Posted: Thu May 15, 2025 17:18 Post subject: Who is the owner of DD-WRT?
Hello!
I just want to ask what or who is the owner of dd-wrt?
Is it really only 1 developer or a team behind all this?
How do you earn money and why do you do it if you dont earn money, seem to be so much effort behind everything and a full time job?
I am just curious about all this. And how can we trust you?
I dont find much about the maindeveloper when searching, not even a interview about ddwrt.
Thank you so much for everything!
Please dont missunderstand this post, I am just interested in knowing more. Is it a hobby with german discipline, a company or something else..
When I asked AI it told me this:
Quote:
...You can’t fully trust DD-WRT because its development is controlled by a single person, it lacks reproducible builds, and parts of the firmware (like proprietary Wi-Fi drivers and some binaries) are closed-source. This means users can’t verify that the downloaded firmware matches the source code or hasn’t been tampered with. There’s no formal audit process or transparent community governance.
However, DD-WRT has existed for nearly 20 years with no confirmed security scandals, and much of its code is open, widely used, and reviewed by tech-savvy users. Its long track record and community support suggest it is likely safe—but not provably so...
EDIT: Please remove this post if it is inappropriate.
Posted: Fri May 16, 2025 4:15 Post subject: Re: Who is the owner of DD-WRT?
alphaswe wrote:
I just want to ask what or who is the owner of dd-wrt?
Question answered above.
alphaswe wrote:
Is it really only 1 developer or a team behind all this?
Mostly, yes. There are contributors too.
alphaswe wrote:
How do you earn money and why do you do it if you dont earn money, seem to be so much effort behind everything and a full time job?
Almost every single commercial router uses openwrt kernels, including dd-wrt, as it all under the same umbrella.
alphaswe wrote:
I am just curious about all this. And how can we trust you?
You can download the source code and examine it for yourself. If there was something "funny" going on, it would have been exposed years ago. Of course you cannot examine the binary blobs for both broadcom and later atheros drivers, as they are closed source. Not even BrainSlayer has access to the code. You will just have to trust the chipset manufacturer I guess. That's up to you and your self testing.
alphaswe wrote:
When I asked AI it told me this:
AI is BS! The more you use it for facts you already know, the more you will realize this. _________________ - Linksys EA8500: I-Gateway, WAP/VAP 5ghz only. Features: VLANs, Samba, WG, Entware - r60xxx
- Linksys EA8500: 802.11s Secondary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz - r60xxx
- Linksys MX4300: 802.11s Primary w/VLAN Trunk over 5ghz. 2.4ghz WAP/VAP only - r60xxx
- Linksys MX4300: (WAP/VAP (7)) Multiple VLANs over single trunk port. Entware/Samba r60xxx
- Linksys MR7350: WDS Station for extended Ethernet r60xxx
- Linksys MR7500, MX8500: None in production. Just testing. r60xxx
- OSes: Fedora 40, 10 RPis (2,3,4,5), 23 ESP8266s: Straight from Amiga to Linux in '95, never having owned a Windows PC.
- Forum member #248
Joined: 08 May 2018 Posts: 16137 Location: Texas, USA
Posted: Fri May 16, 2025 5:23 Post subject:
I knew I forgot something earlier. And this page is slightly dated since Botho and Eko are not actively contributing these days, and I don't know if there's still any kind of connection to Maksat presently. Also, no mention of specific folks contributing more (in)directly to development more recently over the years.
Joined: 16 Nov 2015 Posts: 6877 Location: UK, London, just across the river..
Posted: Fri May 16, 2025 5:53 Post subject:
money money money...but how...its a million dollar question....as KP-69 noted above...DDWRT its a private company its info is available online and it also offers paid enterprise builds...for X86 or x64 PC versions...and used to offer stock firmware for certain devices...Like Linksys WRT series in the past... and some others... OpenWRT also does that for some brands...
So far, DDWRT is by far the most quickly updated and patched firmware on the market...while other router firmware's may get a security patch in time or never...as well DDWRT is read only OS so...its kind of a not that easy to be tempted on the fly while in operation mode...for comparison OpenWRT is not read only OS.. Honestly ive no idea how someone will tempt the code and not break the things around... may be AI doesn't know what is talking about...(it does happen very often)...
At last DDWRT has a nicer interface more intuitive and easy to handle...for beginners and even advanced users...currently there is lots of WIP on various levels..
I personally find it way better than the stock routers firmware that comes along with the routers...
On the negative side...as development is in a constant go sometimes there are broken builds or some inconsistent errors...related to the updated binaries and services...but in general its user dependent errors...aka 'depends on your set up'... but more often for a basic use its kind of a stable... for comparison on some devices OpenWRT sometimes can be very buggy ... and not fixed for a long time...
As well DDWRT accepts donations...so, if you want to help the developer please do so...
now 'gimme' that free beer _________________ Atheros
TP-Link WR740Nv1 ---DD-WRT 58184 WAP
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -DD-WRT 61745 Gateway/DoT,Forced DNS,Ad-Block,Firewall,x4VLAN,VPN
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -Gargoyle OS 1.15.x AP,DNS,QoS,Quotas
Qualcomm-Atheros
Netgear XR500 --DD-WRT 61824 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,Forced DNS,AP&Net Isolation,x2VLAN,Vanilla
Netgear R7800 --DD-WRT 61824 Gateway/DNSCryptv2,AD-Block,Forced DNS,AP&Net Isolation,x3VLAN,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R9000 --DD-WRT 61711 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,AP Isolation,Firewall,Forced DNS,x2VLAN,Vanilla
Dynalink DL-WRX36-DDWRT 61745
Broadcom
Netgear R7000 --DD-WRT 61745 Gateway/DNScrypt-proxy2/AD-Block,IPset Firewall,Forced DNS,x4VLAN,VPN
NOT USING 5Ghz ANYWHERE
------------------------------------------------------
Stubby DNS over TLS I DNSCrypt v2 by mac913
Joined: 18 Mar 2014 Posts: 13656 Location: Netherlands
Posted: Fri May 16, 2025 6:11 Post subject:
kernel-panic69 wrote:
The firmware is still branded with NewMedia-NET GmbH, however EmbeDD GmbH is an umbrella over DD-WRT, DD-WRT NXT, and OpenWRT.
I would not say that EmbeDD GmbH is an umbrella over OpenWRT although Felix is one of the contributors and members of the OpenWRT team.
But otherwise yes, and Sebastian was and is one of the leading developers of DDWRT but many contributed to the DDWRT code.
The main problem contributing to DDWRT is that it is very difficult to compile DDWRT yourself as they keep things very much to themself.
Some parts of the code (regarding wireless) are not even publicly available. Therefore developers have been moving to OpenWRT which is more open and developer friendly.
I do understand they keep things to themselves, just look at OpenWRT, a lot of (Chinese and Indian) manufactures just copy OpenWRT put on their skin and basically have an Operating system for free and I understand that DDWRT wants to avoid this but the consequence is that there is only one developer and OpenWRT has dozens.
DDWRT also made software for vendors (Buffalo and others) as a way to earn money and of course there are donations
You guys are amazing! Thank you for your kindly replies. Now I understand how it works much better!!
But does that mean x86 need license to be used? I was going to buy a Protectli VP2430 (N150) to install dd-wrt on it. I need about 300Mbps troughput with OpenVPN so a Mini-PC seem to be the only alternative.
Joined: 16 Nov 2015 Posts: 6877 Location: UK, London, just across the river..
Posted: Fri May 16, 2025 10:41 Post subject:
alphaswe wrote:
You guys are amazing! Thank you for your kindly replies. Now I understand how it works much better!!
But does that mean x86 need license to be used? I was going to buy a Protectli VP2430 (N150) to install dd-wrt on it. I need about 300Mbps troughput with OpenVPN so a Mini-PC seem to be the only alternative.
Thanks again you guys are great!
if you have enough money to spend on Protectli..than it wont be a problem to spend for license..its not that expensive...for annual membership and all the extras that come along..with licensed version...but...as far as performance and speed is concern as ho1Aetoo advised, some of the
new and cheap AX routers DDWRT supported those wont be able to deliver 250-300MBit over OpenVPN...but WG is faster and easier to deploy, so you may consider it...as and option and get an AX supported device with quad core 2.2 CPU.. _________________ Atheros
TP-Link WR740Nv1 ---DD-WRT 58184 WAP
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -DD-WRT 61745 Gateway/DoT,Forced DNS,Ad-Block,Firewall,x4VLAN,VPN
TP-Link WR1043NDv2 -Gargoyle OS 1.15.x AP,DNS,QoS,Quotas
Qualcomm-Atheros
Netgear XR500 --DD-WRT 61824 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,Forced DNS,AP&Net Isolation,x2VLAN,Vanilla
Netgear R7800 --DD-WRT 61824 Gateway/DNSCryptv2,AD-Block,Forced DNS,AP&Net Isolation,x3VLAN,Firewall,Vanilla
Netgear R9000 --DD-WRT 61711 Gateway/DoT,AD-Block,AP Isolation,Firewall,Forced DNS,x2VLAN,Vanilla
Dynalink DL-WRX36-DDWRT 61745
Broadcom
Netgear R7000 --DD-WRT 61745 Gateway/DNScrypt-proxy2/AD-Block,IPset Firewall,Forced DNS,x4VLAN,VPN
NOT USING 5Ghz ANYWHERE
------------------------------------------------------
Stubby DNS over TLS I DNSCrypt v2 by mac913
X86_64 just works here, nothing to complain.
I booted an old debian USB stick from my X86 mini industrial PC, "dd if of" the image on its disk and rebooted it, done.
After this I bought the licence and am quite pleased with the performance.
Also I've had multiple Linksys, ASUS, Netgear, Cisco devices and use still some of them with DD-WRT. Mostly to span a wireguard network between my siblings, parents, grandparents and me.
Development is astonishing, svn.dd-wrt.com is very informative and bugs usually don't stand a chance.
