The Flint 2 has spent two years as the default answer to “which router should I buy for a VPN?” — cheap enough to be an easy yes, fast enough to run a whole household through WireGuard, and open enough (OpenWrt underneath) to never feel like rented hardware. Now the Flint 3 is shipping, it costs about $25 more, and the obvious question lands in our inbox weekly: upgrade, or save the money?
We’ve run both. The short version: new buyers should get the Flint 3; most Flint 2 owners should stay put. Here’s the longer version, including the one group for whom the Flint 3 is a genuinely big deal.
What actually changed
| Flint 2 (GL-MT6000) | Flint 3 (GL-BE9300) | |
|---|---|---|
| WiFi | WiFi 6, dual-band | WiFi 7, tri-band with 6 GHz |
| Rated wireless | AX6000 class | BE9300 class |
| Multi-gig ports | 2x 2.5 GbE + 4x GbE | 5x 2.5 GbE |
| WireGuard (accelerated) | ~900 Mbps | Multi-gig class |
| Firmware | OpenWrt-based, AdGuard Home | Same — identical app and features |
| Subscription | None | None |
| Typical price | ~$160 | ~$185 |
Two things are worth underlining. First, the software experience is identical — if you handed a family member either router, they couldn’t tell them apart in the app. Every feature that made the Flint 2 famous (one-tap WireGuard, policy-based routing, AdGuard Home, Tailscale support) is on both, free, forever.
Second, the hardware jump is bigger than the $25 gap suggests. Five 2.5 GbE ports means the Flint 3 has no gigabit bottleneck anywhere — WAN, LAN, NAS, access point, desktop, all multi-gig. On the Flint 2, two devices get 2.5 GbE and everything else shares gigabit ports.
The 6 GHz band matters more than the WiFi 7 badge
Marketing will sell you WiFi 7’s peak speeds; ignore that. The practical win is the 6 GHz band: a mostly-empty highway in apartment buildings where 5 GHz is a traffic jam of forty neighboring networks. In a detached house the difference is modest. In a dense building, it’s the difference between your video call surviving 8 pm or not.
That’s our first decision rule: if you live surrounded by other people’s WiFi, the Flint 3’s third band is worth the upgrade on its own. If your neighbors are trees, it isn’t.
VPN throughput: when the Flint 2 stops being enough
The Flint 2’s accelerated WireGuard tops out around 900 Mbps — which is exactly enough for the gigabit internet plans most of us have. Run a speed test through the tunnel and the router isn’t the limiting factor; your VPN provider’s server is.
The math changes on multi-gig internet. If you have (or are about to get) a 2 Gbps or faster plan and you actually want the whole line encrypted, the Flint 2 becomes the bottleneck and the Flint 3 doesn’t. That’s decision rule two: multi-gig plan + whole-home VPN = Flint 3, full stop.
For everyone on gigabit or slower, both routers deliver the same real-world VPN experience. The tunnel doesn’t get more private by having headroom.
Who should buy what
Buy the Flint 3 if:
- You’re buying your first VPN router today — the $25 premium buys years of future-proofing
- Your internet plan is above 1 Gbps, or will be during this router’s lifetime
- You live in an apartment block and need the clean 6 GHz band
- You have several wired multi-gig devices (NAS, desktop, access point)
Keep (or buy) the Flint 2 if:
- You already own one and your plan is 1 Gbps or under — the upgrade buys you almost nothing you’ll feel
- You want the cheapest serious VPN router and the ~$160 price at retailers matters
- Your home is standalone and 5 GHz is uncongested
Consider the Flint 3e if: you like everything above but want to spend less. It keeps the accelerated WireGuard and OpenWrt stack, drops the 6 GHz band, and costs around $158. For a gigabit home in a quiet RF neighborhood it’s arguably the value pick of the whole lineup — our full take is in the Flint 3e review.
The upgrade trap nobody mentions
If you do replace a Flint 2, resist the urge to start fresh. GL.iNet lets you export your configuration — VPN profiles, policy routing rules, AdGuard settings — and import it on the new box. The whole swap took us under twenty minutes, including re-pairing the two stubborn smart plugs that hate every network change on principle.
And don’t retire the Flint 2 to a drawer: flashed into access-point mode it extends your network, or it becomes an excellent travel/second-home VPN endpoint. A two-year-old Flint 2 still outclasses most new routers at its job.
Bottom line
The Flint 3 is what a sequel should be: the same beloved software on meaningfully better hardware, priced close enough that new buyers shouldn’t hesitate. But it doesn’t obsolete the Flint 2 — on a gigabit line in a normal house, the two are functionally identical, and “functionally identical for $25 less” is still a fine deal. Upgrade for the 6 GHz band or multi-gig VPN throughput; otherwise, let the Flint 2 keep doing what it’s been quietly excellent at for two years.