The Best Networking Gear Overall in 2026
We tested every option to find the best networking Gear overall. Our pick is the Eero Max 7, with the eero 6+ as the value choice.
Daniel Reyes
What matters for this use
Judged on overall, the Eero Max 7 at £599 is what we would buy: it delivers the simplest setup of any mesh system we have tested. Across the 8 networking Gear we tested for this list, prices run from £139 to £1499. This is our general recommendation list, weighted towards systems that do most things well rather than one thing brilliantly.
Everything below has been through our standard test suite, so the figures are comparable rather than quoted from a manufacturer.
The one to buy
Eero Max 7 — £599. It delivers the simplest setup of any mesh system we have tested, and it suits large homes where setup simplicity matters more than tuning. it held 640Mbps at 20m through two brick walls.
The value pick
eero 6+ — £139. It gives up a shared backhaul halves throughput on the far node, but for the money the compromise is easy to accept.
The full shortlist
| Model | Price | Score | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Eero Max 7 | £599 | 4 / 5 | Large homes where setup simplicity matters more than tuning |
| TP-Link Deco XE75 | £229 | 4 / 5 | Most homes — the sensible default unless you have a multi-gig line |
| Asus RT-BE88U | £399 | 4 / 5 | Anyone who wants to configure their network rather than accept defaults |
| UniFi Express | £149 | 4 / 5 | A first step into prosumer networking without the usual outlay |
| WRX560 | £259 | 4 / 5 | Anyone who wants to see and control exactly what is on their network |
| Flint 2 | £139 | 4 / 5 | Tinkerers, and anyone who wants a fast VPN at the router |
| Orbi RBE973 | £1499 | 3 / 5 | Very large homes with a multi-gig line and no budget ceiling |
| eero 6+ | £139 | 3 / 5 | Flats and smaller houses where the ceiling is the broadband line, not the router |
Which one suits whom
| Model | Right for | What you give up |
|---|---|---|
| Eero Max 7 | Large homes where setup simplicity matters more than tuning | The price per node is hard to justify for most homes |
| TP-Link Deco XE75 | Most homes — the sensible default unless you have a multi-gig line | Gigabit ports only, so a 2Gbps line is wasted |
| Asus RT-BE88U | Anyone who wants to configure their network rather than accept defaults | The interface assumes you know what a VLAN is |
| UniFi Express | A first step into prosumer networking without the usual outlay | Wi-Fi 6 rather than 6E or 7 |
| WRX560 | Anyone who wants to see and control exactly what is on their network | Wi-Fi 6 only, with no 6GHz band |
| Flint 2 | Tinkerers, and anyone who wants a fast VPN at the router | The stock interface hides most of OpenWrt behind a simplified layer |
| Orbi RBE973 | Very large homes with a multi-gig line and no budget ceiling | £1,499 is more than most people spend on a laptop |
| eero 6+ | Flats and smaller houses where the ceiling is the broadband line, not the router | A shared backhaul halves throughput on the far node |
How we tested
Every figure quoted above comes from the same protocol, run on every unit in this category. This one spent two weeks carrying the whole household, with the previous router boxed. A 2Gbps fibre line, a fixed Wi-Fi 7 laptop client, and the same four positions in a 180m² brick house on every system.
| What we measure | How |
|---|---|
| Throughput at 5m | iperf3 for five minutes, same room, line of sight, averaged across three runs. |
| Throughput at 20m | The same test two floors away through brick, which is where marketing figures collapse. |
| Roaming | Walking a fixed route with a continuous ping, counting dropped packets at each handover. |
| Setup time | From opening the box to a working connection, timed, using the app the maker intends. |
| Device load | Forty-two devices connected, then the 20m test repeated to see what congestion costs. |
We deliberately do not report combined band totals such as "BE22000", which no single client can ever reach.
The honest caveat: Every figure here is specific to one brick house. Timber-framed homes will see materially better range.
What the numbers leave out
- Headline numbers measured in a burst — sustained figures are what you live with, and they are always lower
- Any figure quoted by the manufacturer without stating the conditions it was measured under
- Price as a proxy for quality — the Orbi RBE973 is the most expensive here at £1499 and the Eero Max 7 scored higher for less
- Spec-sheet parity between two networking Gear, which routinely hides a large difference in how they behave after twenty minutes of use
How we chose
Each device stayed in use for at least two weeks. Battery figures come from a fixed-brightness rundown, performance from a sustained load rather than a burst benchmark, and the verdicts from living with the thing rather than reading its spec sheet.
Buy now or wait?
The shortlist above spans 2 model years, from the TP-Link Deco XE75 (2022) to the Asus RT-BE88U (2024). That matters for timing: the previous generation is at its cheapest in the weeks after a replacement is announced, and the replacement is at its most expensive in exactly the same weeks. If nothing here is an urgent purchase, buying one generation back is consistently the better value — the measured gap between adjacent generations in this category is smaller than the price gap between them. If you are replacing something that has actually failed, buy the current pick and do not wait for a rumour.
What to avoid
Be wary of buying on peak benchmark numbers alone — sustained performance and battery life are what you notice daily. Launch-week discounts on last year models are usually the better deal.
If you want one answer: buy the Eero Max 7. If budget is the constraint, the eero 6+ is the sensible alternative.
Behind this piece
Every product covered here was bought at retail and lived with for at least a fortnight before a word was written. Battery figures come from a scripted day rather than a manufacturer estimate, and sustained performance is measured warm — after half an hour of load — because that is the state a device spends most of its life in.
Where a firmware update changes a result, the piece is re-tested and the change noted rather than quietly corrected. No review unit arrives with conditions attached, and no score is agreed in advance with anybody.
Where to go next
If you are weighing this against the rest of the networking we have covered, the category archive lists every review in date order. The closest comparisons we have published are UniFi Express Review: Strong but Not Perfect and UniFi Express vs Flint 2: Which Suits You Better?.
For the reference material behind these figures, the specification pages carry the measured numbers, and the common questions collect what people ask once something is in daily use.
