MikroTik RB4011 Ethernet 10-Port Gigabit Router (RB4011iGS+RM)

This is a great little router. If you are concerned about it being too difficult to setup, they have a very nice 'getting started' program where basically you just enter in some simple details and the router is up and running. It literally takes minutes. I opted for this router because I wanted a box that was able to run from existing POE on my network and one that had the speed to give me the full 1 gig bandwidth I pay for while at the same time providing robust firewall and port forwarding so I don't have to compromise on what I am able to do on my LAN. The SFP port is exactly what I needed to connect to my ISP's network. The box has 10 etherports so if you don't have many devices to connect, that's all you will need. I have the SFP port to my ISP, and the 10 network jacks are for the LAN. Very simple, and very fast.

I have been using this new Mikrotik RB4011 for a month now, and it was a much needed upgrade. I have Spectrum 100/10Mbps internet service a my old router did not have the CPU power that this one dose, so no more slow speedtests. I am now seeing consistent higher than advertised results. I have also noticed that pings in online games are lower and website page loads are faster. This is a device that should be set up though by some one who knows a little about networking, or knows a lot about networking and there is a comprehensive GUI called WinBox or the ssh console to setup this router to do all kinds of things. I have mine blocking known spam/hacker IPs and I block ad servers with the DNS server. I also use the VPN for when I need to get something from home. I have not use the POE yet but plan on plugging my Mikrotik Access Point into it when I run a longer cable. We have a lot of Mikrotik devices at work and they are solid pieces of equipment. In my photos you can see I have other Mikrotik devices that are old and still work great, but don't have the CPU for routing like this dose. This router dose get warm, there are no fans but a big heat sink, even with no load it is warm. The power connector is a big block and has a way to keep from pulling out, but I would have liked to see a C14 computer connector as this is a higher end router. I was thinking of waiting for the version of this router with wireless, but I didn't need it because I have the central AP, it is a little more, and wasn't available yet. I also don't have a use for the ears but it is nice to have the option. If you are looking for a good home or small office router this is a great and powerful option.

25 May 2020: I recently increased my Internet speed to 500mbps and I wanted to actually use that speed, so I purchased a gigabit TP-Link Safestream Multi WAN VPN Router. Unfortunately, it would only pass 78mbps. I chatted with support we tried all their ideas to no avail. Of course, they blame my cables or switches or computers or whatever. They wanted me to perform a complex test of installing special software on two computers and hooking them exclusively to the router. Too much work. I returned it and purchased the MikroTik RB4011 Ethernet 10-Port Gigabit Router (RB4011iGS+RM) and it worked perfectly right out of the box (proving there is nothing wrong with my stuff as I expected). The MikroTik hardware screams quality, with a gadget to keep it from coming unplugged, and a heavy-duty heat sink, which I've never seen before on a router. It is infinitely configurable with the most complex GUI I've ever seen, but as I said, it works perfectly without changing anything at all! I highly recommend it.

This thing is amazing! I cannot believe how much functionality you get in such a small device at that price. Every network geek out there should have one of these in their toolbox somewhere.

This router is not for the non-techy but those who enjoy a highly customizable device using terminal and a program called winbox will love it. It comes with two switch chips and is very capable; mikrotik recommends setting up two bridge interfaces, one for each switch and from there it’s up to you. VLANs are hard to figure out at first but once you do it once, it becomes easy. This device meets our small business needs perfectly - speed, firewall, fine network segmentation, built-in wireguard for secure remote access. Highly recommend!

Unlike the standard rack setup of the MikeoTik 3000rm or the Ubiquiti ER4 rack mount kit; the "Kit" on this is a very flimsy design with only 1 screw on just the bottom of each arm assembly to hold the rack mount to the device; there is no top screw mount. This should really have 2 on top and 2 on bottom of each side. Also the fit to the device has a lot of slop to it and not a tight fit. The device itself is substantially built and this "feels" like an afterthought. Best to wall mount or shelf mount the device instead of using the rack ear kit. The rack mount "kit" needs a substantial implementation redesign or the 4011 needs a bigger chassis with typical rack ears.

We have been using 5 of these routers for 1 to 3 years. Never an issue, set up was easy, works better than expected. A few tricks to successful configuration, but after a few tweaks and a round or two of reconfigure, all has been working great. You really can't beat this router for future, form and function. Not recommended for a novice, unless you intend for this product to be a learning experience. For those with moderate levels of expertise in router and network configuration, this will do most anything you will want it to do. I highly recommend this product.

If you know Mikrotik, you'll love the power of this device for the money - you'd have to pay double or more for a Cloud Core class or 1100ah class to get the same grunt of this device. Nice to see SFP+ for a 10 gig link as well. Why would you need this? If you want to custom program complex firewall rules, most routers slow way doing doing complex things where this unit will blaze forward with low latency. For example, I have all my IoT devices on a a couple different and segmented VLAN'd SSD networks. Then, I have THOSE devices operating on a nailed-up VPN that presents their traffic as if they exist in another city for complete isolation. This router does all of that without any noticeable impact to CPU. These devices have a separate DHCP server on this router with their own IP subnet. Another scenario - I have a foreign country block list that simply black lists any incoming traffic from bad-actor nations - to just cut down on any attack surfaces. Here's another one - I use port-knocking to open up certain ports so I can access things like RDP using a port-knocking app on my phone. Here's another one - this router (a Mikrotik feature) has built in DDNS - which I use to connect to another similar unit at my folks' house to create a site-to-site IPSEC secure tunnel so I can reach their local LAN to help out with network administration. No problem for this router - the encryption is done by a dedicated chip that does not affect CPU load. Here's another one - can organize your ports anyway you want - can group any combination of ports into separate "Switch groups" for hardware line-speed switching or use the CPU to create Bridges that can then do packet inpsection to look for keywords or patterns. Here's another one, this device not only has a DNS server that can cache DNS requests for more speed, but you can add static entries to redirect traffic to IP addresses of your choosing - sort of like a hosts file but for your entire network. If you don't know Mikrotik, there are plenty of tutorials out there (search for Greg Sowell Mikrotik to get started). Features you come to love are the rich built in tools that can capture traffic, can do in-gui sniffing to see where traffic is flowing (called Torch), IP-scanning, ARP analysis, bandwidth testing, and my favorite - this device can operate on Layer-2 using a Layer-2 telnet protocol, which means that even if IP addressing is not configured, you can still get to these devices to configure them. For super power users, can do BGP, OSPF, full SNMP and more.