May 14, 2026
Open source, open season
RISC-V Router
The ‘open’ router hype hits a speed bump as commenters roast its tiny ports
TLDR: Start9’s upcoming RISC-V router is pitching an unusually open, privacy-focused home internet box for self-hosters, with shipping planned by September 2026. Commenters, however, are fixated on one thing: for all the freedom talk, the hardware ports look painfully limited for a product aimed at serious home networking users.
Start9 just unveiled a super-open home router built around RISC-V, a chip design fans love because it’s seen as more transparent and less locked down than the usual black-box gear. The pitch is big: easy setup, strong privacy controls, and a home-server-friendly experience for people who want more control over their internet life. It even promises tricks like giving different devices different levels of access, and using multiple Wi-Fi passwords so guests, family, and your own gadgets all land in different “lanes” on the same network. Very slick, very freedom-coded, very privacy nerd catnip.
But the comments? Oh, the comments came in swinging. The loudest reaction was basically: “Cool philosophy, weak hardware.” Multiple posters zeroed in on the fact that this future-facing router still lists just one internet port and one local network port at 1 gigabit speed. For a product aimed at home self-hosting power users, that landed like a record scratch. One commenter flat-out said, “Really? In 2026? Pass.” Another compared it to cheaper boards like Banana Pi, asking if this is really anything new besides a case and branding.
Then came the veteran flex: people brought up the long-running Turris Omnia project, basically saying, “This party already exists, and it has better ports.” The funniest jab was the deadpan combo of “Router,” “1 WAN, 1 LAN,” and “$250000” — a tiny poem of pure internet side-eye. In other words: fans love the openness, but the crowd is absolutely obsessed with whether this thing is underpowered, overpriced, or both.
Key Points
- •Start9 says its RISC-V Router is designed for home-based self-hosting and emphasizes an open-source hardware and software stack.
- •The company expects units to ship no later than September 2026, and states that pre-orders and donations used to fund development are non-refundable.
- •The router's open components include the RISC-V instruction set, published board schematics, OpenSBI, U-Boot, the Linux kernel, and the operating system, while WiFi firmware and two early boot binaries remain closed.
- •Listed hardware specifications are 4GB LPDDR4 RAM, 16GB eMMC storage, 1 WAN Gb, 1 LAN Gb, and an AsiaRF AW7915-NP1 Wi‑Fi 6 module rated at 2401 Mbps.
- •StartWRT adds Security Profiles, Identity PSK, inbound VPN servers, outbound VPN clients, VPN chaining, and StartOS-linked automated port forwarding.