Firewalla Purple review

Firewalla Purple is a small firewall box managed through a smartphone app. It runs Firewalla OS on a 6-core 64-bit ARM processor with 2048 MB of memory. It was released in February 2022. The manufacturer's page now says Purple sales are paused because of a DDR4 and eMMC shortage, and it points buyers to the Firewalla Orange. Check availability before you plan around it.

Firewalla lists 1 Gbps of software packet processing. It does not publish a separate IPS figure, so the research cannot say what speed holds with inspection switched on. That matters if you want to judge it against a gigabit line with every protection enabled.

The VPN figures are listed separately: 500 Mbps for WireGuard and 120 Mbps for OpenVPN. The WireGuard figure is half the packet processing figure, and the OpenVPN figure is lower again. If you want remote access at close to full line speed, WireGuard is the better fit on these numbers. Site-to-site VPN is limited to one connection.

The box has two 1 Gbit Ethernet ports, one for LAN and one for WAN, plus a USB-C port for power. No 2.5GbE or SFP/SFP+ port is listed. With gigabit ports and a 1 Gbps packet processing figure, it is built around a gigabit connection and does not list anything faster.

VLAN support goes up to 5 networks. That is enough to separate a few groups of devices, but it is a fixed ceiling. Geo-IP filtering covers 10 countries.

Purple also has built-in short-range Wi-Fi with a WISP or secondary-WAN mode. Owner feedback on this is thin and negative: two comments from one aggregator page complain about weak Wi-Fi range. The manufacturer itself describes the Wi-Fi as short distance, so treat it as a backup or secondary-WAN option rather than your main access point.

Everything is managed through the Firewalla app. Owner opinion is mixed. Some call the app friendly but the product complicated, and one theme is that you need VLAN knowledge to use the more advanced features. A single Reddit comment called the app unresponsive, which is too little to call a pattern.

The research lists WireGuard, OpenVPN, VLANs and Geo-IP filtering. It does not detail reporting or IDS/IPS features, so check the product page for those before buying. Firewalla OS is the vendor's own software, so you are working inside the app's feature set.

The research includes no data on firmware update frequency or published security advisories. That leaves nothing to judge here either way. Look at Firewalla's own release notes and advisories before you commit.

Standard features carry no monthly fee. The manufacturer says paid apps for pro or business users may come later, without saying what they would cover. Owners praise the lack of a subscription requirement and the low power use.

The power supply needs care. Purple takes USB-C power and requires 5V 3A. One community thread traced random reboots to a faulty adapter, and another discussed alternative adapters. Owners are sensitive to this, so use a supply that meets the stated rating.

With gigabit-only ports, one site-to-site VPN connection and up to 5 VLANs, Purple suits a home or small office with a modest network layout. The no-subscription model and low power use will appeal to homelabbers who want to avoid recurring costs. If you want multi-gig ports, a published IPS throughput figure or a broader VLAN count, the listed specifications do not cover them. Sales being paused is the practical hurdle to resolve first.