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Ask HN: Tomato or DD-WRT for my router?

15 points by weaksauce ↗ HN
I just got a linksys WRT54G V1 wireless router and want to hack the firmware. From my initial research it looks like the two main options are DD-WRT and Tomato. Has anyone here installed either of them and have an idea of which one is better?

Just curious to see what the people here think of those firmware options.

24 comments

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ivanstojic
I've been running DD for as long as I can remember, and I'm very, very happy with it. Absolutely no problems with installation, configuration or day-to-day operations. YMMV.
weaksauce
Thanks for the reply! What is the biggest benefit to the DD in your daily use?
Derferman
I currently use DD to turn a 7 yr. old router into a wireless repeater bridge for my house. We haven't had any problems with the setup for the entire year we have been in the house.
ivanstojic
A highly stable, practically rock-solid SSH server that is the first step into my office environment. It's exactly what I needed!
iigs
I've been using non-stock firmware on my v1 WRT long enough (since before OpenWRT had version numbers) that I can't even compare them to the stock firmware anymore.

I tend to end up using my wireless gear in dumb WAP mode. This is usually precipitated by wanting full specific control of my firewall/NAT configuration, full control of DHCP and my public IP attached to something with storage. That said, the interface and feature set of DD is nice enough that I'll probably give it a shot next time I flatten my home network, and DD is probably powerful enough that it will stick for a while.

carbon8
My daily use cases for dd-wrt (all might be possible with tomato):

* tunneling: I work mobile and tunnel everything through ssh and/or openvpn using my primary home router.

* signal boost: I can't get reception everywhere I need to without it

* dynamic dns updating: it keeps my dyndns stuff updated automatically

* Wireless bridge: for example, the xbox wireless adapter is $100, but I just took an wrt54g router (about $50) set it up as a bridge and use that. Similar situation for older devices in the kitchen that can't use the wireless on their own.

3dFlatLander
I've ran both, and I really prefer Tomato. DD-WRT is very nice though, but I ended up not using most of the features it offered. Tomato is very lightweight, and fits all my needs perfectly.

My router is also a little buggy (really need to buy a new one) and Tomato runs with fewer dropped connections than DD-WRT. I'm sure that has much less to do with the firmware and more to do with bad hardware.

rbxbx
I love DD-WRT, but tomato offers most of the functionality, and is much lighter/has a nicer ui, imo.
gojomo
I run tomato and like the features but I'm considering switching, because it takes up to 30 seconds for my laptop to connect. (Connection was almost instant with the stock firmware, and is very quick everywhere else... So Tomato seems the culprit.)
jodrellblank
I run OpenWRT with the x-WRT UI: http://x-wrt.org/ (I think).

There are lots of options that look as though they would be cool, but I mostly use it as a plain ol' WAP.

phoxix2
I like DD-WRT for my router as well. Its just plain awesome, and their router compatibility page tells you exactly which model's do and do not work, and if what extra steps are needed to install the DD-WRT firmware.

I will warn you, and I'm not sure if this issue exists for other *WRT firmwares, but PPTP VPN and OSX is not ideal on DD-WRT: http://www.dd-wrt.com/wiki/index.php/PPTP_Server_Configurati...

OpenVPN is the way to go, but not built in like PPTP is, well, everywhere ...

rms
Tomato, the extra memory makes a difference in performance.
akamaka
Tomato.

I ran DD-WRT on a WRT54GL for a few months, and during this time, I kept experiencing intermittent connection problems. I spent hours and hours poring over packet sniffer logs, and finally discovered that the router was the problem.

So I tried switching to Tomato, and it worked perfectly.

(That was 2007, and as far as I know, the bug is still there)

chris24
I was having the exact same problem with DD-WRT! Ever since then, I've just been too lazy to setup Tomato. I'll have to set it up one of these days...
carbon8
FWIW, I've used DD-WRT on a variety of wrt54g series routers (including three wrt54gl routers) and have never had connection problems attributable to the firmware.
akamaka
Just to be clear, the problem I had was limited to a specific type of network protocol, and that may be why nobody bothered to take interest in fixing it.

Sorry if my comment came across as saying that DD-WRT is just unreliable..

matthall28
I prefer DD-WRT to Tomato. Just find that it has more features and that there is a lot more that you can do with it. I've used both though on a WRT54GS V2
quellhorst
I just used DD-WRT on a new wrt54gl I got. It works fine and I have a working wireless bridge from my older white russian wrt54g.
oomkiller
DD-Wrt has a great feature set, and is pretty stable. It also has lots of expandability options. I would also recommend OpenWRT if you want even more expandability. OpenWRT has its own package management system with thousands of packages.
car
I've used both, and like Tomato better. It has a nicer AJAX based UI, SVG bandwidth graphs, and is pretty well layed out. Lot's of nifty attention to detail in the UI, e.g. wireless network neighborhood to find unoccupied channels.

Have been using it for a couple of years, even running a startup's infrastructure behind it. No problems, whatsoever.

blackman
tomato has a simple ajax interface and really good QoS functionality which is what attracted me to it. I haven't tried the others.
Sidnicious
I would go with Tomato unless you want customizability.

Last time I checked, DD-WRT was just a set of packages on top of OpenWRT, so going with straight OpenWRT lets you add only the functionality you need and customize everything to your heart's content. I would choose that route over DD-WRT. However, I did run into some reliability issues, (wireless connections would drop spontaneously every few weeks) which show up in DD-WRT as well. In OpenWRT, many basic settings (all settings unless you install a web interface) are only accessible via config files. That can get tiring.

Tomato is rock-solid and dead-easy to configure, but startlingly light on functionality compared to *WRT.

If you have the time, try them both!

thumbfinger
Tomato has a better UI. DD-WRT maybe has a few extra features (that you'll never use)

Go with tomato, its bandwidth monitoring options are awexome