Is this guide still best practice for a small home office setup
https://openwrt.org/docs/guide-user/network/wifi/relay_configuration
It seems many users are having difficulties with this setup, and a basic setup just connecting to a master router as a wifi client seems to work but may involve some performance compromise
"Best practice" is a fuzzy term and depends on the situation.
I've never been a fan of relayd and find it hard to recommend in any situation that can be handled without it. For most home or SOHO users, bridging the networks is much more robust, allows "transparent" roaming, and is easier to configure.
When VLANs aren't involved, or they are small in number, and WDS is supported by both devices, that is the simplest approach.
With multiple VLANs, bridging over greatap or using something like B.A.T.M.A.N. becomes an easier configuration, and doesn't require a dedicated SSID (and associated beacon time) for each VLAN.
I agree,
should a note be added to the guide to help inexperienced users going down that path and directing them to simpler solutions.
If you just need to join parts of you network using wireless, relayd is the most stable way and performance drop is minimal. Yes, it's not so easy to configure, but make WDS working is a kind of luck, especially if you have different hardware.
I would second the WDS option, but would also consider a Mesh 802.1s setup. This also depends if your hardware. I have successfully setup WDS links between atheros and mediatek hardware, so it doesn't have to be all the same. WDS between atheros and Broadcom (limited supported by OpenWRT) was more "luck".
Meshing between Atheros and Mediatek works for me as expected.
As for performance @T-Troll, do you have any references for me (a quick google didnt turn out much) about performance (and stability) between a relayd setup vs WDS and/or 802.1s Mesh. On the VLAN's you are probably right, but for a SoHo, how many different VLANs are we talking and in those cases, shouldn't we consider pulling some cables and use separate AP's to the different VLANs?
@drbrains The difference are both WDS and mesh utilize the same bandwidth, so they both decreased one remaining for clients. relayd don't interfere with the rest of network instead.
Of course, final choice is depends of what you need, but relayd is the best way to link to parts of network using wifi bridge, not to extend coverage - mesh/WDS is better for this.
In case you have cable between APs, 802.11r is the best solution by my experience.