The Best Wi-Fi Mesh-Networking Systems

I’m a senior staff writer who has covered Wi-Fi networks and other interconnected computer hardware for Wirecutter since 2018. In a previous life, I was an IT technician and manager. I have been testing and writing about PCs and networking for over 20 years, reviewing thousands of devices in that time.

For this guide:

• I’ve evaluated more than 300 Wi-Fi routers and mesh systems for Wirecutter over the past five years.
• I built, maintained, and updated a coordinated set of Wi-Fi laptops and a web server in a large home dedicated to testing Wi-Fi mesh networks and range extenders.
• I measured and evaluated the performance of each mesh network, its price compared with its peers, its ability to stay up-to-date over the next five years, and how easy each network is to set up and keep running.
• Like all Wirecutter journalists, I review and test products with complete editorial independence. I’m never made aware of any business implications of my editorial recommendations. Read more about our editorial standards.
• In accordance with Wirecutter standards, I return or donate all products I’ve tested once my assessment of them is complete, which may involve longer-term testing by my colleagues and myself. I never hang on to “freebies” once testing is done.

Before you toss everything out and get a mesh system, you should try moving your router to a central location—in smaller houses a single router can actually be more effective than mesh networking.

But if you have a house that a single powerful router can’t cover well, you probably need a mesh system. A home larger than 2,300 square feet (depending on the layout), a large apartment or small house with signal-killing interior walls made of lath-and-plaster, brick, stucco, or concrete blocks, or a tall, narrow building like a three-story townhouse could all benefit from a mesh setup with multiple nodes.

If you already have a good router that you like and need just a little more range in part of your house, you might consider adding a wireless extender. (Here’s our comprehensive guide to wireless extenders.)

Another option is a mesh extender, which, like a mesh-networking system, automatically hands your connection off from router to extender and back, using the same network name; that makes the mesh experience a little more seamless. Mesh extenders may improve coverage in dead spots if you already have a decent wireless router, though they showed mixed results in our extender guide testing compared with full-blown mesh networking systems.

A wired network is always faster than a wireless one

If your house is wired for Ethernet, you don’t need a mesh-networking system. Mesh shines when you don’t have wires, don’t want wires, and have lots of trouble spots (or one really big trouble spot) with poor or no coverage.

A mesh system won’t necessarily make your internet faster at short to medium range. As shown in the performance testing of standalone routers, the best Wi-Fi mesh systems did just as well as our upgrade standalone router pick, the TP-Link Archer BE550. Mesh can offer better coverage and lower latency in a wider area, which makes your connection feel faster throughout the house because your devices aren’t grabbing at faint wisps of signal.

A good standalone Wi-Fi router can handle multiple devices, as long as those devices all have good connections. Even one device with a poor connection can bring the quality of a single router’s network down, eating up all of the available airtime, starving the rest. The best mesh networks ensure good connections among devices, the base unit, and any satellites, reducing the likelihood of a poorly connected device slowing down the others.

Over the past five years, we’ve tested Wi-Fi mesh-networking systems from almost 20 manufacturers (AmpliFi, Arris, Asus, D-Link, Eero, Google, Gryphon, Motorola, Linksys, Netgear, Synology, TP-Link, Trendnet, Ubiquiti, Vilo, Wyze, and Zyxel) in order to find the best Wi-Fi mesh network system.

To reproduce the real-world activity of a busy home network, we used laptops simulating everyday tasks, spaced around 3,000 square feet of a three-and-a-half-story suburban home.

We tested for top speeds (streaming simulated 4K video and file downloads), good coverage in spots around the house, and responsiveness (simulating three simultaneous browsing sessions on a busy network).

Here are our key criteria:

• Ease of setup and administration: You should be able to get your home on the internet in less than half an hour with a mesh network.
• Good speed test results: In our tests, network speed—or throughput—varies from “This YouTube video will never finish loading” to “You can download a video game in an instant.”
• Good range test results: You should be able to connect to a well-placed mesh system from anywhere in your house. We tested each system to see its maximum potential when close to the base unit, as well as in trouble spots in the home through walls and Wi-Fi blocking objects like refrigerators.
• Quick, responsive network results: Slow internet sucks. Latency—or lag—is the time spent waiting for the next thing to happen. A great mesh system minimizes that wait even if the network is busy.
• Expandability: You should be able to add more nodes later to extend and improve coverage even farther, wirelessly or with wires.
• Multiple Ethernet ports: Ethernet ports on a mesh system’s satellites let you connect devices such as TVs, streaming boxes, and gaming consoles away from the base unit.
• Nice-to-have extras: Fast, reliable Wi-Fi is what matters the most in a mesh system, but more expensive optional features bring other benefits, too. The things we like to see that justify spending more for a mesh system include speedier connections (like 2.5-gigabit ports), extra Ethernet ports, and Wi-Fi 7.
• Price: You can buy a mesh system for $80; you can also spend over $2,200. But we don’t consider the cheapest or the fastest to be the best. When considering both features and our test results, we looked for “the best for the most for the least.”

One more thing: Don’t confuse the test results in our guide with the internet speed you’re paying for. For example, the TP-Link Deco BE63 is capable of downloading over 950 megabits per second at close range with no obstructions, but you still can’t get more than about 100 megabits per second from the internet if you have a 100-megabit plan from your ISP.

Top pick

Eero 6

Best Wi-Fi mesh-networking kit

The Eero 6 serves steady Wi-Fi on a busy network and surpasses pricier options. It’s also much easier to set up than more complex systems.

Buying Options

$90 $70 from Best Buy

(one router)

$90 $70 from Amazon

(one router)

$200 $150 from Best Buy

(3-Pack: One Eero 6 Router + Two Eero 6 Extenders)

$90 from Home Depot

The Eero 6 is an excellent choice for setting up a lag-free Wi-Fi network in a sprawling home. We tested the Eero mesh system all over a three-story house, where it outperformed systems costing two or three times as much.

It’s pretty speedy. During our testing, the Eero 6 offered fast performance when our laptop was close to the base router. Eero advertises that it is suitable for homes with 500 Mbps (or slower) broadband connections, though we were able to exceed that speed by another 100 Mbps on the laptop connected to the main base unit. Few Wi-Fi 6 mesh systems outpaced the Eero, though Wi-Fi 7 mesh networks like our upgrade pick, the TP-Link Deco BE63, ultimately tested faster overall. The median speed for fixed broadband, which includes both cable and fiber internet service providers, is 245 Mbps in June 2024, so a range of 100 Mbps to 600 Mbps should be acceptable for many homes in the US.

Setup is simple. The Eero 6 should take roughly half an hour to set up, much faster than some of the more finicky mesh networks we’ve tested, which can take over an hour. After plugging in the Ethernet cable from your cable modem or fiber gateway, and the included USB-C power adapter, there are the usual prompts for setting your network name (SSID, for service set identifier) and network password. Then the app gives you some tips for placing the add-on extenders. After placing the extenders (and performing an automatic firmware update), you should have a functioning mesh network in your home.

The Eero app is easy to use. It lets you switch between WPA3 security and the WPA2 security built into older routers, but that’s one of the few settings you can change beyond network name and password—which makes it simple for a novice or remote administrator to monitor the network. All Eero and Eero Pro systems have a temporary off switch for their 5 GHz network, which makes it easier to connect smart devices like cameras and doorbells.

Compatibility and support are solid. All currently available Eero systems are compatible with each other. For example, you can add an Eero Pro 6 system to an existing Eero 6 network, if you need to cover more space throughout your house. The Eero 6 (and other Eero systems) supports HomeKit, Matter, Thread, and Zigbee, four smart-home standards for controlling your devices. Because Eero’s parent company is Amazon, recent Echo devices and the Alexa voice assistant are also supported.

It can handle a lot of traffic. In our responsiveness tests, the Eero 6 was competitive with the best mesh systems. Even when the Wi-Fi network was at its most congested, the Eero 6 was able to stream 4K videos, download large files, and keep multiple web browsing sessions lag-free. Other more expensive systems like Google’s Nest Wifi Pro slowed down when the network was busy.

Flaws but not dealbreakers

The simple design sacrifices ports. It has only one extra Ethernet port on the base unit, and none on the satellites, though it does offer a pricier package that adds four additional Ethernet ports on the satellites for about $50.

The optional subscription is pricey. Eero charges between $100 and $120 per year for its Eero Plus subscription, which is necessary to access parental controls and anti-malware protection—services that Asus’s ZenWiFi systems include for free. The Eero Plus subscription is optional, however: The Wi-Fi network will continue to work without the parental controls and anti-malware.

You have to administer the mesh network in the cloud. Technically, bad actors could monitor your data via this login, though Amazon and Eero assure us that they safeguard your data and online activities. Mesh networks from Asus, Linksys, and Netgear also use apps for login and setup, but the latter three (and a few others) give you an option to administer each router locally via a web page.

You have to use the Eero app to control the network. It’s not flexible. There are very few settings you can actually change in the app, which makes Eero not as flexible as its rivals. Many standalone routers and some of the other mesh systems listed here will let you set parameters like 5 GHz and 2.4 GHz channels, wireless signal strengths, and the ability to create separate network names (SSIDs) for keeping smart-home devices separate from your laptop network.

While it is now owned by Amazon, the Eero company developed and released its first two generations of mesh networks independently of Amazon. We think that the ease of setup, frequent firmware updates (as needed), ability to add Eero units to expand coverage, ability to manage a network remotely, and company’s proven track record outweigh these concerns.

How the Eero 6 has held up

In general, we’ve had good-to-excellent experiences with the Eero 6 and other Eero models. As my family’s technology manager, I’ve kept my parents’ Eero home network glitch free, while remotely managing it and monitoring automatic firmware updates from my phone. Senior staff writer Tim Heffernan installed an Eero 6+ (see below) to provide a “strong, solid” connection to a back room that our former Wi-Fi extender upgrade pick, the Asus RP-AX56, couldn’t reach in their apartment. Senior editor Christine Ryan’s partner, who owns and manages an Airbnb rental, “loves his Eero mesh network, because it provides good Wi-Fi throughout the unit (which is two floors plus a loft), and he gets a notification any time someone logs in, so he knows when guests have arrived.”

Runner-up

Linksys Velop Micro Mesh 6

Easiest setup, solid signal

The Velop Micro Mesh 6 is set up right out of the box and provides fast, solid Wi-Fi.

Buying Options

$210 $141 from Best Buy

You save $69 (33%)

$168 from Amazon

The Linksys Velop Micro Mesh 6 is the easiest mesh network to set up, and an attractive alternative to the Eero 6. The Micro Mesh’s party trick is that all three boxes are pre-paired and set up to work when you take it out of the box, saving you the step of fiddling with an app to wirelessly connect the base unit to the satellites, a step that can take over half an hour on older mesh networks.

It takes only five minutes to set up without an app. While we didn’t time our setup with a stopwatch, the Linksys Velop Micro 5 can go from in the box to up and running in as little as five to 10 minutes. The kit’s two wireless child units are configured at the factory to connect to the base unit (aka the parent router), so if you plug the base unit into your modem or fiber connection with an Ethernet cable, and power up all three boxes, the network will set itself up. After it’s warmed up, you can connect to the Wi-Fi network by pointing your phone’s camera to the QR code on the bottom of the base unit, a process we all learned to do at restaurants to read menus during the pandemic. The network’s name and password are also printed on a label on the bottom of the Micro Mesh boxes. You could use the network like this and never have to worry about it.

However, changing the network name requires the app. The built-in Wi-Fi password and network name (SSID) are printed on a label on the bottom of the Velop Micro Mesh 6 base and can also be accessed with the aforementioned QR code, but if you’re replacing an older Wi-Fi router, you’re probably going to want to reconnect all the Wi-Fi devices around your home. To do that, you will need to use the app (or website on a laptop) to change the network name and password to what you had before. Thankfully, the process is quick, since the child units are already set up and connected to the base unit. You’ll also need the app if you want to add extra Linksys Velop units to your mesh network.

The base unit is compact, and the satellites are tiny. From a short distance away, the child units look like small white flower vases. While they aren’t as short as the Eero 6 extenders, the child units are each smaller than a 12 ounce soda can, so they will blend into most decor better than spider-like routers such as the TP-Link Archer GX90. The base router lacks the antennas that make many older Wi-Fi routers ugly—-it just looks similar to the modern plastic boxes found all over your home. The router base unit also has a 2.5 GbE (gigabit Ethernet) port, so it’s ready for 1-gig or 2-gig internet service.

It can handle multiple streams at once. Like the Eero 6 and the TP-Link Deco BE63, the Velop Micro Mesh 6 had no web surfing hiccups or delays during our testing, during which we simulated the streaming of two 4K videos and a game download at the same time. On the same tests, the Micro Mesh 6 surpassed more than a few of the expensive mesh networks that cost two to four times more.

It’s one of the least expensive mesh networks that passed all our performance tests. Prices fluctuate over time, but the Velop Micro Mesh 6 has been between $200 and $300 on retail websites, similar to our top pick, the Eero 6.

A minor nit to pick is a shorter one-year warranty. The Velop Micro Mesh 6 comes with a one-year warranty, which is shorter than the two-year warranty that Eero and TP-Link offer. We, of course, prefer a longer warranty period, but one year is enough to determine if your mesh units have manufacturing defects.

It’s a newer system than the Eero 6. The Linksys Micro Mesh 6 was released in early 2024, and it doesn’t have the track record and long-term experiences we’ve had with the Eero 6, so it won’t supplant our top pick for now. We will be long-term testing the Micro Mesh and monitoring professional and user reviews to see if it could change its runner-up status in the future.

Upgrade pick

TP-Link Deco BE63

Wi-Fi 7 now, for gigabit internet

The Deco BE63 is significantly faster and has more Ethernet connections than our top pick. We’d suggest it if you have a gigabit (1,000 Mbps, or faster) internet service plan or already have a multitude of smart-home devices.

Buying Options

$450 $350 from Amazon

You save $100 (22%)

The TP-Link Deco BE63 is the first Wi-Fi 7 mesh network we’ve chosen as an upgrade pick. Its multi-gigabit speeds and future-proofed features outpace Wi-Fi 6, Wi-Fi 6E, and other Wi-Fi 7 competitors on our price and performance punch list. You should take a quick look at the Deco BE63 if you pay for gigabit or faster internet service in your home.

It supports Wi-Fi 7 and many devices. The Deco BE63 supports Wi-Fi 7, the latest version of Wi-Fi. It will work fine with all of the Wi-Fi 5 and 6 laptops, phones, and other devices you own now, as well as the faster, new Wi-Fi 7 phones and laptops that have been and will be released in the near future.

It’s ready for 1-gig or 2-gig internet speeds. The Deco BE63 can serve a strong signal to all corners of a larger-than-average home, and it outperformed most of the pack in top speed and staying responsive on a congested network. All five Ethernet ports on each Deco unit are of the 2.5 GbE variety, so the BE63 is ready for 1-gig and 2-gig internet service, as well as wired PCs and NAS servers with 2.5 GbE ports. The extra performance will help if you subscribe to gigabit or multi-gig internet service.

It’s future-proofed with extra speedy ports. The Deco BE63’s additional Ethernet ports can be used for a 2.5-gigabit wired connection between the routers, which will always be faster than Wi-Fi, or to connect PCs and game consoles. You’d have to upgrade the Eero 6’s base system to a three pack of routers for an additional $50 to get similar functionality.

The Deco BE63’s boxes are pre-paired to one another. You can use either of the two included Deco units as the base connected to your cable modem or fiber internet connection, and the other will automatically connect to the base unit during setup. Like with the Linksys Velop Micro Mesh 6, this can speed up the installation process greatly.

More expensive mesh systems have faster connections than the BE63—but most people don’t need them yet. For example, the Netgear Orbi 970 and TP-Link Deco BE95 both have faster 10 GbE ports, but are two to four times as expensive as the Deco BE63. The Deco BE95 was marginally faster than the BE63 at three of our four Wi-Fi tests, but you’d be unlikely to be able to tell the difference between 976 Mbps and 1,333 Mbps in daily use unless you’re using a stopwatch.

Faster connections are also unlikely to be available in most homes in 2024: 10-gigabit wired Ethernet is rare outside of multi-million dollar server facilities (like Amazon AWS or Google) and forward-looking corporate offices. You can sign up for five gigabit and eight gigabit internet home plans in selected areas of the US, but service at those speeds are expensive and service areas are limited at this time. The 1 gig and 2 gig plans are much more readily available and accessible.

Budget pick

TP-Link Deco S4

Fewer devices to serve, lower price

The TP-Link Deco S4 outperformed mesh networks that were hundreds of dollars more expensive. It’s our choice for a cheaper way to share a Wi-Fi network around a large living space.

Buying Options

$115 $100 from Amazon

You save $15 (13%)

The TP-Link Deco S4 costs half as much as our top pick, and when put to use in our test home of 3,000-plus square feet, it provided steady wireless coverage. We believe it would work well with up to 50 devices on the network, and if you have 500 Mbps internet service or slower.

It has minimal slowdowns. The Deco S4 was one of the Wi-Fi systems that performed well on our web browsing congestion test. This relatively inexpensive mesh system was able to quickly feed simulated web traffic to our three test laptops while three other laptops were streaming 4K video and downloading files simultaneously.

Notably, this $130-ish mesh system outperformed the $280 Netgear Orbi RBK752 and the $180 TP-Link Deco X20 under the same conditions.

It’s easily expandable. The Deco S4 is available in one-, two-, and three-pack mesh systems, so it’s relatively easy to expand upon (the recommended maximum is 10 Deco units) if you’re setting them up wirelessly. Using the built-in Ethernet ports as a wired connection, you can increase the number of Deco units above this limit.

It’s quick and easy to install. The Deco S4 is easy to set up and administer, like the Deco BE63 and Eero 6. Also, TP-Link Deco mesh systems come pre-paired in the box: Just hook one up to your cable modem, then plug the other two in their ultimate locations. After you choose the network name and password in the app, the Deco S4 will finish its setup automatically.

But there are security and port trade-offs. As a Wi-Fi 5 mesh system, the Deco S4 lacks WPA3 security found in Wi-Fi 6 and Wi-Fi 7. That’s not a dealbreaker yet, because many PCs, phones, and smart home devices still use Wi-Fi 5 and WPA2 security.

The Deco S4 is also limited to two Ethernet ports per node, but that’s better than the Eero 6, which has only one free Ethernet port on its base router (and none on the add-on extenders).

And it has speed limits. If you have an internet plan faster than 500 Mbps, the Deco S4 might limit speeds in some situations, as it lacks top throughput rates that pricier mesh systems can claim.

Transfer speed was an excellent 430 Mbps at 10 feet with no obstructions, but slowed to 170 Mbps when bounced through one of the distant nodes over 30 feet away and two stories up. It slowed even further to 48 Mbps, though stayed smooth, while traveling through several walls on 2.4 GHz to our worst-case laptop in a bedroom.

If you have a faster internet plan and want additional wired connections: Consider the Eero 6+, an upgraded and more expensive version of our top pick. Instead of the Eero 6’s purely wireless add-on extenders, the Eero 6+ comes with one, two, or three router units, with two Ethernet ports per node. We tested the pack of three and found that since all three nodes have the same processing power, top speeds are ultimately faster on an Eero 6+ network compared with the Eero 6. That’s nice for the occasional large file download, like an update to a PlayStation game. The wired ports also allow you to use the Eero 6+ routers as wired extenders, similar to the Asus XT8. The Eero 6+ was also a bit faster than its cheaper sibling in the other rooms of the home, away from the main router.

However, when we tested on a more congested network, the Eero 6+’s latency scores were very close to that of the Eero 6. We’d say the additional $100 or more for the 6+ is worth it if you’re on an internet plan that’s faster than 700 Mbps, or if you have Ethernet pre-wired in your home to connect the Eero 6+ routers together.

Every time we update our router or mesh-networking guides, readers ask us about enterprise-level networking options like Ubiquiti’s UniFi networking line. Its rack-mounted models are decidedly overkill for most homes, but the UniFi Dream Router (UDR) seems tailor-made for homes and small businesses. We tested the Wi-Fi 6–compatible UDR in our router guide as well as with a pair of Ubiquiti mesh extenders.

The UDR’s administration app and web interface look polished and professional compared with those of home routers, and they offer plenty of settings and monitor screens familiar to network engineers. But to folks who just want a simple-to-use router, Ubiquiti’s interface could look like an impenetrable wall of technical details.

The UniFi Dream Router with a pair of U6 mesh extenders tested well compared with our picks, but its complexity makes it difficult to recommend for most people.

With just a few exceptions, the testing for most Wi-Fi router reviews consists of connecting a single device to Wi-Fi at various distances, trying to get the biggest throughput number possible, and declaring the router with the biggest number and the best range the winner, at least in terms of raw performance. The problem with this method is that it assumes that a big number for one connected device divides evenly into bigger numbers for all devices. This is usually true for wired networking, but it doesn’t work well for Wi-Fi.

Instead of testing for the maximum throughput from a single laptop, we used six, spaced around our test home, in order to simulate the real-world activity of a busy home network. The test home measures over 3,000 square feet, with three floors of living space and a garage with cinder block interior walls.

Placement of network devices in our test home

We verified that the core features of a mesh network were enabled, namely using a single network name (or SSID) to allow roaming for both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz channels.

We placed the main router or node in the living room, in the center of our testing space, and connected it to our cable modem via Ethernet. We placed the second node in the attic on the third floor of the home, and the third mesh node (if we used one) was positioned in the primary bedroom on the first floor, with one interior wall between it and the base router.

The six laptops (see the diagram above) were placed throughout the home, on all three floors and in the garage situated close to the cinder block foundation. If the mesh system supported Wi-Fi 6E or 7, we placed a Wi-Fi 7 laptop in the kitchen.

During testing, the six laptops, a test web server, our wired controller laptop, and an Apple iPhone running the router app (if needed) were the only devices connected to the test network. We let the surrounding Wi-Fi networks and wireless devices like Google Home speakers do their usual noisy things, just as they probably do in your home. The neighbors and our home network also kept their Wi-Fi networks going, which left somewhere in the vicinity of a half dozen to a dozen network names visible at any given time.

Our seven laptops ran the following tests:

• Browsers: Three laptops simulated real-human web browsing by loading a “web page” once every 20 seconds. Each “web page” consisted of 16 separate 128 KB files, all requested simultaneously. This is the most important test—it accurately represents real web browsing—and it usually fails before any of the other tests do.
• Downloader: One or two laptops downloaded very large files. We wanted to see an overall throughput of 100 Mbps or better, to simulate the experience of downloading a PC game or an update. This test is a big challenge for the rest of the network—if this laptop gets all of the available airtime, the other tests suffer.
• Video streamers: Two laptops each simulated a 4K video streaming session. They tried to download data at up to 30 Mbps, but we were satisfied if they could average 25 Mbps or better, which is what Disney+ recommends for 4K UHD.

These tests simultaneously evaluated range, throughput, and the router’s ability to multitask. We ran all these tests at the same time for a full five minutes to simulate a realistic extra-busy time on a home network. Although your network probably isn’t always that busy, those busy times are when you’re most likely to experience slowdowns. We ran each test six times and averaged the results.

We also tested raw speed in terms of throughput at the farthest spot in the attic/sunroom, at a closer spot about 15 feet away with no obstructions, an unobstructed spot in the kitchen 25 feet away (when testing Wi-Fi 6E or 7), and in a bedroom on the second floor with several interior walls in between the laptop and the main router.

Testing mesh systems this way—with a mix of easy and difficult spots to reach—ensures that we find the ones that work best throughout your house, rather than just looking good in the easy spots.

In addition to testing for raw throughput and the quality of web browsing, we made sure roaming worked well on our picks by checking each router’s interface (if present) to confirm that all the laptops weren’t bunched on a single node, router, or satellite.

We believe that mesh’s purpose isn’t to make Wi-Fi fast somewhere—it’s to make Wi-Fi fast everywhere.

So we tested throughput in three spots in our test space, with increasing degrees of difficulty: a spot in the living room, with a clear 15-foot run to the mesh base unit; in the attic, where the test laptop would be best situated to connect to the satellite node there; and a spot in one of the home’s bedrooms, where the laptop could choose to connect to a satellite or through several walls to the main router.

Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 speed-test results (Mbps)

Wi-Fi 6E and Wi-Fi 7 speed-test results (Mbps)

Speed (aka throughput) is the statistic that most mesh system manufacturers promote. The better-performing mesh systems, including our upgrade pick, the tri-band TP-Link Deco BE63, were able to handle each situation adroitly and provided over 975 Mbps without obstructions, over 815 Mbps at close range, and 77 Mbps to 255 Mbps in the other situations.

This efficient relay system is the hallmark of a good mesh network—you can see that in the “through one wall” and “through multiple walls” results. Good tri-band systems like the Deco BE63 utilized their speedy 5 GHz and 6 GHz radios to relay network signals efficiently to the base station.

That speed-test graph is worth looking at to get an idea of your best-case performance when you’re the only one on the network, but those test results don’t tell the most important story. To do that, we needed multiple laptops, simulating a busy real-world network, as we described above. A brief recap: We had two laptops simulating 4K video screens, one or two downloading large files, and three laptops browsing the web.

The web browsing test is both the most realistic representation of your experience in using your Wi-Fi and the test that almost always fails before any other test does.

Check out this graph, which gives you a sense of how long you might have to wait around for things to load. Bad numbers indicate a poor browsing experience, and, as we’ve said, slow internet sucks.

Browsing the web on a busy network

For web browsing, latency—how long it takes between a request and a response—is more important than raw throughput. High latency, or lag, can make an otherwise speedy connection seem to drag, especially when the network is busy. By looking at slowdowns while all six laptops were working simultaneously, we got a good measure of how well the network handles congestion.

The chart shows what percentage of the time our test networks delivered a satisfactorily fast browsing experience. While some of the other networks were dragged down when the Wi-Fi was congested (the yellow, orange, and red areas), our top performers easily handled the vast majority of these tests.

If a mesh network rockets above 2,000 milliseconds, for example, that means a high percentage of frustratingly slow page loads. This is a tough test, but we think a good network should respond reliably all the time.

We wanted to test an inexpensive mesh system like the TP-Link Deco S4 and compare it with the other mesh networks here. The Deco S4 also showed excellent performance on our tests overall, remaining competitive with much more expensive systems like the Netgear Orbi 970, Linksys Velop Pro 7, and Eero 6. That rock steady connectivity on a busy network earned the Deco S4 a spot as our budget pick.

A mesh network extends Wi-Fi to all corners of your home by using multiple plug-in boxes generically called mesh nodes or extenders. These nodes pass and repeat Wi-Fi around signal-blocking materials such as masonry walls or metal doors, or bring Wi-Fi service to parts of your home that are out of range of a single standalone router.

What’s the difference between a regular Wi-Fi router and a mesh router?

A regular or standalone router sends data packets (streaming videos, music, Slack messages, etc.) from a central location in your home to all your wired (Ethernet) and wireless (Wi-Fi) devices.

A mesh network is usually a system of two to four boxes—usually sold together—that work together to relay the Wi-Fi signal around your house or business. Those boxes might be called mesh routers, mesh extenders, satellites, or nodes, depending on the manufacturer.

You’d want to use a mesh network if the Wi-Fi signals from a single router are too weak to reach all the corners of your home.

What’s the difference between a standard Wi-Fi extender and a mesh network?

A Wi-Fi extender, or signal booster, is a relatively simple device that receives Wi-Fi signals from your router, and then repeats them to a laptop, tablet, streaming box, or other device in a dead zone in your home, and vice versa.

Extenders are best used when you have a small area in your home that doesn’t receive a good connection to your standalone router.

If you have several dead zones in your home and are willing to spend more money to ensure the speed and quality of the Wi-Fi signal in those dead zones, a mesh network is a better solution.

Here are a few terms that describe the various parts of a mesh network:

Router or base unit: This is the device you set up first. It connects to your home’s internet (via an Ethernet connection to a cable modem or the gateway router) and broadcasts Wi-Fi.

Mesh node or satellite: These are the devices that connect back to your router (or another node) to extend that network and provide a more reliable Wi-Fi connection over a greater area. Most systems come with one or two of them. Sometimes they are physically identical to the base unit, sometimes they aren’t.

Access point: An access point provides a Wi-Fi connection to your devices but passes all its data back to the main router via an Ethernet cable to be sorted. If Ethernet is an option in your home, you should use wired access points rather than wireless mesh.

Wi-Fi range extender: Wi-Fi range extenders (also known as Wi-Fi signal boosters) are less expensive than mesh nodes but are also slower and less capable. A range extender will generally create a second network name (SSID) when you set it up.

SSID or network name: An SSID is the fancy term for a Wi-Fi network’s name.

Bands and channels: A dual-band mesh system communicates with devices on two sets of radio frequencies (aka bands), 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, while a tri-band system has an extra 5 GHz (or 6 GHz) band that can help with communication between the router and satellites.

2.4 GHz versus 5 GHz versus 6 GHz: The 2.4 GHz band is slower but is compatible with more devices and can reach farther and through walls better. The 5 GHz band is faster but has a shorter range. And 6 GHz is potentially even faster but may have an even shorter range.

Dedicated backhaul: Dedicated wireless backhaul is a wireless band that serves only the communication between the router and its nodes, not the connection to computers, phones, or other devices. Some mesh networks can use Ethernet wires as a backhaul, which is even faster.

Wi-Fi 6 (aka 802.11ax): The 802.11ax protocol, also known as Wi-Fi 6, will replace the current 802.11ac (Wi-Fi 5) protocol over the next year or two the same way 802.11ac replaced 802.11n nearly a decade ago.

Some improvements will help with overall speed, but we’re most interested in improvements like MU-MIMO and OFDMA—clunky acronyms that ultimately should make Wi-Fi better at managing busy home networks full of computers, phones, streaming boxes, smart devices, and the like.

These technologies tout new capabilities to help avoid interference in dense areas where neighboring networks fight one another. Wi-Fi 6E is an extension of Wi-Fi 6 technology, using the 6 GHz radio bands mentioned above.

Wi-Fi 7 (aka 802.11be) is the newest of the Wi-Fi technologies. Like Wi-Fi 6E, it uses the 6 GHz radio band in addition to the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz radio bands. Wi-Fi 7 promises to improve throughput and bandwidth by widening the radio channels (320 MHz channels), more efficiently packing those channels with data (4K QAM), allowing connections on two separate channels simultaneously (MLO), and being able to transfer data in unused portions of an otherwise congested channel (Multi-RU puncturing). We’ll of course test these claims when Wi-Fi 7 laptops become available, but suffice to say Wi-Fi 7 is engineered to increase speeds and function efficiently in an increasingly crowded wireless environment.

The Wi-Fi Alliance has officially approved the Wi-Fi 7 standard, and new mesh networks are here. Wi-Fi 7 delivers faster speeds, lower latency, and improved simultaneous connections, but mesh networks that support the new standard are extremely expensive, and few devices are capable of taking advantage of the new features — yet. All Wi-Fi 7 mesh networking systems are compatible with Wi-Fi 5, 6, and 6E.

Wi-Fi 7 mesh systems announced at CES 2024 that we’re looking forward to include the Asus ZenWifi BQ16 Pro and ZenWifi BT10, Acer Predator Connect T7, and MSI Roamii Mesh system, which starts at $300 for the base Roamii Mesh BE Lite 2-pack.

Although Wi-Fi 7 is hot right now, we’re going to continue testing and reviewing new Wi-Fi 6 and 6E mesh networks.

Our former upgrade pick, the Asus ZenWiFi AX (XT8) is still an excellent choice if you have gigabit internet service, but it has been surpassed by the TP-Link Deco BE63 because the latter has more 2.5 GbE ports, is physically smaller and easier to hide, and is more future-proofed with Wi-Fi 7 technology.

We tested new Wi-Fi 7 mesh networks along with new Wi-Fi 6E sets. We tested the Asus ZenWiFi ET9, Eero Max 7, Linksys Velop Pro 7, Netgear’s Orbi 970 and Orbi 770 series, and TP-Link’s Deco BE95, BE85, BE65 Pro, and XE70 Pro. Some of these mesh networks, including the Velop Pro 7, Netgear Orbi 970, and TP-link Deco BE85 tested well, rivaling the performance of our upgrade pick, the TP-Link Deco BE63, but all three were much more expensive than the BE63 and didn’t offer enough for most people to justify spending the extra money. The others in this list either stumbled on our performance tests, were orders of magnitude more expensive, or both.

When we tested D-Link’s M30 and M60 Wi-Fi 6 mesh routers connected as two- and three-unit mesh networks, both were unable to keep up with the top pick Eero 6 and runner-up Linksys Micro Mesh 6 on the performance tests. Also while the M30 and M60 routers are compatible with each other for expandability, they aren’t backward compatible with older D-Link mesh networks we’ve looked at like the M15.

We’ve tested dozens of mesh systems for previous versions of this guide but dismissed them because they lacked features, were significantly more expensive, or lagged our picks in some way. Arris sent their Surfboard Max AX6600.

Asus models we tested included the ZenWifi Pro XT12, ZenWifi XD5, ZenWiFi XD6, ZenWiFi ET8, and ZenWiFi AX Mini (XD4).

From D-Link we tried the M15 and DIR-X1870. Google Wifi, Google Nest Wifi, and Google’s Nest Wifi Pro were easy to set up, but finished behind the Eero 6 picks, Eero Pro 6, and the Eero Pro 6E. Gryphon routers emphasize parental controls, which is useful, but the Guardian didn’t perform as well as our picks and the AX was speedy but expensive.

Linksys models included the Atlas 6, Velop Pro 6E, Velop AX4200 (MX12600), WHW0303 and WHW0103. We dismissed the Netgear Nighthawk MK62, MK83, Orbi RBK752, RBK852, RBK853, and RBKE963.

Other Synology routers we tested and dismissed include the WRX560, RT2600ac, and RT6600ax.

We tested multiple TP-Link models: the Deco AX4300 Pro, M4, M5, W2400, X20, X55, X55 Pro, X68, XE75, X90, Deco XE200, and Deco XE75 Pro. We also tested the budget Trendnet TEW-830MDR2K, Vilo 6, and Vilo Mesh Wi-Fi System.

This article was edited by Signe Brewster and Caitlin McGarry.