Having top-notch water pressure in your house isn’t very useful if bad plumbing means the faucet trickles when you spin the knob. Similarly, a fast, reliable internet connection isn’t worth much if you don’t have a home router that can effectively share it with your computers, phones, tablets, and smart home devices.
In last month's PCMag Readers’ Choice Award survey, we reported your ratings for internet service providers (ISPs). This time around, we tackle the other half of the equation: the home routers, cable modems, and network-attached storage (NAS) devices that make the internet usable.
Looking for network equipment for your office? Check out our Business Choice Award winners for routers, access points, and NAS devices.
The Top Home Routers 2024
Home routers can be purchased as either standalone devices (where the internet signal is shared from an individual unit) or mesh systems (where nodes are placed throughout your home). 65% of our survey respondents use a standalone router, which provides adequate coverage in smaller homes and apartments. You'll likely benefit from a mesh network if you find internet dead spots in certain areas of your home.
TP-Link wins its second PCMag Readers’ Choice Award in a row for its standalone routers and also gets the award for its mesh routers. We're also giving it the overall win, where we combine the ratings for both types of routers.
Among standalone routers, TP-Link’s stiffest competition comes from Asus, a perennial favorite among PCMag readers. TP-Link’s ratings are slightly ahead of Asus in our most important measures: overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend. TP-Link also has the highest ratings on every other measure except satisfaction with Wi-Fi speed and network management, where its ratings were second to Asus. TP-Link’s best ratings were for satisfaction with reliability and satisfaction with Wi-Fi connection quality.
Asus’s standalone routers finish second to TP-Link on most satisfaction measures. On satisfaction with cost/value, it comes in third, behind Linksys. Concerningly, Asus has the lowest satisfaction with technical support among all brands of standalone routers.
For mesh network products, Asus fares better, with the highest tech support rating. Still, TP-Link edges out Asus in overall satisfaction, earning it the Readers’ Choice Award. Its competition with Asus is tighter in the mesh category than in standalone routers. TP-Link has the highest ratings for satisfaction with setup, cost/value, and ease of use. Still, Asus comes out best on seven other measures, including the aforementioned technical support and likelihood to recommend.
Amazon’s Eero mesh network systems also rate well among our readers, with overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend ratings that nearly matched TP-Link and Asus (Eero won for mesh networks in 2021 and 2022). On top of that, Eero has the second-highest rating for satisfaction with setup (tied with Asus) and ease of use.
When setting up a home network, the simplest decision may be to go with what your ISP offers, but the two lowest-rated router providers in our survey are ISPs: Spectrum and Xfinity. Spectrum finished last in overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend, while Xfinity brought up the rear in satisfaction with cost/value and technical support. Despite Spectrum’s generally low satisfaction ratings, it has the second-highest rating for technical support.
For our in-depth reviews, read The Best Wi-Fi Routers and The Best Wi-Fi Mesh Network Systems.
The Top Broadband Modems 2024
Modems connect to the physical cable or fiber your ISP uses to bring the internet into your home. The modem may also have a built-in router. ISPs typically provide modems and offer routers to their customers for a monthly fee. About two-thirds (63%) of our respondents purchased their own modem. Doing so will usually save you money in the long run and give you more equipment choices.
The Arris Surfboard line of cable modems wins our Readers’ Choice Award. It's available mostly through ISPs but can also be purchased online. Arris had the highest ratings for overall satisfaction and likelihood to recommend.
Arris’s ratings are quite a bit higher than Motorola, which finished second, and the other modem providers in our survey. Like Arris, Motorola modems are typically ISP-provided. Netgear, which was the most popular choice for purchased modems, was right behind Motorola.
The Top NAS Devices 2024
Synology has earned our Readers’ Choice Award for network attached storage for homes every year since we first added this category in 2012, a remarkable winning streak. Equally as impressive is that Synology doesn’t have any serious competition from other NAS brands according our numbers.
Synology has the highest satisfaction scores on all the satisfaction measures we asked our respondents to rate. Many of these—including overall satisfaction, likelihood to recommend, satisfaction with media sharing, and satisfaction with file sharing—are more than a full point ahead of the second-place NAS brand, Western Digital.
Synology’s closest competition is actually from the do-it-yourselfers who acquire the various components—motherboard, case, drives, software—and build their own home server or NAS device. Not surprisingly, those who build their own rate their creations even better than Synology for satisfaction with value, tech support, and repairs. However, Synology still comes out ahead in satisfaction with media access. Several of our respondents comment that building your own is not for the faint of heart, but if you are tech-savvy, it’s a route to consider.
For our in-depth reviews, read The Best NAS (Network Attached Storage) Devices.
Full Results
The PCMag Readers' Choice survey for Routers, Modems, and NAS Devices was in the field from April 15 to May 12, 2024. For more information on how we conduct surveys, read our survey methodology.