Nighthawk X4S AC2600 Dual-Band WiFi Router (R7800)

Look at something like a Netgear R7800 and then flash it with OpenWRT If you want something that works out of the Box, look at the GL.Inet Flint or Flint2. They run OpenWRT under the hood. GL.Inet routers (preloaded custom OpenWRT build), Routers that you can flash with full OpenWRT support (such as the Netgear i mentioned) and Mikrotik routers with Wifi Built in, those 3 are probably your best/easiest ways to solve this.

For 10 Mbps up, you don't need much. Look for used: Modem: Arris SB6183 or SB6190 - docsis 3.0, cheap, reliable. 20-30 used. Router with SQM: - Netgear R7800 - OpenWrt supported, cake SQM works great. 40-60 used. - Linksys WRT3200ACM - same, good SQM. 50-70. - Ubiquiti Edgerouter X - 30-40, SQM built-in, but no WiFi (add access point). Mesh: - TP-Link Deco M4/M5 - 30-50 per node used. Good enough for your speeds. - Netgear Orbi RBK20 - older but solid, 60-80 for pair. Cheapest SQM option: Keep Xfinity modem, buy used R7800, flash OpenWrt, enable cake. Done. Your bottleneck is the 10 Mbps line, not the hardware.

Best? LOL. I use the cheapest gear I can find and I flash OpenWRT on it. My router is 10 years old (Netgear r7800). I pulled it out of a recycle bin. It's an amazing router. I have over 50 devices connected, working perfectly. 20ms pings. 250mbps transfer (on a 300mbps ISP subscription). What model of router are you using? Is it personally owned, or was it provided by your ISP?

have an old nighthawk Netgear x4s netgear like that and it works very well downstairs, pushing the signal upstairs as well. But I also have another router AP upstairs, connected via telephone wire as ethernet, for the heck of it, but I seldom connect to it.

Much same situation here, I have a Netgear R7800 with OpenWrt and set to channel 52 (40MHz). It’s a DFS channel but so far (2months) have not seen conflicts. No other access points in the area do DFS so I’m by myself on ch52

Quick caveat: my Roku units do not see me on Channel 52 but iPhones and laptops do

I had a Linksys WRT54GL, and I thought that router was awesome at the time. I've also had one of those Asus routers, and I thought it was pretty good. I had installed 3rd-party firmware on mine though; I had DD-WRT on the Linksys (though you might need the GL version for that rather than the G), and I ran Tomato on my Asus router. Currently, I have a Netgear Nighthawk R7800 router (which is capable of running DD-WRT), which is currently [$90 on Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0192911RA). But that model is at least 5 years old now, and I imagine there are probably better routers available (though not sure how affordable they are).

The Netgear R7800 is a WiFI 5 router, which should reliably support about 250-350 Mb/s (potentially slightly more) assuming you have decent signal coverage. For 3000 sqft I'd say you most likely need an additional AP to get full coverage. You haven't told us what speed you're paying for, or what speeds you're seeing, which will be relevant to the discussion. Also, what kind of device are you using to test, and how are you testing the speed?

That speed lines up with a WiFi 5 router's capabilities. If you get a new router that supports a newer WiFi standard AND all of your client devices are also compatible with that standard, you will probably see a bit higher speeds, but 1) you're probably pushing the limits of what a single router can realistically cover, and 2) I understand you're chasing higher speeds, but what actual problem are you trying to solve? 300 Mb/s is generally enough speed for pretty much anything you're trying to do unless you're doing something like content creation with massive uploads, etc.