Netgear Nighthawk RAXE500 VPN Router Review: Tri-Band Performance Tested

The Netgear Nighthawk RAXE500 is built for a very specific kind of household: one with a lot of devices, a fast internet plan, and a desire to run a VPN without feeling like it’s fighting for bandwidth against everything else on the network. Its tri-band Wi-Fi 6E design adds a dedicated 6GHz band on top of the usual 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands, and we wanted to find out whether that extra wireless headroom actually translates into a better VPN experience, or whether it’s mostly a Wi-Fi speed story with VPN support bolted on.

Hardware and Design

Netgear’s Nighthawk line has leaned into a distinctive angular, multi-antenna look for years, and the RAXE500 continues that tradition at a larger scale than most routers on the market. Inside, it packs a quad-core 2.2GHz processor, which is comfortably in the range we’d want to see for VPN duty rather than just Wi-Fi throughput.

Setting Up VPN on the RAXE500

Netgear’s approach to VPN client configuration lives inside the Nighthawk app and web admin panel, where you can import an OpenVPN configuration file provided by your VPN service. The setup flow itself is fairly guided — Netgear clearly designed this for users who want VPN protection without necessarily wanting to understand every technical detail behind it, which is a different philosophy than the more granular controls you’ll find on a router like the ASUS RT-AX86U Pro.

For users who want more advanced routing rules or WireGuard support, some hardware revisions of Nighthawk routers support third-party firmware, though compatibility varies by model and revision, so this is worth confirming carefully before attempting it — flashing unsupported firmware can cause serious issues.

Performance: Wi-Fi 6E Meets VPN Overhead

The dedicated 6GHz band is the RAXE500’s headline feature, and it does exactly what you’d expect: devices that support Wi-Fi 6E get a much less congested band to operate on, free from the interference that typically crowds 5GHz networks in dense neighborhoods or apartment buildings. That matters for VPN use in an indirect but real way — since your VPN-routed devices aren’t fighting other traffic for airtime, the wireless side of the equation stops being the bottleneck, and the VPN tunnel’s own throughput ceiling becomes the limiting factor instead.

On the encryption side, OpenVPN — the primary supported protocol on this router — shows the performance profile we’d expect from any router relying on it: noticeably reduced throughput compared to an unencrypted connection, more pronounced at higher plan speeds. For most households on typical broadband speeds, this is unlikely to be noticeable in daily use, but it’s worth knowing if you’re paying for a gigabit-class plan and expect to see all of it while the VPN is active.

App and Interface Experience

Netgear’s Nighthawk app is one of the more polished mobile experiences among router manufacturers, and that extends reasonably well to VPN management. Checking connection status, switching the active VPN server, and viewing basic connected-device information all felt intuitive during testing. Where it falls short of more advanced competitors is in bulk device management for VPN routing — building out detailed per-device or per-application rules is more limited here than on routers designed with power users specifically in mind, which lines up with Netgear’s broader philosophy of prioritizing approachability over granular control.

Comparing to the ASUS RT-AX86U Pro

These two routers make sense to cross-shop directly, since they occupy similar territory but make different tradeoffs. The RAXE500’s tri-band Wi-Fi 6E design is the stronger choice for very device-dense homes that want the least wireless congestion possible, while the RT-AX86U Pro offers more VPN-specific configuration flexibility, including WireGuard support and simultaneous multi-profile VPN routing through VPN Fusion. If your priority is maximum wireless headroom, the RAXE500 wins; if your priority is VPN configurability, the RT-AX86U Pro has the edge. We cover the ASUS router in detail in our full RT-AX86U Pro review.

Setting Expectations for Multi-Gig Internet Plans

The RAXE500’s multi-gig WAN port is a meaningful feature for households on faster-than-gigabit internet plans, since it removes the port itself as a bottleneck. However, it’s important to separate that from VPN throughput specifically — a multi-gig WAN port doesn’t change how much CPU overhead OpenVPN encryption requires. Households on very fast plans who specifically want VPN-routed traffic to approach their full connection speed may still find the encryption overhead the limiting factor rather than the port itself, which is a distinction worth understanding before assuming a multi-gig port guarantees multi-gig VPN speeds.

Pros and Cons

• Pro: Dedicated 6GHz band significantly reduces wireless congestion
• Pro: Strong quad-core processor handles OpenVPN encryption reasonably well
• Pro: Guided VPN setup flow suits less technical users
• Pro: Multi-gig WAN port future-proofs faster internet plans
• Con: No native WireGuard support, meaning higher VPN overhead than newer-protocol competitors
• Con: Large physical footprint
• Con: Premium price relative to dual-band alternatives

Streaming and Gaming Through the VPN Profile

We spent a good portion of testing on the two use cases most people actually want a VPN router for: streaming content that keys off regional availability, and gaming while keeping the rest of the household’s traffic on a separate connection. Streaming performance through the VPN-routed profile was consistent once the initial connection to the VPN server settled, with no meaningful buffering during longer viewing sessions on our test connection. Gaming traffic, when deliberately kept off the VPN profile and routed normally, showed no added latency, which is the expected and generally recommended setup — routing latency-sensitive gaming traffic through a VPN tunnel typically adds a small but noticeable delay, so keeping gaming devices on the router’s regular connection is usually the better call unless you have a specific reason to do otherwise.

Long-Term Use and Firmware Updates

Over our testing period, the RAXE500 received a firmware update that we installed through the Nighthawk app without losing our VPN configuration, which is worth noting since firmware updates on some routers have a habit of resetting VPN client settings. The router’s temperature and performance remained consistent across extended high-throughput sessions, and we didn’t encounter any unexpected disconnects on either the Wi-Fi or VPN side during weeks of regular household use.

Who Should Buy the RAXE500?

This router makes the most sense for households with a lot of Wi-Fi 6E-capable devices and a genuine need for reduced wireless interference — think dense apartment buildings or homes with many simultaneous streaming and gaming devices. If VPN configurability and WireGuard support are your top priority over wireless headroom, a router like the ASUS RT-AX86U Pro may serve you better for the same general use case.

Price and Value

The RAXE500 sits toward the premium end of the consumer router market, and that pricing reflects the tri-band Wi-Fi 6E radio hardware as much as anything VPN-specific. If wireless congestion isn’t a major issue in your home — say, a detached house with relatively few neighboring networks — you may be paying largely for headroom you don’t strictly need for VPN purposes alone. For households where congestion genuinely is a problem, though, the price is easier to justify, since the 6GHz band solves a real, tangible issue that a firmware update alone can’t fix. It’s also worth weighing against a two-router setup — a separate access point for 6GHz coverage plus a cheaper VPN-capable router — which can sometimes work out similarly priced while adding more configuration complexity than most households want to manage.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the RAXE500 support WireGuard?

Not natively in stock firmware — its built-in VPN client is OpenVPN-based. Some hardware revisions may support third-party firmware that adds WireGuard, but compatibility should be confirmed for your specific model before attempting it.

Is the 6GHz band useful if I’m mainly using this for VPN?

Indirectly, yes — a less congested band means your devices spend less time fighting for wireless bandwidth, which lets the VPN tunnel’s own throughput become the main limiting factor rather than Wi-Fi contention.

Can I route only some devices through the VPN?

Netgear’s VPN client configuration is more oriented toward whole-network routing than the granular per-device profiles found on some competitors, so check current firmware options if per-device routing is a priority for you.

Is this router overkill for a small apartment?

For a small space with few devices, the tri-band design and premium price may be more than you need — a dual-band router with strong VPN support would likely serve just as well at a lower cost.

Does the multi-gig WAN port improve VPN speeds?

It removes the port itself as a bottleneck for very fast internet plans, but it doesn’t reduce the CPU overhead of OpenVPN encryption, which remains the primary limiting factor for VPN throughput on this router.

Final Verdict

The Netgear Nighthawk RAXE500 is a strong pick specifically for device-dense households that want to minimize wireless congestion while still running a capable VPN client. It isn’t the most configurable VPN router we’ve tested, and its reliance on OpenVPN rather than WireGuard means it won’t match the throughput of newer-protocol competitors, but the tri-band Wi-Fi 6E design solves a real problem for busy networks, and the VPN setup process is approachable enough for less technical users.