE900, and Archer BE9300. We’re also looking forward to testing the Acer Predator Connect X7 5G CPE, which was announced at CES 2024 and has 5G cellular backup built in in case your primary internet goes down. Prices range from about $300 for the TP-Link BE9300 up to $700 for the Asus and Netgear gaming routers.

We’re still tracking Wi-Fi 6E-compatible routers, which use deregulated 6 GHz radio frequencies. Laptops and phones that are 6 GHz compatible are being released gradually, and the latest models from Apple and other manufacturers now support it. Wi-Fi 6 and 6E routers, including the Asus RT-AX86U Pro and RT-AX88U Pro, the Asus ROG Rapture GT-AXE11000 and Rapture GT-AXE16000, D-Link M30 and M60, Linksys Classic Micro Router Pro 6 and Classic Micro Router 6, and the TP-Link AXE200 Omni are on our shortlist for testing soon.

The TP-Link Archer AX50 and Archer AX20, our previous top pick and runner-up, respectively, were recently discontinued. They may still be available via third-party sales, but we recommend that you not buy either model. If you already own one of these models, keep in mind that it will continue to provide solid Wi-Fi service, but future firmware updates are not guaranteed.

The Asus RT-AX88U was our previous upgrade pick. Though it’s still an excellent router, the Synology WRX560 outpaced this model on our throughput and latency tests. The WRX560 also has a 2.5 GbE port, an important future-proofing feature that the RT-AX88U lacks.

We tested several Wi-Fi 6E routers, including the Asus RT-AXE7800, the MSI Radix AXE6600, the Netgear Nighthawk RAXE300, and the TP-Link Archer AXE75 and Archer AXE300. Though they performed well, at this time we don’t think 6E routers are worth the additional investment. Aside from the Archer AXE75, at the time of our testing these 6E routers were $60 to $280 more expensive than our upgrade pick, the Synology WRX560. The Archer AXE300 did top our tests in comparison with the other Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 6 routers, but it was also extremely expensive at almost double the price of our upgrade pick. Other 6E routers we tested during previous sessions include the Netgear RAXE500 and the Linksys Hydra Pro 6E MR7500, and while both performed well, they are also too pricey to recommend at this time. Wi-Fi 7 is entering the arena now, too, and it has more features with the potential to increase speeds on the 6 GHz radio band.

The TP-Link Archer AX5400 Pro includes a single 2.5 GbE port for connections to a faster modem. It tested well, but the Synology WRX560 was better on every measure. And unlike TP-Link, Synology doesn’t require a subscription for advanced network security on its routers.

The TP-Link Archer A7 was the budget pick in a previous version of this guide and has been serving strong networks in the homes of several Wirecutter staffers, but it’s starting to show its age in comparison with newer options. Our current budget pick, the Archer A8, provides better performance overall for about the same price and adds features that the Archer A7 lacks, such as WPA3 and MU-MIMO.

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 tested included the Asus RT-AX55, RT-AX3000 (aka RT-AX58U), RT-AX82U, RT-AX86U, and ROG Rapture GT-AX6000.

From D-Link we tried the D-Link R15, DIR-X1560, and DIR-X1870. Linksys models included the Linksys E5600, 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 AX6000, and Archer GX90 rounded out our testing of TP-Link models.

This article was edited by Signe Brewster and Caitlin McGarry.

Meet your guide

Joel Santo Domingo

Joel Santo Domingo is a senior staff writer covering networking and storage at Wirecutter. Previously he tested and reviewed more than a thousand PCs and tech devices for PCMag and other sites over 17 years. Joel became attracted to service journalism after answering many “What’s good?” questions while working as an IT manager and technician.

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