This! Having been down the home-rolled router rathole several times with PFSense etc, you often need a vastly more powerful generic CPU to match the performance of the dedicated NPUs in even entry-level dedicated networking gear, something I don't think people starting out at this often realize. This is why Ubiquiti and co get away with seemingly absurdly low RAM/CPU specs on devices like the Dream Machines etc.
I'd also remind anyone considering this that your family will probably not thank you for any outages you introduce to their browsing. My LAN is something that has to "just work" all the time and home-brew solutions will often require you to do more update/maintenance tasks than an off the shelf Mikrotik/Ubiquiti/<enterprise style vendor> solution.
You can still add neat features to your network like VPNs, PiHole, encrypted DNS, etc etc without replacing the core router or switch - I use a device much like this Banana Pi to run those services in some containers alongside my <enterprise style vendor> router/switch- I get all the cool new features I want; family get an internet connection that's always on and "just works" thanks to me not having to maintain the core router.
I'd also remind anyone considering this that your family will probably not thank you for any outages you introduce to their browsing. My LAN is something that has to "just work" all the time and home-brew solutions will often require you to do more update/maintenance tasks than an off the shelf Mikrotik/Ubiquiti/<enterprise style vendor> solution.
You can still add neat features to your network like VPNs, PiHole, encrypted DNS, etc etc without replacing the core router or switch - I use a device much like this Banana Pi to run those services in some containers alongside my <enterprise style vendor> router/switch- I get all the cool new features I want; family get an internet connection that's always on and "just works" thanks to me not having to maintain the core router.