It wasn’t too long ago that Wi-Fi 6 was the hottest new wireless standard on the market. While it’s been dethroned by Wi-Fi 7, Wi-Fi 6 routers still hit the sweet spot of price and performance for most people. Most new devices aren’t compatible with Wi-Fi 7 anyway, so buying a Wi-Fi 7 router now would largely be a bet on the future. Wi-Fi 6, on the other hand, is compatible with almost every newer device, like the Apple TV 4K and the PlayStation 5 console.

Wi-Fi 6 devices like those are backward compatible with older routers, but if you want to unlock their full potential for faster, better Wi-Fi performance, you’ll need a Wi-Fi 6 router running your home network. That was an expensive proposition back when Wi-Fi 6 first arrived but not anymore. Now, shopping around, you’ll find a good number of Wi-Fi 6 options available for less than $100, as well as mesh systems, gaming routers and more.

Best value: TP-Link Archer AX21

When a router supports Wi-Fi 6, that means that it’s capable of using features like OFDMA and 1024-QAM to deliver faster speeds and lower latency to busy networks with lots of connected devices. That’s true even with the budget-priced value picks — and among those, the one that performs the best is the TP-Link Archer AX21.

The Archer AX21 did an outstanding job in our at-home speed tests. At the end of multiple days of tests across five spots in my house, the Archer AX21’s average download speed on a 300Mbps fiber network was a near-perfect 299Mbps. That includes triple-digit download speeds in the very back of my house, a common dead zone where a lot of the routers we test struggle to stay connected at all. We retested the AX21 after upgrading our home network to gigabit speeds — it isn’t powerful enough to top out a connection like that, but it still delivered fast, consistent speeds, with downloads averaging at 441Mbps.

That level of performance was strong enough for the Archer AX21 to beat out similar models from Netgear, Asus and D-Link, and it even kept the pace with fancier routers that cost significantly more. It’s also a cinch to set up, thanks to TP-Link’s Tether app for Android and iOS, which also offers quick access to basic network settings without bombarding you with ads like some other router apps will.

All of that makes the Archer AX21 an extremely worthy pick for small- to medium-size homes, and one of the best value picks you’ll find that supports Wi-Fi 6.

Best mesh system: TP-Link Deco W7200

This was a very good year for TP-Link, and it wasn’t just because of the Archer AX21. There’s also the TP-Link Deco W7200, which cruised through our speed tests to earn a spot as our top-rated mesh router of the year. With multiple devices working like a team of routers to spread a faster, more reliable signal across a larger area than a single router can, it’s a fantastic pick for large homes — and one that won’t set you back very much.

What’s great about the Deco W7200, along with its full support for Wi-Fi 6, is that it’s a tri-band model with the usual 2.4 and 5GHz bands plus an additional 5GHz band that the system uses as a dedicated wireless backhaul connection between the main router and its satellites. That dedicated backhaul is the key to unlocking the best mesh performance because it keeps those system transmissions separate from your regular network traffic. Tri-band mesh routers like those will often cost you $300 or more, but the Deco W7200 gets you there for around $200.

Sure enough, the performance was outstanding when we tested the system out. In fact, of all of the mesh routers that we’ve tested at home, only two averaged faster download speeds — the first costs $200 more than the Deco W7200, and the other costs more than three times as much. That makes the Deco W7200 a flat-out unbeatable value and a better, more noticeable upgrade for most homes than splurging on a high-powered standard router.

Best gaming router: Asus RT-AX86U

Asus is one of the top names in the gaming router category, boasting the best variety of fast, flashy routers that promise elite performance, low latency and advanced controls for your connection. The Asus RT-AX86U is actually one of the more understated routers in that mix — it doesn’t include color-changing lights or an oversized, ostentatious design — but it’s still one of the best gaming routers you can buy. Gaming aside, it’s one of the best Wi-Fi 6 routers you can buy, period.

Along with offering fast, consistent speeds, the RT-AX86U did a better job at managing latency than any other router we tested it against, and it comes with a full suite of tools for optimizing your connection while gaming, including an adaptive quality-of-service engine and an Open NAT database of game- and platform-specific port forwarding rules. There’s even a Mobile Game Mode designed to instantly prioritize traffic to your phone.

In other words, the RT-AX86U checks all of the boxes you’d want from a gaming router (except the color-changing lights others in this space come with — though you can get it Zaku-styled if you’re willing to spend a little more). Most importantly, it makes strong enough use of Wi-Fi 6 to ensure that even the nongamers in your household will appreciate having it around.

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