This is a list of notable custom-firmware projects for wireless routers or software distributions for PC-based routers that have been created and are maintained by people and groups other than the manufacturer of the product. Many of these will run on various brands of Linux-based devices, such as Linksys, Asus, Netgear, etc. The extent of support for (and testing on) particular hardware varies from project to project.
OpenWrt – Customizable FOSS firmware written from scratch; features a combined SquashFS/JFFS2 file system and the package manager opkg with over 3000 available packages (Linux/GPL)
Commotion Wireless – FOSS mesh networking
DD-WRT – Based on OpenWrt code, paid and free versions available
Gargoyle – A free OpenWrt-based Linux distribution for a range of Broadcom and Atheros chipset based wireless routers
LEDE – A fork of the OpenWrt project that shares many of the same goals
libreCMC – An FSF-endorsed derivation of OpenWRT with the proprietary blobs removed
Roofnet – A wireless community network project
ROOter – OpenWrt-based distribution aiming to convert a cheap router into one that supports 3G and 4G modems plus provide access to the modem to display signal and cell tower information
DebWRT – Combines the Linux kernel from OpenWrt and the package management system from Debian (Linux/GPL)
HyperWRT – Early power-boosting firmware project to stay close to the official WRT54G and WRT54GS firmware but add features such as transmit power, port triggers, scripts, telnet, etc.
Tomato – The successor to HyperWRT, features advanced QoS as well as Ajax and SVG graphs
Zeroshell – Routers and bridges with VPN, QoS, load balancing and other functionalities
FreeBSD - A free Open source operating system (BSD licenses)
zrouter – a router fimware based on FreeBSD
BSD Router Project - BSD Router project based on FreeBSD that includes Quagga and Bird.
m0n0wall - m0n0wall is built on FreeBSD and boots off of a Compact Flash or CD ROM media in under 12 MB.
pfsense - an open source firewall/router computer software distribution based on FreeBSD that can be installed on a physical computer or a virtual machine
