>One of the usual complaints about MikroTik has been its complex ui/configuration. In a sense, I don’t know if that’s true inasmuch as networking is complicated in itself

Really? Its standard point and click engineer stuff. The biggest issues with Mikrotik are the features not implemented in the gui, or the way config is interpreted between versions. Also the term of hardware support, and generally flaky code in general.

>The point I’m trying to make is yeah, networking can just be hard. I’ve been half-networking, amateur-ishly, for a while now - setting up networks for friends and friends’ offices, making cables, patching small panels etc. I almost certainly couldn’t pass an official “Certified Routing Engineer” cert - well, not without studying a lot (believe in yourself).

Ok so just a hobbyist perspective.

It seems like this article is just "Point an LLM at your mikrotik api, have fun"?

▲

leoedin 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

My issue with Mikrotik is that the UI puts all the complexity up front. A good UI should guide the user and reveal relevant information only as it's needed. Mikrotik doesn't do that.

For example, the most common reason I want to connect to my home router is to see what devices are connected, what their IP addresses are, and perhaps make their DHCP leases static. In a good UI that sort of common activity would be front and centre - in MikroTik it's buried under 3 levels of menu.

Under the IP menu is 26 alphabetically sorted options, of which I have to click "DHCP Server". Then the default page is to create a new DHCP server - why would I want to do that? How many users run multiple DHCP servers? I have to click on the "Leases" tab, and then I can see a list of my connected devices.

Every other home router I've used knows that users care about the connected devices, so show it front and centre.

	▲	protocolture 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Hang on still angry at this: >A good UI should guide the user and reveal relevant information only as it's needed. Ok so 99.99995% of all Mikrotik RouterOS devices do not end up in peoples labs. Even the devices that are homeish in capability are mostly deployed into apartment buildings as NTD's and managed via API/Ansible not by the occupant. The cheaper routerboards, like the 2000 series, are almost entirely eaten by Wisps. When you configure a new RouterOS device the use case is non obvious. It might be an edge router that needs BGP to be stood up first. It might be a tower router that needs only OSPF, or full stack BGP/OSPF/MPLS. Maybe its going in a data center to terminate a bunch of VPLS tunnels or VPNs. It might be an NTD/NTU or it might be a bodgy relay. I had a customer that would deploy small form routerboards as ethernet regenerators when doing really dodgy cabling. You are not the target customer. Its cool and good that as a hobby you dipped your toes in. But its a very long stretch to turn around and complain that the interface isn't good enough because it doesn't hold your hand the way you would like it to. Mikrotik offers training and certification for people who cant work it out. This is the networking version of raising a fault with the linux kernel because you don't want to compile it, you just want the exe. And no, theres not a potential solution in Mikrotik having a separate code base for non technical people. They cant manage the code they already have. "Its coming in ROS7" was a meme for the better part of a decade. We are almost completely done with "This feature doesnt work on this CPU" which plagued them for ages. Asking RouterOS to be more like DLink or whatever it is you are more comfortable with is insane and I hope fervently you never encounter JunOS which is the absolute godlike gold standard but will likewise not hold your hand to help you setup your DHCP config.
	▲	protocolture 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		>For example, the most common reason I want to connect to my home router is to see what devices are connected, what their IP addresses are, and perhaps make their DHCP leases static. You sound like a Windows user who just found his way into Active Directory. >in MikroTik it's buried under 3 levels of menu. Its buried 3 levels deep in a hierarchy, the hierarchy you need to learn to operate the system. Quickset is Mikrotiks concession to "Oh wow some users at home are operating these tools". But the tools aren't aimed at home users. >Then the default page is to create a new DHCP server - why would I want to do that? How many users run multiple DHCP servers? Me for one haha. >Every other home router. Right I think this is your problem right here. "Every apple I have ever eaten I could bite through the skin" is a weird criticism of an orange. The mikrotik gui is an abstraction of the CLI. Its really good that way so when you are recovering a mikrotik at a remote site you dont need to think too hard about where IP/DHCP Server is from the command line even if you are a gui native.

▲

szszrk 19 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> Really? Its standard point and click engineer stuff.

Really. UI is easy. CLI is easy. But system exposes everything to you. It doesn't hide any complexity. So you need to actually know what you are doing, as happily clicking randomly won't produce any reasonable result.

> Ok so just a hobbyist perspective.

No need to diminish those experiences. That's how most of us got into the job. And enterprise experience ain't exactly a guarantee of wide knowledge.

	▲	protocolture 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>I is easy. CLI is easy. But system exposes everything to you Yeah like I said, ENGINEER. >No need to diminish those experiences. Yeah but it certainly diminishes the criticism.