I want to setup NordVPN (my subscription ends in May 2025, so suggestions for a better VPN are welcome) through OpenVPN (if there is a better protocol, I’m all ears) on my Asus RT-AX86U router. The big question is, are the router’s specs actually suitable to run a VPN? I feel like the hardware specs might be a little anemic and it was just a marketing box ticked off. Thoughts?
As long as it has AES hardware acceleration it should be able to hit at least 100mbps on a dual core. This is a quad core so it should be better than that.
AES hardware acceleration is enabled on the ASUS Merlin firmware.
Except that a bunch of these doesn’t use AES and/or are unsuitable for VPNs. OpenVPN is probably going to be too slow without DCO which the software (firmware) likely doesn’t support.
After doing some research on protocols yesterday I’ve actually decided to go with WireGuard instead of OpenVPN, though NordVPN only gives a tutorial for OpenVPN on my router model. I did find this, so I should be fine on that note. If anything, I’ll use OpenVPN as a fallback if I can’t get it to work.
As far as DCO, I have no idea if it’s supported on my router as Asus gives so little information themselves about what is available in AsusWRT. I’ll be doing more research in the future to get a better documented wifi router for when this one eventually dies.