OpenWRT vs GoldenOrb

[mcol2512]

I was hoping somebody could explain what the advantages are of using the GoldenOrb firmware as opposed to the OpenWRT firmware which GoldenOrb is based off of? I was under the impression that at a high level, GoldenOrb was a fork of OpenWRT which added capabilities to do USB tethering of LTE devices, however, there is documentation provided by OpenWRT itself which seems to suggest to me that this capability is provided natively.
https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/net ... .tethering

The reason I ask is that I was hoping to tether an iOS device (iPhone) and this looks to only work with OpenWRT version 19.07
https://github.com/openwrt/openwrt/comm ... b0072c6f82

GoldenORB is using version 18.06 and it is unclear to me how frequently they are integrating/testing the latest OpenWRT, so it could be a while until it is compatible. If GoldenOrb is upgrading to 19.07 in the near future then I can wait, but if not, let me know if there are any pitfalls with using OpenWRT.

[bvwelch]

I have used openwrt for a long time but am also just getting started with LTE and GoldenOrb. My take is if you just want to tether a phone, openwrt is fine -- works for me. But if you want to connect an LTE modem directly (instead of a phone), the GoldenOrb has more extensive support for various LTE modems. There are some newer GoldenOrb downloads for several routers. Here are a couple of links from my bookmarks.

[url]http://www.aturnofthenut.com/2021/02/14/rooter-goldenorb-hosting/[/url]

https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/thread/3vx1k1r3?p=914

[mcol2512]

Thanks...I re-flashed my router to move to OpenWRT and it seems to be working ok thus far. One other point of distinction is that is seems that load balancing is only available as a standard feature with GoldenOrb. It looks like it is possible to do with OpenWRT, but would require a little more technical capabilities.
https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/net ... iwan/mwan3