Help BUY: Slate vs Brume, who survive better after EOL from GL inet?

Technical Support for Routers
1

Hi~

Factors affecting my choice: EOL date, CPU, storage, popularity

Reason to buy Brume:

EOL date: Brume longer date til EOL
Slate EOL after 1 yr, Brume EOL after 2 yr… (Assume 3yr official support)

Storage: Brume 's emmc don’t have close source driver problem
Both have 16MB Nor but Slate use Nand, which the close source driver may NEVER occur in OPENwrt,
Such that after EOL, it may only live with 16MB Nor (unless u trust 3rd party).
Brume have 16MB Nor + 8GB emmc, which don’t have close source driver problem.

Reason to buy Slate:

CPU: Slate 's CPU more common among openwrt, suppose better supported.
Slate use Atheros, Brume use Armada cortex53, only handful device use them.

Popularity: Slate much more popular
Much more people use Slate, at the moment, as Brume is a new thing. More support on Slate.

Some OTHER comparison:

Brume is 2X the money (Brume 140 USD, slate 70 USD), but 5X+ more powerful:

Brume vs Slate:
CPU: 5x CPU power vs 1x (OpenVPN ~100Mbps vs ~20Mbps)
Ram: 10x vs 1x (1G vs 128MB)
Storage: both 16MB Nor, but 80x vs 1x (8GB emmc vs 128MB nand)
(wifi is 300Mbps vs 433Mbps)

(honestly brume have better Cost/Performance valuve. )

I currently use openwrt as PERIMETER router as they updated most, should more secure.
My inner router (I do double NAT) provide wifi and USB2/3 and services like BT etc.

Thank you.

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I think you have done a good comparison.

If you need better wifi, buy Slate.

If you need better performance (not wifi) buy Brume.

Do not think about EOL etc.

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I retired a tp-link WR2543ND running OPENWRT 12/13 (cannot remember) as the main router a few weeks ago, It has been running doing a great job for well over 5 years. I live in an estate of many blocks of flats in the UK, and its wireless had to combat students moving in with alwasys next generation routers from ISPs. The 24 max transmit power with OpenWRT support, enough memory to hold an openvpn connection back to work with multipel SSID, well and price were my original criteria for purchase. It has been put a year so when I got it. Finally replaced with Archer A7, so the 5GHz devices could get the benefit of less crowded air waves. Still have 2.4GHz only devices so the dual band was the reason I got this router.

So EOL is a factor, but meeting requirents, todays and what you can predict over the next 3-4 years is perhaps more important.

Simon

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Just to add, the NAND driver is not closed source, i linked you the NAND boot code in another thread. The OpenWRT guys are a team that make decisions for their project, sometimes bad (read why the LEDE project was born). If they don’t include something, others will, that is the beauty of open source.

In the AR750s, the only thing that is closed source is the GL UI (the more user friendly menu system). Luci (the more advanced menu system included with OpenWRT) is open source.

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As a general user and new to the GL-inet product. I’d look into these

1.The track record support for their product lineup.
2.The outside support, OpenWrt / LEDE.

with these two it should tell you how long the router will officially / unofficially last.

And for the Brume / Slate comparison. I’d go for the Brume because

  1. It’s much more powerful especially for OpenVPN.
  2. Its storage is much bigger.
  3. It has a longer support.

… and for the popularity, this is less concern for me because as novice as I am it looks to me like the GL-inet positions the Brume for professional / intensive use, hence a reasonable good amount of work into the firmware can be expected and it should at least outweigh the popularity.

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6

I have to say that I love them both and lucky enough to have both of them :wink:

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The most awesome and unexpected feature of the BrumeW has been the USB-C port also appears as an Ethernet connection if you happen to have it plugged into a computer or other device capable of supplying enough power for the router to operate. I wasn’t expecting this and it blew my mind because it means that I should be able to far more easily route only certain traffic from my computer over the “wired” connection while still remaining connected to a work or other wireless connection rather than having to flip back and forth between a work connection and a personal/VPN protected connection.

I’ve tested this on both a Macbook Pro and a Chromebook, and on the Chromebook I was actually just using a USB 3.0 port and not a USB-C/PD port. ChromeOS happily recognized the router as an Ethernet connection once the router had fully booted.

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So my questions is which of these are you trying to replace (if any)?

Perimeter router - “winner” = Brume as it has higher processing power for VPN, ad blocking, BT etc
Inner router - “winner”= Slate as it has dual band WiFi
Both (replace both units with 1) - “winner” = Slate as it supplies dual band Wifi, while the BrumeW is only 2.4Ghz
Do you want to run Ubuntu on" the device? “winner” = Brume
Seperate travel" router “winner” = Slate as it has dual band WiFi (MV1000 has none, MV1000W only has 2.4Ghz)

Personally EOL isn’t the most important factor to me but rather functionality and matching it. I’m sure either product isn’t going to just have support “drop dead” in 2 years time. In IT if you worry to much about EOL and new models replacing it you’ll never buy anything :slight_smile:

Heck I still have a TP-Link WDR4300 from about 7 years ago running OpenWRT , that still has it’s uses (mainly as a WISP repeater where I need stronger WiFi than my Gl.iNet devices provide).

(Sadly my original V1 WRT54G from 18 years ago hasn’t really got a use case these days :rofl:)

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wow let me update after 1 yr.

brumeW stopped sales as no more chipset, due to USA boyscott China IT?

And now GL inet come with CHINA made CPU (something like that), which is SF1200, and SFT1200 (opal).

I bought SF1200, then cant resist to buy opal…

my config now:

for internet connected intranet:

BrumeW as perimeter router, but NOTHING was installed as openwrt say this is most safe.
under brumeW there is TPLINK, with rubbish websites blocked. I cant control myself.
ALso under brumeW there will be opal (arriving next week), it will dual-use as my travel router.
At home opal is connected to a timer plugin, so i can control my internet time.

for air gapped network (protected from USA sensorship, prism project etc etc).
the SF1200 will be installed.

the SF1200 and SFT1200 are very cost effective (aka cheap price).

openwrt/GL inet routers are good.
the TP link could be replaced with another openwrt too.

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This is not the reason. Need to ask Mavell why they are not making this chipset.

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Although it is good to have a 1-to-1 comparison of Slate vs Brume, the criteria are not equally important to everyone and it really depends on which is more or less important for you.

For me, EOL and price are not so different/not so important. I originally bought a Slate GL-AR750S and it is a nice little travel router. I just bought a Brume GL-MV1000W because its CPU can process OpenVPN at much higher throughput.

I could run Wireguard for faster speeds. However, I already have a multi-year, discounted subscription to NordVpn that works well with OpenVPN, but they do not provide Wireguard configs for router clients. I do not want to have to pay again for Mullvad, Azirevpn, VPN.ac or other Wireguard service.

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