I upgraded my router to OpenWRT 25.10. Nothing strange right?
And then I realized that I use OpenWRT for over twenty years…
All started with Linksys WRT54GS
Long, long time, when I worked from an office, I got Linksys WRT54GS as a donation. IIRC I got money to buy it as this was simpler than sending device from abroad.
Having Wi-Fi at home allowed me to test more stuff on Sharp Zaurus devices. Or install/upgrade packages in an easy way.
It was running OpenWRT WhiteRussian for quite a while as device upgrades were quite problematic at that time.
Other devices
During next years I used a mix of devices running OpenWRT. Routers, access points or devices which served both those functions at the same time.
Netgear WNDR4300 N750 brought 5GHz Wi-Fi network to my flat. Running MiniPC + Belkin BT3200 (aka Linksys E8450) combo brought network separation as I started using VLANs. Etc. etc.
Why OpenWRT?
Having a unified way of doing network setup was a key for me when I was choosing next router/AP device. Or ability to install additional packages which brings more functions. Especially since 512 MB RAM became popular in a router.
Why it matters to me? I am not a network admin. Never planned to be. So being able to switch to a new device and restore configuration from a previous one saves my time.
There are no limitations on how I name my Wi-Fi networks (national characters, emojis, spaces), how many of them will be, what kind of firewall zones I want and which devices/networks are in which zone. Etc…