The hEX S is a five port Gigabit Ethernet router for locations where wireless connectivity is not required. Compared to the hEX, the hEX S also features an SFP port and PoE output on the last port.
It is affordable, small and easy to use, but at the same time comes with a very powerful dual core 880 MHz CPU and 256 MB RAM, capable of all the advanced configurations that RouterOS supports. The device has a USB 2.0, PoE output for Ethernet port #5 and a 1.25Gbit/s SFP cage.
| Details | TP-Link Archer C2 (v3) | TP-Link Archer C5 | Tenda AC10U | RB750 | RB760iGS | hAP AC2 | RB3011 | RB4011 | CCR1009 SFP+ |
| aka | AC900 | AC1200 | AC10U | hEX | hEX S | RB-HAPAC2 | Business | Business | Business Pro |
| CPU | Qualcomm Atheros QCA9563 | MediaTek MT7620A | Realtek RTL8197FS | MMIPS MT7621A | MMIPS MT7621A | IPQ-4018 | IPQ-8064-0-519FCBGA-TR-01-0 | AL21400 | TLR4-00980CG-10CE |
| CPU nominal frequency | 750 MHz | 580 MHz | 1.0 GHz | 880 MHz | 880 MHz | 716 MHz | 1.4 GHz | 1.4 GHz | 1.2 GHz |
| CPU core count | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 9 |
| Size of RAM | 128 MB | 8 MB + 64 MB | 128 MB | 256 MB | 256 MB | 128 MB | 1 GB | 1 GB | 2 GB |
| Ethernet ports 10/100/1000 | 4 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 5 | 5 | 10 | 10 | 8 |
| SFP ports | No | No | No | No | 1 | No | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| PoE In | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| PoE Out | No | No | No | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No |
| Wifi | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | Yes | No | No | No |
| Observed max speed | 800 - 900 Mbps | 800 - 900 Mbps | 800 - 900 Mbps | 500 - 900 Mbps | 500 - 900 Mbps | 500 - 900 Mbps | 600 - 700 Mbps | 800 - 1000 Mbps | 1,000 Mbps |
| Model | Archer C2 (v3) | Archer C5 (v4) | Tenda AC10U | RB750Gr3 | RB760iGS | RBD52G-5HacD2HnD-TC | RB3011UiAS-RM | RB4011iGS+RM | CCR1009 |
| Cost (±) | R899 (incl.) | R899 (incl.) | R899 (incl.) | R855 (incl.) | R1,099 (incl.) | R999 (incl.) | R2,799 (incl.) | R3,299 (incl.) | R7,250 (incl.) |