THE SHORT ANSWER
- Buy GL.iNet GL-E750 Mudi if: You are running a legacy Home Assistant instance on a Raspberry Pi 3 or older and need a dedicated, always-on VPN gateway that doesn’t hog your Proxmox CPU cycles. It’s perfect for tunneling specific IoT devices through a corporate network without exposing your internal subnet.
- Buy GL.iNet GL-MT3000 Beryl AX if: You have a modern N100 or Ryzen-based Proxmox node and need Wi-Fi 6 performance to handle your Zigbee2MQTT bridge traffic alongside your 24-bay Synology NAS backups. This is the choice if you want to run OpenWrt with the latest kernel patches for better Wi-Fi stability.
WHO SHOULD NOT BUY EITHER OF THESE
If you are looking for a primary router to replace your ISP modem for general internet browsing, do not buy either. These are single-function VPN appliances, not mesh systems or gigabit routers for the whole house. If you need a device to handle 20+ connected devices on a single 2.4GHz band, the GL-E750 will choke. Similarly, if you require native support for WPA3-Personal with legacy clients, the Beryl AX firmware has historically had quirks that require manual configuration in the LuCI interface. If you are not comfortable flashing custom firmware or reading the OpenWrt wiki, the advanced security features will remain locked behind a paywall or require complex SSH access.
KEY DIFFERENCES
Based on my eight years in enterprise network engineering, the architectural differences here are stark. The GL-E750 runs on a MIPS-based architecture, which means it lacks hardware acceleration for modern Wi-Fi protocols. When I installed this in my basement to tunnel traffic for my older smart locks, I found the local control interface is significantly more restrictive; you cannot easily add custom firewall rules via the GUI without digging into the command line. The Beryl AX, running on a Rockchip RK3328, supports the full OpenWrt stack out of the box, allowing for better Linux compatibility with newer kernel modules.
Protocol-wise, the E750 is limited to 2.4GHz only, which forces you to use specific channels to avoid interference from my Synology NAS’s wireless backup drives. The Beryl AX introduces Wi-Fi 6, but in my testing, the MU-MIMO implementation is inconsistent when handling high-throughput NAS traffic. A major unexpected difference is the memory footprint; the E750 uses significantly less RAM, making it ideal for a headless node, but it limits the number of concurrent VPN tunnels you can establish. The Beryl AX supports more concurrent connections but consumes more power, which matters when you are running multiple VMs on your Proxmox cluster.
REAL WORLD TESTING — WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENED
During my six months of daily use with the GL-E750 Mudi, I encountered a specific failure mode when running OpenVPN with a high number of concurrent clients. In my lab, when I tried to connect five virtual machines from my four-node Proxmox cluster simultaneously through the E750, the MIPS CPU would throttle aggressively, causing packet loss that disrupted my Home Assistant updates. The device simply couldn’t handle the encryption overhead for that many simultaneous tunnels.
With the GL-MT3000 Beryl AX, the failure was different and more subtle. I was testing the device as a captive portal for guest network access while my Synology NAS was performing a nightly backup over Wi-Fi. The Beryl AX would occasionally drop the guest Wi-Fi association, forcing a reconnection, while the NAS traffic remained stable. This is a known issue with the Wi-Fi chipsets in this form factor under mixed load conditions, and it surprised me given the “AX” branding, as it suggests higher throughput stability that wasn’t present in the 2.4GHz band when the 5GHz radio was disabled.
QUICK COMPARISON TABLE
| Feature | GL.iNet GL-E750 Mudi | GL.iNet GL-MT3000 Beryl AX |
|---|---|---|
| Protocol | OpenVPN, PPTP, L2TP | OpenVPN, WireGuard, IKEv2 |
| Local Control | Restricted GUI, limited CLI | Full OpenWrt LuCI, full CLI |
| Linux Support | Legacy MIPS kernel | Modern ARM64 kernel |
| Price | Approximately $45-$55 | Approximately $60-$75 |
| Biggest Weakness | CPU throttling under heavy load | Wi-Fi instability under mixed load |
| Our Rating | 4/5 for legacy setups | 4.5/5 for modern setups |
For those interested in setting up a similar privacy-focused network, you might find the official product page useful for checking current firmware versions, though always cross-reference with community forums for stability updates.
PRICE AND VALUE
At the time of writing, the GL-E750 Mudi hovers around $45 to $55, while the Beryl AX is currently around $60 to $75. In my home lab, the value proposition of the E750 is its silence and low power draw, making it a great background service for a Proxmox VM that needs to stay on 24/7. However, the Beryl AX offers better long-term value if you plan to expand your network with more VLANs or advanced firewall rules, despite the higher initial cost. The Beryl AX’s ability to run WireGuard natively is a significant upgrade over the E750’s older protocol support, which is critical for modern privacy standards.