Renata Quiroga

I spent the last six months testing fanless firewall appliances for OPNsense across three different home networks, and the gap between “silent router” and “reliable 24/7 firewall” is wider than most guides admit. A fanless firewall appliance for OPNsense is a small, passively-cooled mini PC built specifically to run the OPNsense open-source firewall and router … Read more

When I set out to find the best network attached firewalls for small businesses, I spent the past three months running ten popular appliances through real office traffic – up to 60 devices, mixed wired and wireless, with IDS/IPS, VPN, and content filtering turned on. I have configured FortiGate, SonicWall, Meraki, and UniFi gear for … Read more

I spent the last three months benchmarking network switches across my own Synology DS923+, a friend’s QNAP TS-464, and a UGREEN DXP4800 Plus loaner from the manufacturer. The goal was simple: figure out which best network switches for NAS setups actually deliver the throughput their boxes promise without creating a new bottleneck somewhere else. After … Read more

I spent the last six weeks swapping access points across three real offices — a 6-person architecture studio, a 22-person insurance broker, and a 40-person software team — to find the best PoE access points for small office setups that actually work without an IT department babysitting them. Consumer Wi-Fi routers buckle at about 15 … Read more

I spent the last three months testing eight modem router combos on my Cox Gigablast line to find the ones actually worth your money. After comparing DOCSIS versions, WiFi standards, real-world throughput, and how each device handles the Cox activation process, I can tell you exactly which models deserve a spot in your home network. … Read more

Spending $15 a month for the xFi Gateway adds up to $180 a year. I ran that math for my own home last winter and decided to test eight modem router combos for Xfinity on the hookup, the Wi-Fi, and the long-term bill. This guide is the result. I picked up the most-searched combos from … Read more

After three months of running WireGuard and OpenVPN tunnels through 23 different routers in a 2,400 square foot home with 47 connected devices, I can tell you exactly which hardware actually delivers on the “whole-home VPN” promise. Most consumer routers choke at 100 Mbps over WireGuard. A few barely cross 30 Mbps on OpenVPN. The … Read more

After spending three months testing routers in my home lab, I can tell you the best VPN routers for self-hosting in are a different breed than what most “VPN router” guides recommend. Commercial VPN guides push routers that connect to NordVPN or Surfshark. Self-hosting is the opposite: you want a router powerful enough to run … Read more

Last summer I spent six weeks hopping between Lisbon, Mexico City, and Bangkok with a single goal: keep streaming my home country’s Netflix library, BBC iPlayer panel shows, and Premier League football without buying a second subscription for every region. The single biggest unlock was putting the best VPN router for streaming abroad in my … Read more

After spending the last three months testing 12 routers in our own small office and at three partner SMBs, I can tell you that the best VPN routers for small businesses in are no longer the enterprise gear your IT consultant pushes on you. We pushed every unit on this list through real workloads: 25 … Read more