MikroTik Cloud Hosted Router (CHR) review
A perpetual-license virtual RouterOS with extensive routing, VPN, firewall and cloud options.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
MikroTik Cloud Hosted Router (CHR) is a virtualized edition of RouterOS for x86-64 virtual machines. It brings routing, firewall, VPN and network-management capabilities to local or cloud deployments, with images for common hypervisors and cloud environments. CHR suits small teams, mid-market organizations and enterprises that want a software router they can run on their own virtual infrastructure rather than dedicated hardware.
Its perpetual licensing model keeps the plan structure straightforward. The Free plan runs indefinitely but limits upload to 1 Mbps per interface. P1 costs $45 one time and raises upload to 1 Gbps per interface, while P10 costs $95 one time for 10 Gbps per interface. P-Unlimited costs $250 one time and removes the speed limit. Paid licenses are perpetual and transferable, and the product includes 60-day trials. This makes the lower tiers suitable for cost-sensitive deployments, while higher tiers target workloads requiring more interface throughput.
CHR supports VMware, Hyper-V, VirtualBox, KVM and Xen, and MikroTik supplies RAW, VMDK, VHDX and VDI images. Cloud deployment guidance covers AWS, Hetzner Cloud, Linode, Google Compute Engine and Vultr. Routing options include RIP, OSPF, BGP, RIPng, OSPFv3, BFD, VRF, policy-based routing and ECMP; VPN support includes IPsec, IKEv2, OpenVPN, WireGuard and additional tunnel protocols. VRRP enables redundancy and failover configurations. Choose CHR if you need extensive RouterOS capabilities in a virtual machine and prefer one-time licensing. Teams seeking a non-virtual appliance or a free tier without throughput limits should consider alternatives.
MikroTik Cloud Hosted Router (CHR) pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Supports static, VRF, policy-based, ECMP and dynamic routing
- Includes IPsec, WireGuard, OpenVPN and other tunnel protocols
- Runs on major hypervisors and documented cloud environments
- Where it doesn't
- Free tier limits upload to 1 Mbps per interface
- Deployment requires importing or launching a virtual machine image
- Throughput depends on the selected speed tier and license
MikroTik Cloud Hosted Router (CHR) fact sheet, pricing and score →
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