GL.iNet - Flint 3 (GL-BE9300)

GLinet Flint 3 or 2 Both are rock solid

I understand your point about core differences, but performance with vpn has drastically decreased. So I guess flint 3 has a less powerful CPU Flint 3; OpenVPN Speed Up to 142 Mbps; WireGuard® Speed Up to 644 Mbps Flint2: OpenVPN speed up to 190 Mbps; WireGuard® speed up to 900 Mbps

1. Desire to have devices tailored to my personal usage scenarios, with all the features I want, but also without inherent extra functionality that compromises security, nor restrictions that hurt the experience - got me into self-hosting. **When one can't buy what they want, making it is often the most straightforward solution - at least when it comes to computers.** **My most expensive project to date is a DIY NAS.** It started as a compact, lightweight and stealthy ARM system inside Playstation 2 case, only revealing its true nature if one looked closely at the ports in the back. However, after some time I grew disenamored with the original concept, so first moved the hardware into a standard NAS case to increase the number of spinning disks and improve their cooling, and later upgraded it to a less interesting, conventional - but also very reliable - x86 system. Of the original components, only a pair of 18TB WD HC550 drives are still in use - everything else was replaced. For this project, single most expensive item was one of the 20TB Toshiba MG10 drives. **The project I am most proud of is a DIY 802.11be router I built last week.** Wanted to build one using Qualcomm AP-grade hardware for years, but was hesitant, only having prior experience with MTK AP hardware, and overall rather limited experience in the field. My wireless router is far from perfect, but fulfills its purpose well, all while being quite compact and travel-friendly, and running latest OpenWRT and WLAN firmware giving me some peace of mind. I am very grateful to everyone who guided me and helped me out on this journey! For this project, single most expensive item is the base device - Rock 5B itself. 2. **While I love it, I also have to admit my DIY wireless router's limitations.** For starters, I used a miniPCIe WLAN card - since it was easier to source, didn't require external power and was much more affordable than its m.2 counterpart, which was also an important consideration in my first foray into 802.11be. This choice results in lower signal strength than typical high-end 802.11be routers or physically larger m.2 cards with external power, more on par with compact/travel routers. Next, I'm having trouble with MLO, one of the key 802.11be features, and have to rely on a single band until I resolve this issue. My wired network infrastructure being 2.5GBe, main WLAN clients equipped with capable BE201 & QCNCM865 802.11be adapters supporting 320MHz channel width on 6GHz band, and most important traffic being LAN to WLAN potentially saturating 2.5GBe link - there is definitely room for wireless performance improvement, particularly far from AP. **Flint 3 with its superior wireless performance would greatly improve my experience, and take my network to the next level!** Comparing my DIY implementation to Slate 7, while RK3588 has more raw power, my device is also physically larger, and requires external dongles for additional LAN interfaces. Frankly, Rock 5B with its single built-in 2.5GBe port (and 16GB RAM+256GB EMMC on the particular board) is much better suited for server duty - which it operated as before I started my 802.11be experiments. For additional peace of mind, I strongly prefer not to utilize networking appliances, particularly wireless APs & routers, in any other tasks - otherwise, instead of assembling a standalone wireless router, would just stick my wireless AP card and WWAN modem into the NAS, set up virtualized OpenWRT, and call it a day. Under the circumstances, **Slate 7 is an overall much more balanced device, and would be noticeably better in the travel router role than my DIY one.** **I'd love to win both Flint 3 and Slate 7, to cover all my usage scenarios, and return my Rock 5B currently acting as a 802.11be wireless router to server duty.** 3. I mostly read **cnx-software.com** , **r/homelab** , r/datahoarder , r/thinkpad and notebookcheck.net . Aliexpress, eBay, local online stores for purchases. 4. **I'd personally love to see giveaways of higher-end NASes and mini-PCs with extensive storage options.** Minisforum MS-A2, Aoostar WTR Max and the likes; machines, purchasing which is often hard to justify, but nevertheless spark one's imagination with their capabilities.

You can, I actually have a flint 3 that has the guest wifi under a VPN and the regular one under the normal network.

1. I have always been into messing around with computers (dad's a dev, my degree is in electrical engineering but I work as a dev). Recent years have made me want to move away from big corporate cloud solutions for various services (think degoogling, in spirit anyway), so I've started hosting things at home. Hard to say what I am most proud of, as usually that tends to be just the most recent thing. For example, I recently wrote a bash script that allows configuring wireguard connections in separate network namespaces and adding the systemd services to start those up upon boot. ProtonVPN Linux clients are lagging behind their windows counterparts, so this allows me to have split tunnelling by just using a basic wireguard setup, agnostic even of the vpn provider. Now I use this on my seedbox (sharing Linux distros, right?) and my devbox if I want to isolate a single app to just the wireguard interface. The most expensive piece of kit is probably my main devbox, which is an Intel NUC. Most homelab hardware I buy old and second hand. For example, my opnsense box cost 30 british pounds. 2. In our current place, the wifi router is a bit weak for the size of the house and the router is old, wifi 6. Extra access points could help, as could the Flint 3. Would also facilitate moving to 2.5G setup at home (currently everything except the opnsense box is 1G). 3. Google, Man pages, vendor datasheets, r/homelab, r/selfhosted, endless debates with my dad. 4. I've always been partial to custom router builds. My opnsense box is a Lenovo Thinkcentre 990 from more than 10 years ago. I would like to have something a bit more modern and less power hungry (and support for AES-NI). There seem to be a lot of these N100 and N150 boxes with multi port NICs and passive cooling just for this purpose. Something like the Protectli Vault devices, but WITHOUT pfSense. I choose the Flint 3, or alternatively the Comet (GL-RM1)

no it is, just closed source wireless drivers

All of the „Flints“ ship with „Openwrt“, just that they all are with „GL.iNet“ flavour+closed source drivers. In short, most purists on here and the forums shout that it isn't „Openwrt“, because it uses closed source software/drivers, but compared to other vendors, „GL.iNet“ allows full stock roster with „LuCI“, just that they have a lot of custom scripts.  The problem with the „Flint 3“ is that the hardware it uses, has no open-source driver alternative, so it will most likely never receive „vanilla openwrt“. The big issue with that is, it is very unlikely, that „GL.iNet“ will update the base version of the customized firmware, so it will be stuck in 23.x, and when 25.x with .apk packages starts, then problems will arise, since new packages will be incompatible.  Even now, with the „Flint 2“, more or less, the same problem, while there is an open-source alternative, which does mean „vanilla openwrt“ available, it has bugs, quite major in fact, but in my personal experience both the „vanilla“ and „custom“ have issues, just different ones. The „GL.iNet“ closed source firmware has so many custom scripts, that some of my VLAN network bridges don't seem to work, while the „vanilla“ open source, has issues with „Wi-Fi“.

Gli-net Flint 3. You’ll never buy anything else…

1. I got into self-hosting a few years ago mainly out of curiosity — I wanted to understand what really happens behind all the cloud services we use every day. It started with running a small Pi-hole instance on a Raspberry Pi, but it quickly spiraled into a full-blown homelab setup. The project I’m most proud of is my Proxmox-based cluster that runs a mix of personal services — Nextcloud, Home Assistant, and a self-hosted GitLab instance for my development work. I’ve also set up a reverse proxy with automatic SSL renewal, which was a huge learning milestone for me. The most expensive piece of gear I’ve invested in so far is a used Dell PowerEdge R720. It’s been the backbone of my setup, but it’s definitely showing its age in terms of efficiency and noise. 2. I’d love to win the Comet PoE paired with the Fingerbot add-on. I do a lot of remote testing and management, and reliable out-of-band access would be a game-changer. Having the ability to remotely control and recover devices from anywhere (especially when something inevitably locks up) would make my lab way more resilient. Alternatively, the Flint 3 looks incredible — I’ve been looking to upgrade to Wi-Fi 7 and bring faster wired connectivity to my core network. The 2.5G ports would really help with internal transfers and my NAS setup. 3. I usually browse r/homelab, ServeTheHome, and YouTube channels like Craft Computing and Lawrence Systems. For purchases, I’m often on eBay for used enterprise gear and Amazon or Newegg for newer components. I also keep an eye on vendor refurb stores and Reddit’s r/hardwareswap for deals. 4. I think a Synology NAS or TrueNAS Mini would be amazing for a future giveaway. Reliable, expandable storage is something every homelabber can appreciate, and it would complement GL.iNet’s networking gear perfectly.

flint 2 is better , flint3 seems like a down grade, i personally had the ax86u and just now use it as a node, main is axe16000 https://preview.redd.it/1pg79cu7xcvf1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8ad53ab8bca885e17aea6787c810fbc85c93254d

Prioritize a UPS and a simple NAS; KVM is nice insurance, and Flint 3 will help WireGuard speed. UPS: grab a used APC Smart-UPS or Eaton 5SC, size for 10–15 min runtime, and put modem, router, switch, NAS on it. Use NUT or apcupsd (on NAS or a Pi) to shut everything down cleanly and test a pull-the-plug every few months. NAS: if same-size drives, TrueNAS Scale with ZFS mirrors is painless to grow and fast to resilver; mixed sizes, go Unraid. Use CMR drives (Red Plus/IronWolf), schedule scrubs, and do 3-2-1 backups (rclone to Backblaze B2 or a rotating USB disk). Keep snapshots for quick “oops” recovery. Flint 3: enable WG acceleration, set MTU \~1420, persistent keepalive 25s, and only route subnets you need; Foundry will feel snappier. Remote KVM: great for BIOS/boot loops when Tailscale SSH can’t help; put it and a smart plug on the UPS, and you’ve got out-of-band plus hard power control. I’ve paired Grafana and Tailscale with DreamFactory to expose a local Postgres as locked-down REST for small internal tools. So: used line-interactive UPS + NAS you’ll actually back up, Flint 3 for WG, KVM for the rare oh-no moments.

In reality, the only device that is supported is the „ZenWiFi BT8“, „OpenWrt“ has pretty horrible support in terms of „Wi-Fi 6E“ and „Wi-Fi 7“, there is also the „Banana Pi“, but that is more like a hobby project, than a real router, more like a computer, which does work, but it's most likely not what you are looking for. There is also the „Linksys MX8500“, but it doesn't have the best support in terms of features, as „Qualcomm“ drivers. If only the „Flint 3“ was based on open-source drivers, then it would be a clear recommendation, but if you like stuck on an old „OpenWrt“ version, then the „Flint 3“ is a solid option. Having a „Wi-Fi 7“ router, rather than a „Wi-Fi 6E“ is a actually a good thing, everything gets updated in random patches, you don't go full on upgrade sprees, maybe you will drop your phone and buy a new, which will support „Wi-Fi 7“ and etc. There are very good changes in „Wi-Fi 7“, including range and speed.

I'd avoid if you have a bigger, multilevel home. Getting terrible range with flint 3 compared to previous router from t-mobile that worked everywhere in my house. Think i need to go with a mesh system, looking at the TP link deco BE63

The cpu goes from 2ghz to 1.5ghz, which has an impact on speed when using a vpn. Flint 3; OpenVPN Speed Up to 142 Mbps; WireGuard® Speed Up to 644 Mbps Flint2: OpenVPN speed up to 190 Mbps; WireGuard® speed up to 900 Mbps I hope this will have no impact on the QoS/SQM.

1 - licenses or support which "magically" triple in cost throughout the time! 2 - the flint 3 would allow me to finally ditch the router thats on its last legs 3 - purchasing wise, ebay :D as well as ebuyer 4 - no so much as from another vendor, but more a combination of items to have a scalable NAS solutions, where not only the drives but the compute can be expanded as well as expandable backplane - think lego style NAS or the blade hyperconverged environment scaled back for homelab

Gl.inet flint 2 or flint 3. Both units are capable of utilizing sqm, which will reduce bufferbloat. Flint 2 is what I mainly recommend, it's a beast.

Just look on fb marketplace and get something there. Unless you are getting Gl.inet or ubuigity stuff there is no need to drop top $$$$ on that home WiFi crap. I only seen one good recommendation given on here u/justifiers gave you the best option. The deco stuff is about to be banned in the us. The flint3 is a solid choice, I have a gl.inet travel router that is Rock solid. When you start pricing out all these so called mesh packages, you will soon find it costs the same or a little more to get ubiquity. The banana pi routers are also a good choice

glinet Flint 3 [https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-be9300/](https://www.gl-inet.com/products/gl-be9300/)

The flint 3 is definitely weaker. The 2 was able to get 900mbps over the VPN client, the flint 3 gets about 550mbps.

It does offer its own DHCP server

A major drawback to using a travel router as a permanent home router compared to normal routers is the wifi range. You'll find that the antennas of the travel routers are much smaller and lower powered than those of traditional routers meaning the range is hindered. If you live in an apartment then this may not be an issue, however if you live in a house, that could be problematic. Travel routers are meant to be used in close proximity to the connecting devices ie within a hotel room for example. So don't expect a miracle when it comes to the wifi range (compared to traditional routers). In regards to Beryl AX vs Slate AX, it would all depend on what you need. I doubt you would actually feel the difference in speed between both in the real world, but the Slate has an additional gigabit port that might be beneficial to hard wire one of your devices on your network. If you have a switch, then this advantage isn't really one to consider though. If you're really thinking about using a travel router as your permanent home router, then it's best that you think about your environment. If you live in a smaller place (studio or apartment), then it might work really well for you. If you live in a larger place with plenty of walls, then I would recommend getting another Flint. I hope this helps ??

1. What inspired you to start your selfhosting journey? Well, my self hosting started in the late 90s, with bits and pieces including a small power supply salvaged from a vendor-specific system. A Pentium 133 and a legendary Gigabyte GA-5AX, but there we go. The hard drive might’ve been 1Gb or something else similarly tiny by modern standards and I think I might’ve had 16MB sdram in it. I ran SmoothWall on it and shared a 64K isdn dialup connection on firstly a coaxial bus network and then later I had a 10Mb hub and two 10Mbps Ethernet cards over RJ45. I ran SmoothWall as I said, but I also learned my first Linux CLI and had a lil web server on it running some personal projects. No HTTPS, something that makes me cringe in modern standards! Suffice it to say, it has snowballed from there and I’ve had several generational upgrades. Always though it has been some kind of “NAS-and” server so always a network share for backups, following the 3-2 part of backup strategy before it became a term, “and” whatever else I’ve needed. At least Plex for a long time now, often a MySQL database server with multiple databases and PHPMyAdmin privately hosted for my side and hobby development projects. My current server is an Intel 12700T with 64GB ram, with unRAID as the host OS, and because we seriously outgrew our old home router (note my answer for question 2 below!!) it also currently hosts opnsense in a VM with hardware passthrough of NICs, as well as a pile of dockers doing various things from homeautomation, self-hosted media services, adguard, backup utilities, and still stuff for hobby development. But at least these days everything is HTTPS even internally using a public domain and split DNS, with Cloudflare Access authenticating my sessions over the internet through a CF Tunnel. The current iteration of my home server is the most advanced, stable, and well-documented instance I’ve had. It’s also the most expensive overall, given that I put X18 18TB drives in it and paid for unRAID, and a Plex lifetime pass! But I will always be most proud of that first SmoothWall, where it all began. It was my first server/router, and it even had a little custom wood PC case which was open but kept the parts mounted securely. 2. How would winning the unit(s) from this giveaway help you take your setup to the next level? Well, I’d definitely like to win the Flint 3. It’s got a fantastic feature set. I really wish I wasn’t co-hosting my server and router at the moment. It means it’s much much harder to do routine maintenance. Even if the router was still my old under-capacity router, I would then lose adguard-home since it’s hosted on there. I’m also on WiFi 6, and while many of my devices support 6E, my separate Omada access point is just dual band, not triple band. No MLO either. So I would definitely hope for the Flint 3, to leverage WiFi 7 as well as triple band, I would be able to run two adguard home servers for some redundancy when I need to perform server maintenance, and the 2.5Gbps ports means I can leverage the 2.5Gbps ports now in my server for extra speed there also, as well as trying to figure out how to get wires to my desktop for using the 2.5Gbps port in it too. Now that my stepson is getting older and smarter, integrating Bark in a balanced mode to both keep some restrictions in place while nonetheless giving him an appropriate amount of freedom would be another great use I would put the Flint 3 to. In the unlikely event I were to win two prizes, my second would be the Comet PoE. Surprise surprise, that would plug in primarily to my server as it’s downstairs in a cupboard and I have to stretch a 5m HDMI cable to the family TV when I need access! But of course the wireless keyboard doesn’t have strong enough signal so it’s a comedy of pacing back and forth and hoping I don’t make spelling errors and have to start over!! :D It would also be useful for plugging in to the PCs and such of friends and family when I am called on to fix things as not everyone has wifi built in and I don’t currently have a spare wifi card, making it way more complicated than it needs to be. The PoE is just an extra level of convenience that may or may not be used much, however as my current 8 port switch has POE ports it makes sense to leverage it! 3. Which channels do you most frequently use to learn about or purchase IT equipment? 99% Reddit and 1% pcpartpicker! I use the latter for price comparisons and they also allow you to select key features you want, narrowing down which items are compatible with my needs. Getting your hardware on there with the specs, and listing your own web store as a supplier for it, should help bring you some sales! 4. Looking ahead, if we were to do another giveaway, what is one product from another brand (e.g., a server, storage device or ANYTHING) that you'd love to see as a prize? Network switches with 8, 12, 16 ports where like maybe 4 total or maybe an 50/50 are PoE+ capable. Built in PSU for less cable mess. 2.5Gb ports. 5Gbp ports even? These are kinda rarer and thus more expensive but why not look at 5/2.5/1000/100 support? It can only future proof stuff. Also I have a couple of random ideas here for your product ranges, some are likely niche but why not? Routers with 6 or 8 ports, I had a 10 port Mikrotik at one point and was using 9, I had everything wired in for speed and it was great! Routers than can do PoE on a couple of ports, maybe literally 1-2 in order to keep the power supply limits still low but in the case of the Comet PoE what better than a port ready to power it? NVMe 1x port for running a caching proxy, or updates mirror etc. NOT a NAS, but a fancy cache, whether it’s got an application built in or whether it’s just some storage that can run a docker to do jobs, but ofc with whatever caveats around performance. Thanks for the opportunity and good luck everyone!

I mean, it is. It's just got closed source drivers which the main project can't ship with. But the Spitz AX started out similarly (namely it's qualcomm modem) and now has a functional stable build including that part, so...

Nah I wish I could but the way the router is aligned vs how the next room is designed is extremely awkward. I probably am going for the GL.iNet Flint 3 router though.