Do you have a preference for your gateway. To me they are just appliances and I can cope with UDP as I rarely see any packet loss on the backhaul. The packets are effectively encrypted via LW, so don’t need TLS. It’s down to you.
If you are just starting out, PF (UDP) that’s working is worth far more to you than messing about with Basic Station which, by no coincidence, abbreviated is BS. Getting to grips with devices is where the real learning happens. Then you can go back to BS, perhaps even on a Pi over cellular for fun & games.
@Jeff-UK and @kersing are the Gateway-Guru’s who can advise further.
But if LW is new to you, a working gateway when setting up devices is an absolute must.
I prefer a working gateway, no preference either way. UDP works well and is easy to setup but not authenticated at LNS, BasicsStation has more dependencies (certificates that might expire) and as a result is harder to setup. In my experience UDP works fine and I never feel the need to update gateways running it to BS.
I’m with Jac on this - if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. ~75% of fleet on UDP, near 20% on BS rest other…
Only ever updated 3 of my GW’s UDP to BS, though I would say ~30% of clients and collaborators now on BS, with balance shifting as proportion of older GW’s declines as more BS units deployed.