It's been included in all suitable default image configurations starting with OpenWrt release 25.12.
I do run OpenWrt on my x86-based router, on my AP, and even on my managed switches, and have no regrets.
Previous OpenWrt releases at least as far back as 21.02 could be equipped with the same degree of ASU support by installing a single package (luci-app-attendedsysupgrade) and its dependencies.
The solution is to use image-builder and bake your config into the image.
Mmm, no. Unexpected downtime for infrastructure is godawful... just ask Windows Home users.
OpenWRT has a "Click a button to upgrade" thing, just like just about every consumer/prosumer-grade equipment does. [0] It also has a command-line tool that one can use to automate upgrades, for environments where the phrase "production grade" is actually an important thing to think about. [1]
[0] <https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/installation/attended.sy...> [2]
[1] <https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/installation/sysupgrade....> [2]
[2] Those documents mention that you need to install some things to get operator-initiated upgrades. As of March, the button to click is installed by default, and the CLI tool is installed on systems that have enough disk space for it. [3]
[3] <https://openwrt.org/releases/25.12/notes-25.12.0#integration...>
Agreed that separate router and dumb AP is the way. Every time I updated OpenWRT there was some gotcha that created an unexpected headache where I had to rebuild my elaborate configuration from scratch.
I'm not convinced A -> G upgrade paths are tested, only A -> B -> ... -> F -> G but who manually updates with that level of discipline?
...which I tried doing, a week or so ago, for a minor point release update within the 25.12.x series. And then the router went out to lunch and didn't come back.
Getting it going again wasn't so bad as such things go. My router has a huge advantage here in that it's a Raspberry Pi 4, so it's easy to remove/replace/re-do the flash device and start over.
(Except: I get all out of sorts when I need to do Internet stuff to fix my Internet connection while that Internet connection is absent.)
I think I wasted $100,000 in salary for $100 more in device cost, in setting up an OpenWRT router.
Apart from installation and upgrades, the OS itself is nice, very flexible and capable.
I've got other options for routing hardware and software (of course I do), but I generally keeping using OpenWRT. Looking back, it seems like I've had it around in some form or other in active use for about 20 years so far.
Part of what keeps it around is the flexibility and the home-network-centric hack-value. I mean, this whole thing grew out of a shell injection exploit on a Linksys WRT54G. :)
Anyway, it can keep whatever counts as a slow WAN connection today feeling responsive and quick with cake SQM, even while loaded heavy with traffic and users. It's nice in that way, even though enterprise types don't seem to be interested in that kind of thing at all.
I could take a nice Juniper router home from work to use instead and it would absolutely trounce the packet-forwarding performance of my cheap OpenWRT box...while also doing nothing at all to make my home-gamer WAN limitations more tolerable.
So OpenWRT is still my answer, with the warts and upgrade woes and all.
Yes, it's a possibility, but if you want to tinker, I think a plain Linux distro like Debian is better. Turning it into a router is literally a couple of kernel parameters and a few iptables rules to set up NAT. Nowadays that's less than fives minutes of work with Claude.
This buys you much better performance and hardware compatibility relative to a BSD system, as well as lower resource usage and attack surface (no GUI or other unnecessary additions). WiFi support on BSD is bad, but on Linux you can use hostapd and almost immediately get an access point for free. And of course Linux is also better if you intend to run other stuff on the same hardware.
I suppose it comes down to what you said - "if you intend to run other stuff on the same hardware." Is it a good idea to run all sorts of extra stuff on your literal firewall/router? And if you did, I'd assume using a hypervisor is safer anyway? That way you can have the GUI and reliability of OPNsense but have a Linux distro beside it.
You also said that Linux has much better performance vs BSD, which seems rather far fetched. Got any data for that?
One other thing: OPNsense comes with a ton of helpful rules to eliminate bot traffic, allow IPv6, different NATs, VLANS, etc which you'd have to add manually. Not the end of the world, but worth considering.
I don't see any reason not to. I run dozens on services, both bare metal and containerized (Podman) on my router/firewall. It doubles as an all-purpose home server with plenty of headroom to spare. It's just a computer that sits at the edge of my network, and running services meant to be exposed to the Internet on it is natural.
> You also said that Linux has much better performance vs BSD, which seems rather far fetched. Got any data for that?
I should have worded this more carefully. What tends to happen is that BSD has worse (or no) drivers, that's when BSD's performance can noticeably degrade vs. Linux. From memory, people online were reporting issues with Realtek chips. With Intel NICs, the routing performance should be broadly equivalent .
I agree about Intel vs Realtek to some extent. My Lenovo M73 OPNsense actually has a 2.5G Realtek mPCIe NIC on the LAN side and it has actually been pretty great and reliable so far! Transmit maxes out early at 2.28Gbps-ish but receive is 2.47Gbps (Jumbo). However, the other week it glitched out and reported UP but was actually unresponsive. I'm still looking for an mPCI Intel i226-V version of the same thing...
The only downside to your solution is that most people (me included) would rather have auto generated configs so that you don't accidentally expose everything to Internet or break everything with an iptables rule, but that's down to experience I'm sure.
I moved from pfSense to OpenWRT due to the really poor IPv6 support in pfSense. I don't use the AP capability either. How are things in OPNSense these days?
Particular pain points from pfSense was that it published global IP as DNS address to LAN clients and no way around it, so connectivity broke every time prefix changed, and no real support for specifying prefix-less firewall rules or similar, so couldn't really expose anything via IPv6 without pain.