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Have you considered making your own firewall running opnsense? You could toss in a 10g nic or two

Flat out, I will never buy another item from QNAP. Ever. Their "support" is a joke, and their only fix for hardware that doesn't work on "supported" OS due to old firmware is to return it and hope to get a new one with a new firmware that actually works. Like, WTF? And "supported" here means they have some old, janky, partially functional Linux app that ran on an Ubuntu desktop once upon a time. No headless system support for a server attached product. And really, they want you running it on a Windows desktop.

Beyond that, the physical hardware itself was super generic gear. I was unimpressed with paying a premium after friends all recommended QNAP, and I got what was basically a child's toy that they didn't expect a professional to be using.

As for multi-gig router, if you're doing dynamic, addressing and masquerading then I can recommend the unified dream machine pro. The second edition is more capable, and has a faster backplane between the 10 gig land and land ports and the one gig ports. The original dream machine pro that I have does not have that feature, and it's sorely missed.

If you need to do any complex routing, or static addressing then things get a little more wonky. Wonky. Very obviously does not expect this device to be a real router, but rather than that and masquerade gateway for a small business office. It totally works, and I've had mine for a few years now, but it's just something to be aware of.

Mikrotik also makes a 10g router device, as do a couple other companies. They'll expect you to be a bit more experienced, though. I'm not sure what your skill level is, but they are options at least.

Edit: you want an sfp+, btw. An sfp only does 1gbit, an sfp+ does 10gbit, and qsfp does 25+ gbit. https://www.black-box.eu/en-int/page/45646/Resources/technical/Black-Box-Explains/lan/SFP-vs-QSFP-What-s-the-difference

Using a Unifi Dream Machine Pro here. I have it connected to Xfinity with an SFP. Works great. I wouldn't trust TP-Link, they seem to have quality control issues. Never used QNAP before.

SFP is pretty straightforward. Most of the SFP modules you can buy you just connect and they work. For something like that, you would be doing fiber to ethernet hand off at a switch. Then you have pretty much everything run to the switch including router and just VLAN isolate. It's not super complicated, but if you never messed with VLANs it might be better to go with something pre-packaged unless you're up for learning.

You could also do a DIY router and run a multi-gig SFP+ network card over PCIe. You still have to purchase a separate SFP module for that, but that is another option.

I can't help with the 2 options you presented, but if you're interested in an sfp+ router, I've used the DEC2750/DEC750 from OPNsense as a directly fiber connected router for Comcast Gigabit Pro 2Gig fiber for several years. It's super capable, you'll have an enormous state table to accommodate tons of P2P connections for torrenting, and you'll be able to enable loads of plugins, VPN connections, IDS, etc without the CPU breaking a sweat.

My research steered me away from the QNAP on throughput issues. I really wanted a Dream Machine Pro, but they we're out of my price range.

I ended up getting an Asus RT-AX89X and a 10G SFP+ card and am pretty impressed. I saw one used recently <$200. I get about 2.3G down, 3.5G up with the various IPS/IDS programs running.

The TP-Link wasn't really an option when I upgraded. Nothing against it, but $500 is high. Would choose a DMP over that on price alone.

As for the ONT, the end of the fiber internet and beginning of your local connection, you can't really bypass those and run fiber straight to a router. The boxes are full of ISP-based settings and network changes. Removing that box could leave your device out of compliance with the ISP's network and nonfunctional. Until other ONT/SFP+ cards are certified, you have to use the box for now. Good news though, a loooot more home routers have SFP+ and there is demand so I foresee that as a future possibility.

If I was going to do this today, I would probably get a GoWin R86S-N with the N100 or N305 cpu (since the 10G Fiber Jack has a 10GbE port, this should be fine. The NICs on this device can't negotiate 2.5Gb or 5Gb links) and set it up with OPNSense. Since you're not going to saturate the 10Gb links, you should be fine for most networking tasks. For wifi, I'd probably get the TP-Link Deco XE75 Pro.

My info may be outdated as I last had G Fiber about a year ago but have moved out of their service area so stuck with AT&T fiber along with their horrible modem+router :(

When I first got the 2G down/1G up G Fiber service there was no bridge mode & had to use their provided device as modem+router+wifi. They updated it to add in a bridge mode option but I never tested it. I had dropped back down to 1G down & up before that option was available.

edit: forgot to mention I had read some people had luck using Unifi Dream Machine to plug in G Fiber's 2.5G SFP looking module but I wasn't willing to spend any more money on anything Unifi besides WiFi APs.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 5 acronyms.

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