Considering that they use all off the shelf hardware, it's not surprising that it's expensive.
On top of that, their choice of CPU means that there's no hardware encryption support, which suggests that the VPN performance will be utterly slow. The fact that they claim "Vilfo is a Multi-Gigabit VPN router" makes me wonder how they can get away with it, as it's not way this thing can run any VPN at Gigabit speed. Of course, further down on the page it says "Vilfo's powerful processor enables VPN encryption speeds of 500 Mbit/s allowing you to benefit from high-speed internet while staying protected."
They also claim other routers aren't powerful enough to encrypt VPN traffic, is is a blatant lie. Yes, a lot of cheap routers might not be good at VPN, but this isn't a cheap router so...
On top of that, they're using an eight year old Wi-Fi chip, which was a middling offering even at launch and isn't even Wave2 compatible. If they'd gone with something like the 7615, they could even have gotten a chip that does dual band, dual concurrency, which would've solved their single slot dilemma. I would've expected something slightly better for $400, but at least they admit their WiFi is poor on their product page, which they shouldn't have to do.
Not a product I would touch.
Oh and it looks like the board they're using is mostly discontinued, even by the manufacturer.
With powerful Intel Core i5 Processor and 4x Intel 1GbE, Qotom Mini PC Q355G4 can be configured as a firewall, LAN or WAN router, VPN appliance, DHCP Server, DNS Server, and so on. Small, quiet, compact and cheap, running 24/7, Qotom firewall appliance is a good solution for home, office...
www.qotom.com
If only they'd gone with the Celeron J3455 version instead.
Integrated low-power Celeron processor J3455, 4 Gigabit network card, support POE, Integrated RTL8821CU wireless network card, HDMI, 3 serial ports, 4 USB, support 3G/4G module
www.qotom.net
@VSG slight typo in the review "The WiFi dongle solution is a
Mediatek 7611 chip" and it's not a dongle, it's a mini PCIe card.
MY Vilfo VPN Router Review
I use ExpressVPN. I recently got the Vilfo VPN router in November 2022. When compared with other so-called VPN consumer routers WITH QUAD-CORE CPUs(likely from broadcom) from Netgear/ASUS, this still won with it's 2013 CPU
Here is my take on the Vilfo
I was looking for a router/switch solution for VPN while using my ISP’s pretty decent router and extender as tri-band access points.
Turns out when contacting customer service at ExpressVPN their router actually tops out on average at 180 Mbps VPN & wired
.
After doing some research, I settle on taking a chance with Vilfo VPN router fyi pronounced “Wilfo”. Reviews are mixed for it in the past but In my opinion they’ve got a lot of the kinks out of their OS especially with 1.3.0 which is the version I updated to upon receiving it.
Unlike past reviews, As of November 2022, setup was smooth for me. One of the reasons I purchased this device was The fact that it supports multiple providers not just ExpressVPN. As well as the hardware
Here are some pros and cons I found with Vilfo:
PROs:
-1.4 GHz dual-core Celeron processor(designed for a laptop or mini PC)
(Note: OpenVPN is single-threaded as stated by the Vilfo (from some light research Lightway is currently single-threaded ))
-website says 16GB SSD for storage but I received 32GB SSD
-2GB of RAM
-each ethernet port has a dedicated 1 Gbit controller according to the disassembly on techpowerup
-multi-vendor support with custom OpenVPN support for those not listed
-split tunneling, grouping different devices to separate VPN or non-VPN link group(s), Port forwarding, multiple options for email notifications for events, Killswitch, utilization and bandwidth statistics , etc
-regular OS updates with roadmap and transparency on their site
-real world speed test: over OpenVPN:
251.6 Mbps from Maryland to a New Jersey ExpressVPN server to speed test server
-separate VPN server built-in allowing for more secure access anywhere back to your home network (support for windows, and Linux, and Android)
Note: for me this was a huge plus as I haven’t been hit once since using it as my Synology NAS was getting hit with hundreds of hacker attempts a year. (They do however allow you but do not recommend opening the REMOTE WAN BUT RATHER USING THE VPN SERVER which to be honest is a whole lot easier as you get local area access as if you’re in the house. Services on my Synology that gave me trouble accessing via internet now behave as if I’m locally there.
CONs:
-Only OpenVPN & Wireguard
(no Lightway at least not yet as it’s fairly new and hasn’t gained much traction)
-As mentioned even by Vilfo: Wi-Fi sucks and recommend using your old router or a better one as a access point while using this router as the gateway
-Only (3) LAN ports & (1) WAN port.
In my case I have a 10 port Cisco small business switch already
-cost $400
Likely breakdown:
The unit: $280
DHL shipping $20
1 yr Home Pro subscription $99
(I think they put the subscription in to support themselves as they update more frequently than most vendors in my opinion.)
