Review of the GLiNet AX1800 Flint Router

Review of the GLiNet AX1800 Flint Router

I recently discovered the routers from GLiNet and found the price/performance ratio very interesting. The Flint AX1800 for around 100 USD has a QuadCore CPU with 1.2 Ghz and 512 MB RAM according to the manufacturer.

OpenWRT/Luci with an additional interface from GLiNet run as software. Furthermore, the router can be used as a Wireguard client and server as well as an OpenVPN client/server ex-works. A connection to the TOR network is also possible. Additionally, the possibility of VPN rules is available, i.e. it can be freely decided which clients in the network should be connected to the VPN or not.

In my 2 week endurance test, the router was able to hold its own against my old TP-Link Archer AX6000, which cost around 300 USD. Especially surprising was the good transmission performance and stability of the WLAN. The custom DNS function with Cloudflare and NextDNS support also stands out positively. Otherwise, the router offers current standards with Wi-Fi 6, IPv6 and WPA3

Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that the entire router software can also be completely replaced with OpenSource software.

Unfortunately, there were also negative points. For example, only 394 MB of the promised 512 MB of RAM are actually available. However, the CPU seems to be a newer model than specified by the manufacturer. Nevertheless, the loss of 100 MB of working memory is very unfortunate, especially in larger networks.

The router also seems to still have some initial problems when implementing the WireGuard client function. For example, a connection seems to lead to connection problems when using IPv6 addresses or more than two IPv4 addresses as “allowed destinations”. The only remedy here is to route all IPv4 network traffic through the VPN using 0.0.0.0/0.

Unfortunately, the customer service of the official GLiNet store was neither helpful with this problem nor was a refund offered as a gesture of goodwill.

Nevertheless, I ordered a second AX1800 router because I had a special project in mind. You can read more about this project in a separate article: VPN cascades for latency improvement

5 Antworten zu “Review of the GLiNet AX1800 Flint Router”

  1. Unfortunately there is no open source software for this router. It uses a proprietary chipset which is not supported by the main OpenWRT project. At least, that was the status the last time I checked in detail. There was talk that it might never be supported. Most of GL.iNet’s other routers are supported by OpenWRT. Just a minor correction.

    Thanks for sharing your review, especially interesting to hear that it compares well against the Archer AX6000.

  2. Well, seems like things have changed since I last checked. Seems like there are now open source OpenWRT builds for the Flint. Feel free to delete this and my earlier comment.

  3. Compared to the travel version this desktop does not seem to have an internal fan? 🙁

    a few amps at 12 volts is an easier do than 4 amps at 5 volts for travel

    Why neither have PD managed power is beyond me

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