Mikrotik RouterOS vs Ubiquiti EdgeRouter EdgeOS

Forums › LAN (ethernet/Wifi/routers/Bluetooth) › Mikrotik RouterOS vs Ubiquiti EdgeRouter EdgeOS

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#1535344 19-Apr-2016 09:20

michaelmurfy:Edgerouter is king for UFB only because of the hardware acceleration of which (most) Mikrotik routers in that price range don't have.

What part is it accelerating exactly?

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#1535469 19-Apr-2016 11:30

UHD:

Ah, that is interesting to know. I am using an old 8 port ProCurve for switching at home, will that work with TCP offload or do I need a managed switch to take advantage? I do like the PoE forward of the X as I am using a UAP and it would be nice to simply power both with a single PoE injector.

Any switch. Bonded interfaces on the Edgerouter are not supported by offloading. I use a cheap TP-Link Gigabit switch so essentially (eth0 = internet), (eth1 = network --> switch --> ap, server etc).

rphenix:

michaelmurfy:Edgerouter is king for UFB only because of the hardware acceleration of which (most) Mikrotik routers in that price range don't have.

What part is it accelerating exactly?

Packets. CPU sits at almost idle whilst the packets are flowing. If I turn off offloading packets cause the CPU to spike.

11:29 mmurphy@charmander ~ $ show ubnt offload
IP offload module : loaded
IPv4
forwarding: enabled
vlan : enabled
pppoe : enabled
gre : disabled
export : enabled
dpi : enabled
IPv6
forwarding: disabled
vlan : disabled
pppoe : disabled

IPSec offload module: loaded

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UHD

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#1535482 19-Apr-2016 11:49

Ah, brilliant. I will pick up an ER-X I think. I'll not be lucky enough to have more than 200/200 for some time yet so I think it would manage regardless of hardware acceleration (I've seen it can manage ~500Mbps with 512 byte packets in software without issue) but it is nice to see it may be in the pipeline. The space savings for me (form factor and the single PoE injector handling both ER-X and UAP-AC LR) are too great to ignore given that I under-specc'd my networking cabinet as it is ;_;

In terms of hardware acceleration @JamesL do you know what specific features have been enabled or do you just know what the post says? I would like to know if the 802.1Q tagging will eventually be accelerated since that is what all the WAN traffic will be tagged with. I assume NAT is pretty simply accelerated but I'm not sure about the tagging.

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#1535498 19-Apr-2016 12:02

@UHD I'm not 100% sure what aspects are offloaded, I'm assuming its NAT only on the ERX. If you sign up to the UBNT forums and apply for the beta you get the beta forums opened up where you can read other peoples posts regarding offload on the ERX

I would still opt for the ERL over the ERX as it future proofs you to a certain extent.

Offloading is good because it allows the packet processor to do the job rather than it being done in software which causes cpu usage to go up as @michaelmurfy pointed out

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#1535542 19-Apr-2016 12:41

Yeah, I've just signed up now to see what they are saying. In terms of future proofing, I'm not sure I'll ever be needing the massive features the ERL offers. The throughput is indeed impressive but for the regular household I am pretty happy with what the ER-X offers in terms of being able to handle significant throughput even if it does use software and raise the CPU usage graphs some. The CPU is there to be used after all. ;)

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#1535711 19-Apr-2016 15:39

After browsing through the beta thread I can see it is likely that more hardware offload features will be added in coming firmware. I think this will be the same as the ERL with updates over the years adding new hardware offload options.

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#1536181 20-Apr-2016 02:18

UHD:

After browsing through the beta thread I can see it is likely that more hardware offload features will be added in coming firmware. I think this will be the same as the ERL with updates over the years adding new hardware offload options.

If you've got the coin I'd still recommend going straight to the tried and tested ERL. It is by-far the best router I have ever used.

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#1536231 20-Apr-2016 08:33

As a big user of both UBNT and Mikrotik gear it's safe to say both have their advantages and disadvantages. IMHO the biggest flaw with Mikrotik right now is that many of their "cheaper" products are shipping with CPU's that are now well under spec.

A RB2011 for example can handle a 200Mbps connection but start to load it up with firewall rules and you'll find it starts to choke very quickly. Suddenly you find you're having to pay $300 + simply to get the throughput that a $99 Edgerouter can deliver.

Mikrotik have made improvements with FastTrack which can significantly improve throughput and 6.35 now has support for PPPoE client FastTrack, but the downside is some firewall features and features such as hotspot Radius are then unavailable.

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#1536492 20-Apr-2016 12:19

Just looking at the EdgeRouter models, am I right in thinking that the "lite" bit is a bit of a misnomer? In terms of their model line, it seems to go (broadly):

ER X < ER Lite < ER POE < ER < ER Pro

And on the POE side of things, I have a very vague memory of a comment (that I now cannot find) about Ubiquiti/ER having some kind of non-standard POE (@richms maybe?)

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#1536495 20-Apr-2016 12:22

No idea on the edgerouter sorry, its the unifi AP's that have the nonstandard POE that I was wanting to get away from. Also the new AC ones (not the pro, the lite and one other) have nonstandard POE and they dont sell the converter to proper POE yet which is why I waited till the pro was available here before upgrading.

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#1536523 20-Apr-2016 12:48

mdf:
Just looking at the EdgeRouter models, am I right in thinking that the "lite" bit is a bit of a misnomer? In terms of their model line, it seems to go (broadly):

ER X < ER Lite < ER POE < ER < ER Pro

And on the POE side of things, I have a very vague memory of a comment (that I now cannot find) about Ubiquiti/ER having some kind of non-standard POE (@richms maybe?)

The Edgerouter PoE supports standard PoE as well as the UBNT PoE. The PoE is quite interesting to set up as if you do it wrong (by creating a bridge from the switch interface) it disables offloading.

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#1536563 20-Apr-2016 13:09

richms:

No idea on the edgerouter sorry, its the unifi AP's that have the nonstandard POE that I was wanting to get away from. Also the new AC ones (not the pro, the lite and one other) have nonstandard POE and they dont sell the converter to proper POE yet which is why I waited till the pro was available here before upgrading.

Ta. Glad I wasn't totally dreaming too!

mdf

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#1536564 20-Apr-2016 13:10

michaelmurfy:
mdf:

Just looking at the EdgeRouter models, am I right in thinking that the "lite" bit is a bit of a misnomer? In terms of their model line, it seems to go (broadly):

ER X < ER Lite < ER POE < ER < ER Pro

And on the POE side of things, I have a very vague memory of a comment (that I now cannot find) about Ubiquiti/ER having some kind of non-standard POE (@richms maybe?)

The Edgerouter PoE supports standard PoE as well as the UBNT PoE. The PoE is quite interesting to set up as if you do it wrong (by creating a bridge from the switch interface) it disables offloading.

Right. Definitely sticking to a separate PoE switch then.

UHD

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#1536578 20-Apr-2016 13:26

mdf:

Just looking at the EdgeRouter models, am I right in thinking that the "lite" bit is a bit of a misnomer? In terms of their model line, it seems to go (broadly):

ER X < ER Lite < ER POE < ER < ER Pro

And on the POE side of things, I have a very vague memory of a comment (that I now cannot find) about Ubiquiti/ER having some kind of non-standard POE (@richms maybe?)

I think the Lite was released before the X so it was the 'lite' option at the time. The ER-X is also powered by the same PoE standard as their APs (except the Pro) which is 24 V instead of the standardized 48 V.

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#1589147 10-Jul-2016 15:08

I'm new to these products,but in the process of building a few large networks for residential and commercial both with over 125 users each. The best Ubiquiti core router advertises 2 mpps and Mikrotiks routers go up to 42 mpps. does anyone know if these numbers are accurate or even close?

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