Mikrotik hEX S Ethernet Black Router, 10, 100, 1000 Mbit/s, 10/100/1000BASE-T (X), Black, 256 MB, 11 W, CC

With proper fibre to the premises finally arriving, my trusty Draytek 2860 became a chokepoint in the network - it just wasn't capable of handling 300Mbit/s. The Hex S definitely is - my connection (nominally 300M) is around 320 symmetric. I work from a home office and have numerous servers and other network gear hosted behind this router, spread over 4 VLANs as well as the usual myriad devices of a modern family home. The biggest asset of this device in my opinion is the sheer flexibility on offer; in terms of power it can be run off anything from 12V to 57V, supplied either through a standard barrel plug or through a PoE injector on port 1, or both simultaneously - this lets you connect it to multiple PSUs to provide redundancy and I can confirm that it will seamlessly continue to work if one PSU drops out. I have mine powered by a 802.11AF injector which means I can also use the router to power a UniFi access point from port 5 on the router - extremely convenient. If you use a suitable PSU on the barrel jack input it can also provide 24V "passive" PoE on port 5, another potentially useful option. In terms of software, I am not a fan of Mikrotik's RouterOS; it is certainly flexible and powerful but configuring things like VLANs is frankly a nightmare no matter which of the many configuration interfaces you use. I do use RouterOS on some devices but with this one I fairly quickly decided it wasn't worth the hassle and flashed the Hex S with OpenWRT. This works perfectly and I would strongly recommend it for most use cases of this router. In summary, I'm delighted with the performance of this router as well as the flexibility of the design and at this price it is excellent value for money.

This is a very powerful router with enterprise-class features, but you will probably need some knowledge of network protocols and terminology to get it working. Using the built-in RouterOS, all the features that the hardware supports are enabled without any further licences (hello netgear?) and the breadth of configurability is very impressive. There are some very welcome quality-of-life enhancements, such as WinBox, the configuration utility for Windows (and now Mac), that connects to the router using its MAC address, so even if you screw up the IP addressing you can still connect and fix it. Brilliant! It also has a point-and-click web interface and an SSH terminal if you prefer those options. In fact the device can be configured entirely from the command line and supports scripts just like linux (on which it is based) - the possibilites are endless. You can bridge the ports together or split them into separate networks, with a DHCP server on each - VLANs, bridges, MPLS, queuing, QoS, Dot1x - it's all here. I'm using it to terminate my 500Mbps FTTH service which is supplied on a VLAN, and the firewall and logging are worth it alone. I have one vLAN for my wireless mesh access points and another just for devices that need uPnP, thus limiting the risk of rogue devices opening up ports to the outside. This is an example of the fine-grained control you can get into, and is impossible on the typical router your ISP provides. Also regarding the Hex-S, it is perfectly capable of handling my 500Mbps connection and I suspect it could also handle a 1Gbps uplink if it is not over-utilised. I read somewhere that the real-world throughput tops out at about 750Mbps. The one caveat I would highlight is that this device is not suitable for the average user, you really need to be IT savvy to get the best from it (or to just get it working!), but if you know your stuff the sky is the limit. Also, because the OS is common across all the routers, if I need to upgrade in the future, I will already know the interface/commands.

This router is excellent both for those who are new(ish) to networks and those who are experienced. Using the setup wizard, you can set up a basic, secure, network with little to no networking knowledge. But for those who have more advanced requirements, this is probably the single most configurable router you will be able to find at this price point. After trying out an EdgeRouter X and not getting the sort of throughput I was expecting, I gave this a try. With very little configuration, I was getting my full 500 Mbps+ Internet speed with no slowdowns. PoE was also a breeze to set up - just plug in the power brick, connect my wifi AP to port 5 and it worked straight away. I was then able to fairly easily configure the router to work with my existing IoT vlan. I've also tried out some of the graphing and traffic monitoring features and not noticed any slowdown. So in summary, if you're running less than 1 Gbps down stop thinking about it and just buy this router, you won't be let down. It's an absolute steal for the price.

What you get for your money is absolutely amazing, and could cost you 10 times this price for other makes of router. For anybody with a little network knowledge this would be fine. Mikrotik now have a home setup app that will help many people. One of the beauties of this router is that if you outgrow it you can just take your config to another Mikrotik router, and carry on. PS: I have this working on BT FTTP, with BT TV (which requires the router to support multicast routing)

I wanted a new Router to replace my Ubiquity USG - VPN set up on ubiquity is C$!*p. Got this up and running in about 10 minutes with the basic out of the box set up. Then the fun started - hours of youtube later I have this set up with VLAN's for WIFI, LAN and IoT. Maxing out my Virgin 350Mb Internet with no problem. Only issue I have is that the SFP port only works when it is part of the LAN and I wanted to use it as my Internet connection ( for when I Possibly have Fibre to the house) - still working this out! Great router Enterprise grade software - cant fault it really for the price. Update - had to return the router as i could not get the SFP port to work as the WAN port - someone else might be able to ...

There's virtually nothing that this device can't do in terms of networking. However, the bridging/switching/routing architecture takes some getting used to, and since the configuration is very much tied to the architecture, if you're new to RouterOS it can be a long process (days or weeks) from when it arrives to having it doing it what you want in your network. Having said that, it's well worth the effort. One of these and two or three managed switches (like the Netgear GS108PE) and the options are limitless. I have a couple of Ubiquiti Wireless APs, and so have 5 SSIDs and 6 VLANs at home, some IPv4 only, some dual-stack, one IPv6 only and one isolated IPv4 VLAN for the CCTV cams. It's a whole lot of fun for the money.

There is nothing I dislike about this product, it is great for learning more about networking, security and custom configuration. Many years of study to be had

The Mikrotik hEX S Ethernet Router is no consumer grade detritus. This is fully-functional enterprise device with all the associated trappings. If you don't know your IP from your elbow, this is not the product for you. It is highly configurable on a per-port basis. Unfortunately, the default "out of the box" configuration was moronic. Why is the only port accepting PoE (to power the device) designated as WAN port? A WAN port from which is prohibited by the default firewall from accessing the webgui! Wasted time with a merry dance finding a power socket and a PC with two NICs... Why is life never easy?