I am upgrading my access switches, consolidating from two TP-Link (Omada compatible) 1GbE switches to a Mikrotik CRS328-24P-4S+RM switch that has four SFP+ cages for 10GbE. I have purchased 10GbE NICs' and DAC cables for my R630(Proxmox), T320(TrueNAS Scale), and Optiplex 7050 SFF(OPNsense) to form a 10GbE backbone for backups and file transfers. The rest of the network will stay at 1GbE. I have three TP-Link AP's in use now. I want to change those to another brand. MikroTik makes AP's as does Unifi. I am learning MikroTik routerOS on the switch. If I was to purchase MikroTik AP's they also utilize routerOS. Does anyone have any experience with MikroTik AP's? However I am also considering Unifi. I have read that you have to run the Unifi controller software to install and manage the Unifi AP's which I am not opposed to doing. I know that the Unifi AP's (in fact their whole ecosystem) are pretty well regarded.

@John Lohman thank you for posting this! As someone who is heavily invested in TP-Link products I have concerns. I am making the move to replace my network switches from TP-Link to Mikrotik. I will be replacing my access points sometime in 2026. I doubt I will be making a mass replacement of all my TP-Link IOT devices (mostly in wall, mains powered, smart switches). However I will do somethings to insure that they don't communicate with the cloud. I use Home Assistant for control not their app. I have never owned a TP-Link router (the source of all of the concern), I run OPNsense on a PC as my router. There is one point in this video that is not mentioned that I think needs pointing out. TP-Link USA is a separate company headquartered in the US, that they claim has no shared ownership with TP-Link China. They own Chinese manufacturing facilities but these facilities are not shared/partially owned by the Chinese company. These facilities are wholly owned by the US company. Also they claim to be moving some of their manufacturing to other countries. I believe Vietnam is the country most often mentioned. The video does point out that this class of router (consumer) is prone to security vulnerabilities and TP-Link is really no worse than other brands (Netgear) when it comes to vulnerabilities. It is just the shear numbers of TP-Link's products in use that makes this kind of thing scary. If TP-Link USA is as stated a wholly owned USA company that has no ownership ties to the Chinese TP-Link, it seems very heavy handed for the US government to "ban the sale of their products". It would seem to me that a deal could be reached where they moved all manufacturing out of China, divested themselves of the China located manufacturing facilities, thus severing all ties to China (and the alleged Chinese government control). They could continue to do business and continue to update the software of their installed base. To accomplish that would take time, lots of money, and not be a trivial exercise.

Your router has 4 x 2.5GbE RJ45 ports. So I would think you would want to stay with 2.5GbE as a minimum with your switch. With that said you might want to take a look at this review:https://www.servethehome.com/the-ultimate-cheap-2-5gbe-switch-mega-round-up-buyers-guide-qnap-netgear-hasivo-mokerlink-trendnet-zyxel-tp-link/. You mention Home Assistant monitoring capabilities. The switch is not going to monitor Home Assistant itself. If you get a managed switch it will monitor the port that your Home Assistant instance is connected to if that instance is a bare metal install and connected to this switch. An unmanaged switch will not monitor anything. All you will get with an unmanaged switch is the blinking LED's that are on either side of the RJ45 port. If you are looking for a switch that you can monitor with Home Assistant then you should look for one with a good integration. Ubiquiti has an "Official" integration. TP-Link, NetGear, D-Link, and Mikrotik have community integrations in the HACS store. I have no idea how well any of these will work. You may end up having to use SNMP, which Home Assistant as an integration for, you just need to make sure that your switch also supports SNMP, some do and some don't. You also might want to look at the used market (eBay) etc. You might find something that will meet your needs there. When buying used make sure you can determine what "Version" your switch is. TP-Link will have a switch with a part number then a version 1, 2, or 3, etc. As their software is updated a certain version may end up becoming "end of life (EOL)" meaning you won't get any more updates for that version. Other brands do the same thing, that is not just a TP-Link thing. You also might want to think about POE with your switch. If you think that IP cameras or IP phones might be in your future then POE would be real handy. Also think about the number of ports. You said you need at least (4). There are some with 8 ports that are generally desktop switches (not rack mountable).

@Tj Hoag Not a problem. Let us all know what you end up with. Also @Brandon Lee just did a blog post about upgrading your Homelab equipment which has several switches you might want to look at. I am working on pre-configuring my MikroTik switch with their routerOS. It is not for the "faint of heart". Big learning curve. But that is what this is all about learning :>)

I quickly spun up a TriliumNext Notes Docker image and it seemed to work flawlessly. I didn't setup persistent storage so I destroyed the container after logging in and taking a look around. I intend on trying again when I get a chance. However if this works it would be a game changer for me. I guess my question would be the pass through of devices. I had trouble trying to pass through USB devices to an LXC container when trying to setup a NUT server with persistent device names and keeping the correct permissions on them. When I couldn't get it to work I decided to just do it natively on the Proxmox OS.

Already done also! No issues, smooth as can be. The reboot gave me an excuse to shutdown the server and install my new (to me) 10GbE PCIe SFP+ NIC. When I restarted the new interfaces were recognized by Proxmox. Now I have to get my DAC cables (due today) and start configuring my new (to me) Mikrotik switch that has (4) SFP+ ports. :>)