Tomato vs DD WRT should I switch?

[Locut0s]

I've been running DD WRT now for almost 2 years. By and large I don't have that many issues with it but one thing I've noticed is that the connection seems to slow down over several months and rebooting the router or power cycling it after this will often speed up the connection again. My ISP has recently upgraded our service so I was thinking of also updating the firmware on the router at the same time. I have heard good things about Tomato recently but I've never used it. A few quick question for those who have used it. Does it support the following features (these are the key ones I use):

-Mac address filtering
-Static DHCP leases tied to a specific MAC address.
-Mixed mode wireless security. (able to handle both WPA & WPA2 at the same time and possibly also different encryption methods eg AES, TKIP etc)

Also any general performance reviews would be nice.

Thanks

 

[Engineer]

I posted a performance review here.

As for your questions, yes to all IIRC (the only one I'm not 100% sure about is MAC address filtering). I'm running Static DHCP leases tied to the MAC of all of my PC's as well as mixed mode wireless (WPA and WPA2). It will not run WEP at the same time as WPA however. I don't think you can mix encryption methods though. I'll try to find out about the MAC address filtering...pretty sure it does indeed work.

Edit: If my MAC address filtering, you mean on the wireless side (allow or disallow)? Then yes, it does.

By the way, I'm not sure that tomato will correct the symptoms that you describe, however, I find it to be a very good firmware and a good amount of features, and seems somewhat easier to setup than DD-WRT. YMMV as opinions vary and good luck!

 

[JackMDS]

AFAIK, Entry Level Wireless Router/APs can no do Mix Mode Security with any Firmware.

 

[Engineer]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
AFAIK, Entry Level Wireless Router/APs can no do Mix Mode Security with any Firmware.

As in WPA and WPA2 at the same time? It's available on the menu and I had to select it to get my daughters Ipod Touch to work (would not work on WPA2 setting). The rest of my PC's are set to WPA2 and continue to work with this setting.

 

[Locut0s]

Originally posted by: Engineer
I posted a performance review here.

As for your questions, yes to all IIRC (the only one I'm not 100% sure about is MAC address filtering). I'm running Static DHCP leases tied to the MAC of all of my PC's as well as mixed mode wireless (WPA and WPA2). It will not run WEP at the same time as WPA however. I don't think you can mix encryption methods though. I'll try to find out about the MAC address filtering...pretty sure it does indeed work.

Edit: If my MAC address filtering, you mean on the wireless side (allow or disallow)? Then yes, it does.

By the way, I'm not sure that tomato will correct the symptoms that you describe, however, I find it to be a very good firmware and a good amount of features, and seems somewhat easier to setup than DD-WRT. YMMV as opinions vary and good luck!

Thanks for the info! I like what I'm seeing of the Tomato UI from screen shots. I really don't need all the features of WRT if it supports all the features that I'm looking for.

I've read another review on the net that suggests that Tomato "might" fix the problem I'm having. The reviewer had a similar problem. Sounds like a memory leak in WRT or something.

 

[Locut0s]

Originally posted by: JackMDS
AFAIK, Entry Level Wireless Router/APs can no do Mix Mode Security with any Firmware.

Not sure if it's an entry level router or not. I have the Buffalo WHR-HP-G54. Got some of the best reviews when it was current. With WRT it does mixed mode for both WPA and WPA2.