Festa FR365, AX3000 WiFi 6 VPN Router

I've had Xfinity home internet service for years. It's really the only option where I live in Florida. Hurricane Milton knocked out internet service for a few days. With my work, I really need internet access all the time. So, I purchased StarLink service as a backup provider. I original purchased the TP-Link Festa FR205, but the download/upload internet performance was really bad especially when I added my own wireless network router to the configuration. Anyway, I returned that and purchased the FR365 AX3000. Night and day difference! The FR365 AX3000 rocks! Great performance! I use the WAN load balancing feature (without enabling Application Optimized Routing) and the thruput is fantastic. Native Xfinity provides around 250Mbps and Starlink provides between 50-150Mbps. When used with WAN load balancing, I lose about 10-20%. The FR205 was totally horrible. I could only get about 50-75Mbps. I used client side VPN (SurfShark) and that reduced the thruput about 50%. That is acceptable to me. I haven't tried the embedded VPN option on the FR365 AX3000. When I do, hopefully I can update this review. I also replaced my aging mesh network with the Wireless LAN capability in the FR365 AX3000. This product has a longer range than my old mesh network. So, its a win-win. I hope my experience helps you with make a knowledgeable decision with your use case.

Out of the box, the FR365 has almost no features. To use even the most basic of networking functions, such as a firewall, you have to register to use the Festa Cloud site, where you will need to figure out the differences between a controller, a site, and a device. Then you get to hope like hell that when you get everything apparently set up correctly, the "Festa Controller" and the router itself will cooperate. They won't. Each will attempt to override the other's settings, and once one of them "grabs" the right to handle configuration, the other will be locked out. Either you will be told via the Festa Controller that your device has been "preconfigured", so you have to manage it thru the device's own web interface, or your device's web interface will tell you that you cannot log into the device itself because it is being managed by the Festa Controller (which you won't be able to log back into). The device's own web interface offers almost no controls: you can create WiFi networks and set up DHCP, and that's about it, which belies TP-Link's claim that you can use it as a standalone device without having to use the Festa Controller interface. Without even having a firewall to configure, or being able to give your own names to the clients in your DHCP list? Hard to believe that the Asus RT-AX55 that I thought I was upgrading from actually offers more local features, but without the Festa Controller interface, the Festa FR365 is really nothing more than an access point. I thought I was buying a router. Wrong. Even trying to back all the way out won't work. The Festa Controller and the device's web interface each tell you that you need to delete a setting from the other, and the Festa Controller site will tell you, at the drop of a hat, that you need to do a hard reset of the router to be able to proceed. Wiping everything from the Controller will take you quite a while because a site, a controller, and a device will all tell you that you need to delete a setting from one of the others first. Once you've finally managed it, and tried as carefully as possible to configure the device using the enclosed leaflet, you're just back where you started. After having re-entered all of my network settings over and over again, about nine or ten times over the past several hours, I am a very tired man. Back to Amazon it goes, and the Asus RT-AX55 goes back into service as I continue my search for the next step up

I purchased the TP-AX3000 Fest FR365 because I need VPN for a business to Cloud connection for a new cloud application implementation. I setup a new account for the cloud management which was easy and put in the Serial Number of the new AX3000, but I was initially unable to get it Imported into the TP-link management cloud. I tried the online chat for support and once I got past the AI question and asked to chat with a real human, I got connected to Edemer. I typed what we were seeing with the AX3000 being imported, but not connected. Edemer pointed me to the step where I needed to enable the device to be cloud managed. That step did not exist on the quick start guide, but it was in the user manual. I connected to the Web UI on the AX3000 directly and checked the setting to enable management from the TP-Link Cloud. I then needed to FORGET the device and re-import it. Within 5 minutes is was imported properly and manageable from the TP-Link Cloud management portal. The online support chat experience was quick and efficient and Edemer pointed me to the correct solution. The problem was fixed with 5-10 minutes after already spending 2-3 hours trying to get it to import on my own. The product itself seems good. I configured a few port forwards already and will be working on the VPN in the future. The port forwards even have the ability to limit the external source addresses using the port forward, so that is a helpful security feature. Thanks again Edemer for your help on the online support chat.

Purchased FR205 and was unable to connect to router via internet. Returned. Ordered better model FR365 and same problem. More than two hours on the phone with two different TP agents and still unable to connect to router. Festa App and TP Cloud controller work very easily, but neither of any use if they cannot connect to router which consistently shows "offline". Techs had no solution other than to tell me that the unit I received was defective.

Enjoying the dual wan feature and WiFi covers a good area. Has vpn configuración as well and it works perfectly with Nord vpn

Does not work with surfshark and Nord VPN,l. You have to enter IP address of VPN endpoint.

I can't stress this enough. This is by far the worst experience I have ever had with a router. I'm a sysadmin with 8+ years of experience and this box drove me nuts. When you try to access the box locally to set it up, you have absolutely no control whatsoever. The only thing you can do is set up your AP name and that's it. Port forwarding? VLANs? VPN server? All the things they claim they support? They are ONLY AVAILABLE in the cloud version. "It's just the way it is, they're trying to copy Ubiquity" was my first thought. But NO. This is not Omada, their corporate solution... this is Festa, effectively an outdated and unmaintained fork of Omada that targets prosumer users but simply fails miserably. The setup looks fine in the UI but then you realize nothing works. You configure a network and then onboard devices to this network, but there's no effective way to send the settings to the device you're 2 feet away from. Wanna forward a port? You can do it through the UI, but you can't make the router actually do it. I had to wait literally 1 day until magically the port was being forwarded. I can't change my WiFi SSID or password because it doesn't sync it automatically! It's simply unacceptable. Last but not least: wanna configure static IP reservations for your wired devices? YOU CAN'T BECAUSE THEY DON'T SHOW UP IN YOUR DEVICES LIST. Their response: "to be able to view wired devices, please BUY A FESTA SWITCH" even though this device has 5 ports. It's simply the worst user experience I have EVER had with a router. You're better of with a 30 buck router or even your ISP's. I'm telling you, please DO NOT buy this.

Purchased the Festa FR365 and FR205 VPN Routers. Units work great as routers but as I was sold on very easy Site-to-Site VPN configuration connection, I was sold but having these units since October 2024, have not been able to establish any configuration options between the units. Frustrated with these units not being able to connect branch with office.

no funciona el provisionamiento, se queda como confingurando y nunca termina de configurar