About NetSteer

NetSteer is an OpenWrt application that combines the pieces home-network tuning is usually missing — SQM (CAKE) latency shaping, RPS multi-core packet steering, Fullcone NAT passthrough, and AI-assisted scenario detection — in one toggle. This site is its free bufferbloat test and its guide library.

How we test

Every number on this site comes from a real test bench, not from marketing copy: a NanoPi R5C (4× Cortex-A55, RK3568) running NetSteer v1.19.3 on OpenWrt, on a 1000 Mbit/s down / 50 Mbit/s up line, under a sustained 16-thread load for 30 seconds, run twice and averaged. The tool on this page measures the same thing you can run yourself — idle round-trip time versus round-trip time under saturation — which is the textbook definition of bufferbloat.

Our own measurements (full bench in what is bufferbloat): loaded latency 58.6 ms → 7.8 ms after enabling SQM, p99 108 ms → 14 ms, 20-stream throughput +17%. If you do not trust one site's numbers, run the test on your own network — it takes under a minute.

Who writes here

The guides are written and maintained by the NetSteer project (pm-parker), an OpenWrt user running the app on their own home router — including an OpenWrt main router with dnsmasq, the exact setup most readers have. When we do not know something for certain, we say so instead of guessing.

What we are not

Not a router manufacturer, not an ISP, and not a hosting review site. We sell nothing directly; where we earn money it is via the router comparison (Amazon Associates links, clearly marked), and we only recommend hardware that has been tested with SQM on real CAKE numbers.