Product Recommendation
- There is no subscription fee for all products
- A mobile phone is required to use all products
Firewalla Red
- Internet speed: less than 100 Mb
- Want a plug-and-play firewall at a budget
- You have a small network
- This unit is memory limited, will not be able to run future features that require more system resources.
Firewalla Blue
- Internet speed: greater than 100 Mb and less than 500 Mb
- Advanced power features not supported in Red (see feature comparison table)
- Region (country) level blocking
- Site to Site VPN
- Web access
- This unit is memory limited, will not be able to run future features that require more system resources.
Firewalla Blue Plus
-
The Firewalla Blue Plus is the Firewalla Blue with a slightly faster processor and 2GB of system memory. The following features are unique to the Firewalla Blue Plus
- The ability to block more regions (increased from 3 to 10)
- Simple Smart Queue to manage congestion and buffer bloat
- Docker container support
- WireGuard VPN support
Firewalla Gold
- Internet speed: 500 Mb to 1 Gb
- Want network segmentation and VLAN
- Want to control your network bandwidth usage and manage network traffic using Advanced Smart Queue
- Want a state-of-the-art router+firewall combo
- When in router mode, there are no compatibility problems
- Physically inline and can replace your main router
- Multi-WAN support for network availability
- Higher performance than the Blue with no feature limitations
- More CPU resources for customization scripts + docker containers.
- WireGuard VPN support
Learn more
Hardware and Performance Comparison
Red
|
Blue
|
Blue+
|
Gold
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Packet Processing Speed | 100 Mb | 500 Mb | 500 Mb | >3 Gb |
| Memory | 512 MB | 1024 MB | 2048 MB | 4096 MB |
| Number of Ports | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Active Protect Entries | 1000 | 10,000 | 20,000 | 40,000 |
| CPU | 32bit Quad Core ARM 1ghz | 64bit Quad Core ARM 1ghz | 64bit Quad Core ARM 1.2ghz | 64bit Quad-Core Intel 2.2ghz (AES NI) |
| VPN Encryption Speed | 28 Mb | 70 Mb | 70 Mb | 120 Mb |
| Storage | 16 GB | 16 GB | 16 GB | 32 GB |
| Console Port | None | None | None | 1 |
| Power (Watt) | ~5W | ~5W | ~7W | ~10W to 12W |
| Size | 4.5 x 4.5 x 3 cm | 4.5 x 4.5 x 3 cm | 5.4 x 5.4 x 3.4 cm | 13 x 11 x 3.4 cm |
| Weight | 1.52 oz / 43 g | 1.59 oz / 45 g | 2.15 oz / 61 g | 19.9 oz / 565 g |
| Operating Temperature | 32°F to 95°F (with airflow) | 32°F to 95°F (with airflow) | 32°F to 95°F (with airflow) | 32°F to 122°F (with airflow) |
Software Features Comparison
Red
|
Blue
|
Blue+
|
Gold
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Features | ||||
| Active Protect (up-to-date threat detection and prevention for the whole network) | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Deep Insights | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Ad Block | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Family Protect, Safe Search, Family Time/Social Hour | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Device Management | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Device Groups | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Manage Rules (Allow, Block, Domains, Categories) | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Alarms | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Content Filtering (adult, gaming, video, ...) | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Bandwidth and Monthly Data Plan Monitoring | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| VPN Server OpenVPN | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| VPN Server WireGuard | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| VPN Client | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| DNS over HTTPS | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| IPv6 | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| DDNS | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Simple & DHCP Mode | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Router Mode | ✔ | |||
| Transparent Bridge Mode | ✔ | |||
| Application Based Block | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Advanced Features | ||||
| Site to Site VPN | Client only | 1x connection |
1x connection |
10x connections |
| Geo-IP Filtering / Regional Blocking | 3 countries | 10 countries | no limit | |
Web Portal Access  |
✔ | ✔ | ✔ | |
| Target List (Rules Grouping) | |
✔ | ✔ | |
| Blocking History | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Custom or 3rd party software installation | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Inline Firewall | ✔ | |||
| Simple Smart Queue | ✔ | |||
| Advanced Smart Queue + Rate Limit | ✔ | |||
| Content Prioritization | ✔ | |||
| New Device Quarantine | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Docker Containers | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| SSH / Root Access | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| VPN Network Flows | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Router Features | ||||
| Router | ✔ | |||
|
WAN (PPPoE, Static IP, DHCP, Triple-Play, VLAN) |
✔ | |||
| Network segmentation (preset network types, inter-network traffic rules) |
✔ | |||
| VLAN | ✔ | |||
| Inbound and outbound per segment Firewall | ✔ | |||
| Policy-Based Routing | ✔ | |||
| Policy-Based Routing VPN | ✔ | ✔ | ||
| Multi-WAN Load Balancing + Failover | ✔ | |||
Disclaimer: some of the features above may be in beta, and eventually be in production mode.
Comments
10 comments
Are there any subscription fees? Or do I just buy the hardware?
No, there is no subscription fee…
You just buy the hardware and download the free mobile App.
I have Gigabit fiber to my house. I like all the features of BluePlus but don't need the enterprise capabilities of Gold.
Will the packet processing speed of Blue Plus just end up throttling my 1 Gigabit fiber? Can I get a blue plus (feature set) with Gigabit throughput?
The Blue Plus will throttle your speed to around 500mbit. This is not an artificial limit, but rather the CPU doesn't have enough power to sustaining examining packets at gigabit speed.
I really need the features of gold but our speed right now is not in the range stated. We are running at about 25-30 mbps. Will the firewalla gold work with this internet speed?
@Jason, Gold will work with any speed less or equal to gigabit.
I work from home and need good internet reliability, so I have 2 Internet providers - one via cable modem and one via dsl. I could write scripts to leverage Linux advanced networking to create an automatic active/active connection, but I'm wondering if it would be easier to drop a Gold in and be done with it. Is this something that would be fairly straightforward?
@JJ, you should get the Gold, it can do standby/failover or load balancing between two different WAN, more information here https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/articles/360051575473-Firewalla-Gold-Feature-Guide-Multi-WAN
will packet processing speed affect my internet speed? just say my internet package is 1Gbps and i buy blue which has a limit of 500Mbps packet processing speed, will it slowdown to read the packets in SME organization?
The packet processing power is the total CPU power to dig into your network. For example, if you have a blue+, and it is rated 500mbit, this means if your total bandwidth is 1gigabit, once that passes through Firewalla, it will get shaped (reduced to) 500mbit. You can stop monitoring devices to bypass firewalla monitoring, then that traffic is not shaped, it will be 1gbit.
On the Gold it is rated 3Gigabit, this means the gold can process 3 gbit of traffic in parallel. Since each port is 1gbit, the 3gbit is the aggregation of all traffic flowing (LAN to WAN, and LAN to LAN if you are segmenting)
Please sign in to leave a comment.