The architecture of these things is that your main CPU running Linux kernel (probably ancient, overly patched up even if you had the sources and unupgradeable) and it has a driver for poking around registers of the switch chips, and drivers for poking around power circuitry.
VyOS is a Debian based distro, kind of cisco-esque in terms of terminal, and in terms of configuration edit/commit/rollback workflow.
Mikrotik is more reputable in that sense (even though it’s the same unpatchable kernel at least they try to keep up with some security updates and patches for a number of years after the product reaches the market).
Given the listing is for $328 (and not 32.8) I’d give Mikrotik a shot.
Unless you don’t really care about your switch working and are happy to spend days if not months of your time reverse engineering drivers and this is just a toy for you.
Some open questions are:
Do you care about line rate L3 switching. (Use switch to route between VLANs).
Do you care about 802.1x auth on ports.
Do you care about 24V/48V POE+/POE++.
What if it turns out to be a brick or you can never get it working for your use case?
I assumed one of the benefits of VyOS, being open source and all, would be that it was relatively updated? Also, I can’t stress that enough, no licensing.
Yes, very much. And that is my main issue with the Mikrotik.