It seems like AstroWarp could potentially be a lot more expensive to run. How is AstroWarp different from those services? Is it as private and secure? What about anonymity?
Hello,
These services are all for networking. AW is a native feature of the GL firmware. Compared with other services, AW’s pairing and binding are more convenient, letting users quickly complete connection and network setup with fewer steps.
It is also secure, by networking through AmneziaWG protocol, I think it can be even safer and more stable in certain regions. Also anonymity.
I know I'm probably asking in the wrong forum as you're probably biased, but AstroWarp is quite expensive, especially if I want unlimited bandwidth. Unless I'm mistaken, both Tailscale and Netbird are free if I host them myself. Why is AW so expensive? How is it more private and maybe even more secure? The marketing makes AW look very easy to set up though.
You might think we are the GL technical support team, and that may seem biased. But we are also users of AW ourselves and actively raise feature requests with the PM team.
It may seem a bit expensive, as there are some costs for server resources.
As mentioned above, with better networking using the AmneziaWG protocol for networking, and by using exit nodes after the network is set up, speed and stability may better (Depending on local network conditions).
There are free given 10 GB traffic for experience, so you don’t need to buy a plan if you did not satisfy.
If you think anything needs improvement, please feel free to let us know. Thanks!
Is Zerotier free? How does AW’s pricing compare to it?
Obviously, I want the cheapest and ideally free solution. I don't see many reviews of AW. The free tier isn't going to get a lot of people into AW. 10GB isn't going to be anywhere near enough except for the most basic usage. Ubiquiti has a similar SD-WAN solution and that's also free.
Are the servers really that expensive to operate? I'd love to get a detailed response as to how AW is better and the justification for US$40/month for unlimited bandwidth.
ZT is free, and Tailscale is as well. But keep in mind: if a product is free, you are the product.
AW is an SD-WAN solution. That's something Tailscale and ZT can't do on the router right now.
AW is easier to manage than ZT/TS, especially when it comes to special routes.
If the product has a price, you can also be the product… That’s even worse, because you are paying to be the product 
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I get that nothing in life is free, but US$40/month for unlimited is a lot of money. Are you using that plan?
Are you suggesting that NB and ZT are collecting and selling data of their users?
So after all of these posts and also the lack of reviews, I still don't understand how AW is better. Of course, if it's worth the money, let's hear why. GL.iNet needs to give people a reason to subscribe to their service. I haven't seen one yet. If I missed it, please remind me again.
Just give it a try and then think about it?
Since AstroWarp is a totally closed source project, how do we know that GL iNet is not using our data or metadata? There is zero transparency. We are putting our trust in a small Hong Kong based company. We don’t know where their servers are, and we don’t know what they are doing with our data. This is a company that has had issues with reliability of their other services, such as DDNS.
I would recommend that anyone with the technical ability to choose an open source solution. There are far less expensive options that are far more transparent.
I wish GL iNet would use their software resources to fix and improve their router firmware, and not focus on closed source paid services.
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100%! Furthermore, I cannot obtain a clear, detailed answer, and I don't understand why. I'm just being asked to try it out. Sure, I can do that, but I also want to hear from the users here what makes AW so good over NB, which is open-sourced. Am I saying NB is better? No. I am still learning at the moment and I'm reserving my opinion until I have all the facts. I'm surprised there aren't detailed reviews about AW. If AW is worth it, people will pay for it just like with GL.iNet’s routers.
AW is easier to use and better handled on GL devices. The management interface is easier.
And it's an SD-WAN solution; none of the other services is one.
What else do you need to know?
I hear your concerns about transparency, but there’s a bit of irony in using the stock firmware while calling a specific feature like AstroWarp 'untrustworthy.' If you don't trust the company’s closed-source cloud service, it’s logically inconsistent to trust the closed-source binaries and kernels running the entire router.
Regarding the open-source argument, availability of code does not equal security. Most users aren't auditing thousands of lines of C or Go; they are simply shifting their trust from a corporation to a group of volunteer maintainers.
And about GL: Their incentive is to sell routers. If they burn their reputation on a privacy scandal, their core business dies. And they are not small anymore 
Afaik there are >300 people working for them.
With their router, I can isolate it and do packet sniffing, which is how I learned they were pinging 8.8.8.8 as part of their port fail-over, and calling home for update info. With AstroWarp everything is encrypted, so packet sniffing tells you nothing. If the encryption is solid, anything can be hidden inside it.
I agree that most people do not audit open source code, but many researchers and graduate students do, and that is exactly why open source projects get real scrutiny.
At 300+ people, they are still small, and just a rounding error when compared to the number of employees at places like Cisco, ASUS, or TP-Link. They do not have sufficient resources to keep their firmware promises to their current customer base, without taking on new projects like AstroWarp, as shown in this recent reply by @will.qiu Will GL-A1300 get firmware 4.7? - #5 by will.qiu
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