The fee was gotten rid of. As evident of Amazon sales page and Gryphons updated. There will be no subscription. Gryphon is a mesh system so you need to use it's meshes. Similar to any other mesh system. Extenders are lame and should be avoided anyway.
Except the XG costs much more, has a yearly renewal fee, doesn't have AI/ML IPS/IDS, doesn't have anywhere close to the level of parental control and user management (and what it has is limited and/or manual), doesn't work well (if at all) from a mobile device, doesn't use ESET, doesn't have anywhere near the wireless capability or meshing, and depending on the unit, nowhere near the throughput. That aside, they're designed for different markets anyway.
I'm aware of Sandstorm and the ML, that's malware focused, not IPS/IDS focused. Still, you are comparing a $199 device to one over double, that requires a yearly renewal and extensive configuration. (in comparison) If you want a full UTM don't be looking at a Gryphon which is really just a Layer 7 'home' UTM-lite with less configuration and hardened from hackers. But on the Gryphon's side, is wireless performance that is absolutely phenomenal and the range is fantastic.
XG home it's free to use.
Layer 7 inspection serves a good purpose, such as application level control on your network. In the case of Gryphon, if you want to add playtime limiters to Fortnite, you can do it - L7 provides granular control, but also allows the Gryphon to perform it's AI/ML work by seeing the application layer. I'm not sure what level of DPI it has, I can't SSH in to take a look, but I can ask the primary engineer. It does however provide robust ARP protection, MAC Spoofing protection, RogueAP detection and suppression. Which is quite rare in the home market right now.
I have been using Level-3 simply because I read that the servers have a good reputation with their filtering. Is this acceptable or go with the free Open DNS or another?
These early times with a new product in development are painful. I am ready to pay $10 a month, but I hope this gets sorted out fairly quickly. On the plus side, their partnership with ESET should be very good for Gryphon. I respect ESET's posture through the years and the way they have quietly funnelled security news and bulletins into the private sector without pumping fanfare into their work.
The gryphon will not protect any device connected to it running a VPN.
That's the backhaul feature. Basically this reduces weight on mesh networks by allowing a backhaul from the Gryphon to the primary router. (or through a switch) This is identical to enterprise network AP functionality, except in this case, the Gryphon is vastly more powerful than most AP's. Currently Gryphon back hauls over a dedicated 5Ghz radio, this will free up that radio for even better WiFi coverage/speed if someone backhauls from the lan ports on the back of the Gryphon.
Still undecided on the Gryphon because of VPN usage. I use a desktop VPN with kill switch. VPN NOT on router.
