Linksys - MX4300 (LN1301)

Linksys MX4300, I was in the same boat before I did some research lol

MX4300 got Openwrt support, these never will.

It's a selling point at least ,)

Like what? I don't think anything beats the $14.99 limit 1, or $19.99 limit 3+, for LN1301! That was probably the deal of the century. Only possible because of the huge marketing flop related to Linksys/Fortinet partnership with their *Linksys HomeWRK for Business | Secured by Fortinet* thing during the work-from-home craze!

Woot publicly shows sales stats, and the last few times they had any of LN1301, it was literally 1 or 2 pieces total, open-box, for the entire sale, so, of course they're gone in like a few minutes tops.

An MX4300 running OpenWrt is an absolutely insane value. Easily one of the highest cost/performance ratio devices I've seen on this sub.

I’m sort of tech savvy but even I had trouble setting up openwrt. I was able to get it up and running on 2 out of 3 of my MX4300 and even then I struggled to get the access points set up properly. Gave up and just flashed it back to stock. Works better stock than my 10 year old wireless router.

I bought one of the popular linksys AX4200 kits, as well a couple of the LN1301 units and played around with the mesh setup and it was just trash. And those claim to be tri band. So my question is this, is mesh only worth it if you CAN do you a wired backhaul? I can't really do that in my current place and when I do move I'm just going to skip to a unifi setup.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_nkw=LN1301&_sacat=0&_from=R40&_trksid=m570.l1313 3 of these will cost more than the above or the Best Buy version, but as someone who has this in a 3-unit setup I can tell you I am very happy with its performance. As of 12/22/2025 there IS a seller who's selling a bunch of these enmasse, and if you buy 3 or more you get them for $35 a pop, which equates to $105 US and free shipping. Not ONCE have I had to restart them since buying these during the initial BAPCS sale and setting them up. They support mesh and DD-WRT and Open-WRT are available for these. Tons of documentation/posts/discussion on Reddit on how to get these going. The USB 3 port is disabled in the stock firmware but can be easily activated via custom firmware. These were meant for Enterprise use so they have decent higher end specs (even for 2025). Not WiFi 7 if you're obsessed with that but for home use these are more than enough.

Honestly, I feel like it should be. The base firmware and interface for the LN1301 is atrociously bad, unresponsive in some places, and lacks a lot of actionable feedback. Openwrt fixed ALL of that. Yes, technically you have to navigate through a bit of an installation which isn't the most newb friendly thing, but neither is any networking activity that isn't literally "plug in power, plug in ethernet cable, everything works without any other intervention." You're already going to have extra steps setting up backhauls and meshes. You might as well do it through an interface that doesn't suck and works very well.

Couldn't agree more. I have 3 in a wired backhaul which is crazy overkill for my 1300sqft house lol but the wifi is immaculate in every single corner

Congrats on your new place:) If you’re into custom setup and control, the Linksys with OpenWRT is a solid pick. But if you plan to add some smart home stuff later, the Eero 6+ with Zigbee and Thread built in might save you some trouble. It just depends on what matters more to you..

Hardwired backhaul seems to always be the answer that is pushed on here but sometimes it's just not an option and/or not worth the hassle. I have been using a Linksys wifi6 mesh in my 3400 sq foot house for several years and never had a problem. Get a solid connection everywhere in the house with good throughput. The construction of my house would make it difficult to run wires but it's just not worth the hassle even if I could.