You brought up a few salient points about this. Making it sort of the central piece of your network in theory from a security standpoint is a good idea but at the same time it feels like it's trying to do too many things. I've gotten a little bit more aggressive with pihole and unbound but I keep trying to convince myself to buy one of these devices just to mess with it and that's a little expensive for something I might not actually use

Tempted to get one so doing some research/homework. Your video was cery helpful, thanks!

I have the Firewalla Purple and luv it! Like you, I was hesitant at first to set this in router mode since I already have a pretty expensive router that I painstakingly configured that is specific to my network needs. But it has been stated by Firewalla that if you want to take full advantage of this device, you have to set it up in router mode. I was feeling adventurous that day so I did set it up in router mode. Before doing that though, I backed up all my router and network configuration so that I can go back to how I have it set up before in case something went wrong. I only have a 400+Mbit Internet connection but I do have a 10Gbit local area speed thanks to my 10Gbit switch and 10Gbit NAS'es and PCs with 10Gbit network adapters. All the devices that needs 10Gbit speed is connected to the 10Gbit switch. Having the Firewalla Purple as router mode doesn't affect the flow of my network. I feel that it even improved it. It was even much easier to configure port forwarding on the Firewalla than on my router. It intelligently routes traffic without mistakes depending on what port is used. I now don't regret using my Firewalla Purple in router mode. My old router is now being used as an access point that also provides wifi to my network. 10Gbit works where it is needed the most--between my PCs & NAS'es. There is no slowdown to my network at all. I also get what your saying about Firewalla breaking your network like in your example if the DNS is not resolved or it is down. This is why I use multiple DNS providers. This has happened to me recently. Not because of Firewalla but the actual DNS I was using (Cloudflare) went down. I could hardly believe Cloudflare went down and broke all my browsers that is configured to use DNS over HTTPS using Cloudflare DNS servers only. My Firewalla Purple on the other hand hasn't went down yet. It might slow down at times but I find that most of the time this is due to my Internet provider than the Firewalla device.

The purple is more of a travel router.... As a travel router... it rocks. I have 2 gold models, and they are incredible.

So this product is very successful because it fills a niche. In your scenario you're running equipment that requires a LOT more setup and requires more money, of course it's not going to compete because that's not what it's designed to do. The price you pay is for having a simple device that fills the majority of home networks that provides feature sets people are looking for (such as deep packet inspection and what that allows you to do/see). Good overall critque of why it's not necessarily the device for your network, but overall does what it sets out to do :).

how very timely! I just purchased one to hopefully get around some ISP issues.

Thanks for your video on Firewalla. Not many indepth videos on this device. I'm upgrading from the Firewalla Blue plus that I connected in simple mode, to the Purple that I want to connect in router mode. I have a TP-Link Ax21 router that I'll switch to an access point. My question is when I connect the Firewalla Purple LAN side to the now TP Link access point do I connect it to the LAN or WAN of the TP Link. Much appreciate your videos! Stay well!

Cool review. You sound like Nate Bargatze.

I got the Gold plus with 2.5gigabit WAN/LAN. Its awesome combined with my 2.5 Moca and Ethernet setup. The purple is fine if you have a smaller network. I have 90 devices so it would not have worked as my main router.

Is there have any limitations on Wi-Fi devices or Lan devices (if I plugged a switch behind firewalla)

I just want one with Gig speed to put before my Orbi mesh router

is it storing data on device or sends anything to china? did you notice anything ?

Does it work between isp/modem and nvr? I know modem has a built in firewall i think but i don't think that it's robust enough.

What happens to your existing router if you use this? Can I use this as Modem > Firewalla > Netgear Router Or can you add this to your router ?

My wife and I have different ISPs. I need to have my connection provide IP info like I'm on her network. Can Firewalla do this?

If you need more gigabit support then you must try firewalla gold.

Can i still use the VPN function while it’s in Simple / Dhcp mode?

Hackers love my wifi.. would this help in protecting it?