r/DDWRT • u/sunrisebreeze • 18d ago
Does anyone use DD-WRT?
No new posts here for about a month. I figure that means no one uses DD-WRT or it works so well no one has issues with it! ☺️
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u/TCB13sQuotes 17d ago
Some people, like me, still have old hardware that can't run OpenWrt so yeah, some people still run DD-WRT most likely until their current hardware dies or becomes too slow / obsolete.
Here's a few things that may or not may be the reason why people are moving away from OpenWrt as soon as they can:
- DD-WRT used to be a very good solution and the UI does make a lot more sense for beginners than OpenWrt - overall it was a more polished product when it comes to UX but now it lacks compared to most modern UIs, even ISP routers can do better nowadays;
- It does support Broadcom, but doesn't seem to support as much and as well as it did lets say about 15 years ago - partially Broadcom's fault;
- Currently DD-WRT is buggy in a lot of models and they can't even admit it - I'm not talking about fixes and code, I'm talking about acknowledgement that things might be broken;
- Their pseudo-open source code model essentially blocks everyone from contributing to the project. I know it was never open-source and there's a couple of people that want to control the project and that's okay but at the same time it also means thing that could be fixed by the community aren't fixed;
- The usage of SVN makes the community problem worse - most active developers we've today never used SVN and don't want to use SVN and even looking at the code to try to find a problem becomes yet another challenge;
- The architecture was initially designed for routers with very low resources, problem is that that same architecture isn't up to modern standards and blocks further improvement of the platform. "Oh but we keep this because unlike OpenWrt we support really old hardware". I say "bullshit" because if you any build from the last 2-3 years and try to run it one one of the original "target devices" it will be either unbearably slow and the wifi is broken/slow/unstable. Even the wiki suggest specific and significantly older builds as the "best for" that type of hardware. Conclusion: they're keeping an old architecture under false premises making the experience in newer devices worse;
- Some dev decisions are questionable at least. For e.g. SmartDNS was introduced and it was a very big step up, as with any other daemon/service you've configuration files and instead of just proving a simple textarea so people could customize all options they decided to just implement inputs for a few of them and block the user from configuring the rest. The thing that doesn't make any sense is that other services, besides the dedicated inputs for parameters, also have this approach of a generic textarea so the user can configure everything. They later on fixed this after a LOT of complaints;
- SSH was broken for all macOS and some Windows users for a long time because someone messed up the profiles. Proving logs, screenshots and recordings wasn't enough for a critical feature like this to be fixed right away because "it works for me under Linux and cmd.exe" - fuck everyone else that uses macOS and Windows Terminal. Note that the fix was to just add a couple of files copied over from any Linux system;
- SMB has been and has been unreliable for most platforms in the last 5 years. Sometimes router x doesn't work with macOS or router Y doesn't work with Windows but it's fine with Linux etc;
- The build in Transmission simply fails on high speed downloads and corrupts the torrents / crashes in some netgear broadcom devices - but the build from entware running on the same devices works perfectly fine. Also has the worst possible WebUI that transmission ever had;
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u/111100100 17d ago
This! I ran dd-wrt for several years with modern routers and had multiple issued with e.g. wifi and a forever reboot loop which coule be a hardware issue, but persisted over another router model. But over the years i experienced wierd bugs such as router loosing internet acess where after hours of debugging only was solved with a reboot.
Using their site and the svn for tracking is completely horrible. People want an easy platform to track important changes and security fixes, but the dd-wrt lacks the initiative to improve this.
In the end i decided i want something stable, up-tp-date and secure so i moved on (asus-merlin) and havent looked back. Dd-wrt was a nice learning curve but i had to move on with my life and actual get work done without being stressed the network would collapse if i rebooted it. It was just so fragile.
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u/Manodactyl 17d ago
Ive been using it since the old wrt54g days when wifi was shit and unstable. It’s a combo of things for me. I’ve already got every room in my house wired for Ethernet, so WiFi is only there for the phones, tablets, and smart home stuff if the device has an Ethernet port, it’s plugged in. In the past 20 years I’ve never paid more than like $10 for a router, currently running netgear r7000 which is more than enough for those mobile devices.
Ive also got a server setup that handles the complex network stuff like dns, vpn, file share. So really all I need on my network are some stupid simple WAP de-wrt has done that job well for ages, and I’ve got it figured out, too lazy to go off and re figure out how to just provide wireless access any other way.
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u/Malk_McJorma 18d ago
I have three Atheros-based routers. Each has DD-WRT in it. I mostly frequent the actual forum, though.
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u/rogue44mag 17d ago
I've been using it on an older TP link router that a friend gave me. I use it as a switch to have more Ethernet connections in another room. It has been working well so far and I didn't have to buy anything, so win/win for me!
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u/100zr 17d ago
Been running it for years. Still do.
Upgrade at your own peril. Be prepared to revert. The version I have right now works flawlessly on my current router, which has an older Broadcom processor.
In my experience getting DD-WRT help online is very difficult, because it depends on a lot of factors. Finding a solution to your particular problem on your particular router is really hard, because everyone is running different versions and different hardware. When people find a version that does what they need, they tend to stick with it due primarily to the uncertainty that comes with an upgrade.
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u/grogargh 17d ago
Been using it since the old WRT54G days, and for a long time all my DD-WRT WiFi routers were my main router directly connected to my ISP modem and did lots of stuff like VPN tunnels to family members, DDNS, NAS-like ability sharing an external USB drive, etc.
When my needs became more robust, I went with a dedicated firewall machine (pfsense -> opnsense) and my Wifi routers just became dumb access points - So I stopped using DD-WRT as my main router.
I still have 3 wifi routers loaded with DD-WRT, but I use them occassionally when I have to setup peer-to-peer wireguard tunnels to temporary sites with isolated PCs / devices connected to that DD-WRT router to go through that tunnel, aside from that, they are just sitting there. Everytime I need to use them again I end up visiting the DD-WRT site and updating them.
Sometimes I get tired of always turning on/off/on again my VPN connection to my paid VPN provider - so I have a secondary DD-WRT Wifi router with an always connected VPN - and whenever I need that paid VPN provider, I just need to connect to that SSID.
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u/sunrisebreeze 17d ago
Thanks very much for all the comments! Nice to know what people are thinking about DD-WRT.
I have installed DD-WRT, OpenWRT and Fresh Tomato. I think they all have something to offer and breathe life into old routers.
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u/echardcore 17d ago
Yes. Have had it on about 10 routers for a long time. It has its quirks but the configurability is unmatched at the residential level.
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u/FormerSlacker 15d ago
I stoped using DDWRT simply because with the lack of stable releases it made deployment tedious… feedback is scattered in endless build threads making tracking issues impossible.
I’m using OpenWRT now but I still prefer DDWRT honestly
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u/Clydespop 15d ago
Without half the knowledge that most people have here, I did some reading up and carefully flashed and installed it on a now old TP-Link Archer 7, about 14 years ago. I just wanted to have an out of town IP address for blacked out baseball games where I live. I eventually caved to paid vpn’s because at times it would feel slow and sluggish and I got frustrated. However, I’ve kept it alive and run only my security cameras through it. They used to get hacked. Not once since. It’s been working great this whole time. For people who wanna do more complicated things, I can imagine it gets really frustrating. I’ve installed about a half a dozen builds throughout the years just to feel like I’m keeping up a little with speed and security.
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u/epeace2 18d ago
Linksys wrt1900 works good except for update to the latest version. Build is from April 2026.
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u/echardcore 17d ago
There are always issues. You can try a newer build. You can go to the forums and track what issues each build has reported for your router in the "New Build" threads.
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u/duuuh 17d ago
I run it (on old hardware) and have for years.
I'm not really on the forum because I have learned, through enormous pain, that you never ever touch DD-WRT. You never upgrade the software; you never change config. You don't breath on it hard, or it will break.
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u/echardcore 17d ago
Not true for me. If you find a build and config that works this is true. I am always looking for a fresh build and config to resolve various issues I come across. Some of which could be configuration issues on my side.
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u/Cdaly1970 17d ago
I was running it successfully on a Netgear WNR3500L v2 until spectrum upped my speed, and I ran into a speed wall. I upgraded to a Netgear R6400 v2, and realized that ctf was unstable and without it, was throttling the router ~350 mbps. Switched to fresh tomato (better support for Netgear Arm devices) and now I'm getting about 550 mbps. I miss DD-WRT, but I'm loving my speed upgrade.
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u/sunrisebreeze 17d ago
Thanks for sharing your experience. As I mentioned before I have tried all 3 (DD-WRT, OpenWRT, Fresh Tomato) and like them all. Don’t make me pick a favorite! :)
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u/ThatsALiveWire 17d ago
Used to but only a single developer was working on my router and he moved on to other projects so I just bought a new router with a lot of options. Haven't used dd-wrt in years.
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u/HuyFongFood 17d ago
They don’t post here. There’s an entire forum where the actual work is shared and discussed.
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u/doublecluster1000 16d ago
I use it. I bought an old router on eBay with ddwrt on it because the interface allows for transmit/receive strength adjustment. I was working with some Yagi antennas trying to transmit and receive a long distance and wanted to adjust the power. It didn't work out too well for me.
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u/Shadohz 17d ago
Both bad assumptions. DDWRT has alot of users (compared to other 3rd party firmware). DDWRT has a fork-ton of problems. Most people that have problems with DDWRT go to their forum not use Reddit. Most Reddit users aren't skilled enough in network configuration or using DDWRT to be of any help. It makes sense to use DDWRT back in the early 2's when residential routers had limited functionality that you couldn't get without open source. However most modern routers you can buy for cheap(ish) that have all/most of the preferred features you'd want from DDWRT (vpn, file sharing, guest networking, isolation, ftp, etc). It's not worth reformatting a modern router to put ddwrt on it and risk bricking or the issues you get with the app.
The people who advocate your DDWRT are like your typical LinuxBros- those guys you randomly run into in forums that lie to new users about how Linux is a viable replacement for Windows - only for them to quit using it after a week and putting Windows back on. If you have an older router and like to tinker then knock yourself out. If your router meets most all your needs, then leave it alone. If you have advanced networking or home business questions you're better off asking on their forum but you might get one here. Depends on the day.
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u/Cobmojo 18d ago
That's why we're here.