Just over 93% of Americans have high-speed internet at home. Given all that broadband throughput to share across computers, phones, and other devices that use Wi-Fi, 80% of US households now have a home network router of some kind. In addition, many users employ network-attached storage (NAS) devices that hold gigabytes, perhaps even terabytes, of files and media in reserve for when they’re needed, both at home and remotely.
Your router and NAS devices can make or break your home networking setup. Ideally, you set them and forget them and enjoy months or years of smooth, uninterrupted gaming, streaming, searching, and working without a hiccup. But new technology standards with better throughput, like Wi-Fi 7, provide an incentive to upgrade.
Every year, we survey you, our valued readers, about the home networking equipment that brings you the most satisfaction—whether it’s a router, NAS device, or even a broadband modem. Below, we cover the winners that keep your network running and connected to the world at large. Read on for the results.
If you’re wondering what networking equipment readers recommend for work, check out the Business Choice picks.
The Top Wi-Fi Router Brands for 2025
We’ve been asking readers about routers for home networks since 2006, when Readers’ Choice was a feature in the print version of PC Magazine. The Taiwan-based Asus shared the top spot with Apple from 2012 through 2016. Then Apple exited the game, leaving Asus our sole winner from 2017 to 2022.
For the last couple of years, TP-Link reigned supreme, though it just barely edged out Asus for its win in 2024. And now, Asus comes roaring back, triumphing across three categories of routers.
The first chart below includes the scores for every type of router, be they standalone units or part of a whole-home mesh network. Asus comes in hot with an overall satisfaction score of 9.4 out of 10, well ahead of eero, which comes in second; Google Nest, in third; and TP-Link, which surprisingly drops to fourth.
(Note: Click the arrows in our interactive charts to view various elements of our survey results.)
PCMag deputy managing editor Tom Brant handles our reviews of networking equipment. “Asus has been hit-or-miss with its latest Wi-Fi 7 and Wi-Fi 6E routers and mesh systems, but its hits have been particularly impressive, with the ZenWiFi BQ16 Pro winning an Editors’ Choice award for Best Wi-Fi 7 mesh system,” he says. “The brand also offers one of the few mesh systems designed specifically for gaming—the ROG Rapture GT6, which is also an Editors’ Choice winner.”
TP-Link’s numbers are down only slightly from last year, while Asus’s overall satisfaction went up two-fifths of a point. TP-Link’s only top score this year is for value. Perhaps recent allegations that TP-Link products pose security concerns brought the company’s scores down.
Still, TP-Link is well ahead of seven other brands in the overall list. Many of those names are internet service providers or companies that provide routers to ISPs. Such products have never scored well in our surveys, as readers don’t tend to highly rate hardware that they don’t choose themselves. Standalone routers—single devices that power Wi-Fi throughout an entire home—follow a similar pattern in our scoring. Asus goes up while TP-Link drops. Venerable names like Netgear and Linksys have overall satisfaction scores that place them in the middle of the pack. The bottom, once again, is filled by the ISPs and their suppliers.
Surprisingly, Asus, Linksys, and TP-Link standalone routers are all tied for value, with a relatively unimpressive score of 8.2. (A healthy number of Asus’s other scores come in at 9.2 or above.)
One reader hails the Asus AX 92u as the “best router I have ever owned,” adding, “the thing that impresses me the most is that I get Wi-Fi coverage throughout our house and coverage for our entire quarter-acre lot with just the router.”
If you have a larger home, mesh network systems work with two or more nodes placed strategically to blanket every room with Wi-Fi coverage and stamp out dead zones. For mesh, Asus‘s ZenWiFi line wins easily, notably jumping from 9.0 to 9.4 year-over-year for overall satisfaction.
Survey respondents are quick to hail the fact that Asus’s standalone routers also support the company’s AiMesh. That cross compatibility means any new Asus router or node you have, even its ROG gaming routers, increases the reach of the mesh network.
However, there are a few chinks in Asus’s mesh armor. It fails to earn the highest ratings for setup or ease of use (those go to eero) or value (that’s TP-Link). It ties with eero for reliability and Wi-Fi connection quality. Regardless, Asus’s 9.5 scores for mesh coverage, wireless speed, and likelihood to recommend make up for those deficits.
“The Asus ZenWifi BQ16 Pro in particular impressed us with its astonishing throughput speed,” Brant says. “The router node’s score of 2,917Mbps in the close proximity test is the fastest we’ve ever seen from any mesh system, though that record will undoubtedly fall as more Wi-Fi 7 mesh systems enter the market.”
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The Amazon-owned eero brand also saw decent score increases from last year, moving up from third place for mesh systems to second. It maintains the worst score for value, though, indicating Amazon may be pricing the devices too high. (On the other hand, the new eero 7 with Wi-Fi 7 support starts at a reasonable price for a three-node system: $349.)
TP-Link’s biggest score drop happens in the mesh chart, where it tumbles from the top of 2024’s list to the bottom of the heap. As noted above, readers say it’s the best value, although its latest system, the Deco BE25 BE5000, is $299.99 for three nodes. That’s only $50 off from eero, which scores at the bottom for value.
Which routers and mesh systems take the lead in our lab testing? See our lists of The Best Wi-Fi Routers and The Best Wi-Fi Mesh Network Systems.
The Top Broadband Modem Brands for 2025
You can easily go through life and never know the brand of your broadband modem (the unit that connects your fiber, cable, DSL, or even 5G backhaul connections to the internet). For years, select ISPs have charged many customers a monthly fee to rent a modem. Buying a modem yourself eliminates that ongoing cost.
We asked readers to rate the third-party modems they’ve purchased. Only three brands make the list this year, and the top two’s scores were so similar that it was challenging to narrow down a winner. We broke the tie by looking at the scores beyond the first decimal as well as the derived Net Promoter Score (it’s essentially a way to tell if people like a company or brand; read more about Net Promoter Scores in our Best Tech Brands story). That leads us again to Arris Surfboard as a Readers’ Choice award winner. The company also won last year.
“Love my Arris Surfboard,” says one respondent. “It’s been a beast for a while.” The words “solid” and “works” come up time and again when readers describe the brand.
Last year, Arris’s scores were well ahead of Motorola (which, a decade ago, owned the Surfboard name). This time, Moto fell just short of overtaking the incumbent.
Recommended by Our Editors
“It’s very important to check with your ISP first for compatibility before you buy a modem,” Brant warns. “Many ISPs make this easy for you, including Comcast Xfinity, whose list of compatible modems features several Arris products.”
The Top Network-Attached Storage Device Brands for 2025
Synology is on a stunning 14-year-long winning streak. It’s been the top name in NAS devices since we first started surveying in 2012.
Synology’s winning overall satisfaction score is 8.9 this year—its lowest since that first NAS survey, but it’s still ahead of the nearest competitor, QNAP, by a third of a point.
Synology’s DiskStation NAS products continue to impress our reviewers. The new Synology BeeStation, a NAS designed for personal cloud storage, earns kudos for price, capacity, and ease of use.
“While many of Synology’s business-oriented NAS devices are impressive and perform well, the NAS market overall lacks offerings for casual users who just want an alternative to cloud storage and aren’t interested in dozens of apps for specific use cases like media servers,” Brant says. “While the BeeStation didn’t earn an Editors’ Choice award, it’s still an excellent product, and we hope Synology continues releasing similar offerings.”
One survey respondent reports that they have “owned five Synology NAS units” and have “been very satisfied with all of them.” Another calls them “excellent little boxes.”
One major reader complaint, however, is that Synology’s newest NAS devices force users to buy Synology-branded drives to install if they want full compatibility. “They need to focus on drive-agnosticism again,” says one reader. Another calls the hard drive requirement “a pathetic money grab which will (has) put many people off,” while a third reports that the shift is “making me look for a new unit from another vendor.”
This helps explain Synology’s drop in satisfaction ratings. As mentioned above, the gap between that brand and the competition narrowed quite a bit from last year.
Meanwhile, NAS devices built by our readers themselves using hardware like an old PC or a Raspberry Pi, earn even higher ratings for satisfaction. (We observe similar results with self-built desktop systems each year.)
To see which NAS devices our experts recommend, read The Best NAS (Network Attached Storage) Devices.
Full Results
The PCMag Readers’ Choice survey for Home Networking Equipment was in the field from March 11 to June 2, 2025. For more information on how we conduct surveys, read our methodology.
PCMag Readers’ Choice: How Our Surveys Help You Find the Best Products
About Eric Griffith
Senior Editor, Features
