ExpressVPN Fortify GL-MT6000 review: Speedy router has VPN baked in for privacy

We can all agree VPNs are, on the whole, a good thing – they make it harder for websites and apps to track you, conceal your browsing from your internet service provider and other parties, and generally make your online experience a more private and secure one.

While you might be used to installing a VPN on a laptop or a phone, the Fortify device lets you install it at the router level. It means that anything that then connects to the web – phones, tablets, PCs, streaming sticks, consoles – gets the same level of VPN protection.

ExpressVPN has a history of producing its own routers, previously under the Aircove name, nut now as Fortify in partnership with router manufacturer GL.iNet. So is it worth considering for your next upgrade? These are my thoughts after trying it out for several days.

Price & Availability

The Fortify router is available now, with an official retail price of £180.99 in the UK and $199.99 in the US. Check the widget embedded above to find the lowest prices. If you're in the UK, you can pick up the router from Amazon or directly from ExpressVPN.

You get a 12-month subscription to ExpressVPN Advanced included in your purchase – something that would normally cost you £89.95 / $119.95 – which certainly adds to the appeal. That's the tier with extras – including a built-in password manager, a mobile data allowance, and support for 12 devices simultaneously.

It's a smart and welcome move, having the year's subscription included, but you do have to enter your payment information and the subscription will auto-renew unless you cancel it. ExpressVPN isn't alone in doing this.

Note that you don't have to use ExpressVPN with this router. Thanks to support for the WireGuard and OpenVPN protocols, you can set the Fortify up with a different VPN service from the start (or after your year of ExpressVPN has finished). It's very much a plus point that you're not locked to any one VPN provider.

Design & Setup

The hardware supplied by GL.iNet is perfectly fine and functional – this is a decent-looking router, and one GL.iNet in fact currently sells as the Flint 2 (already beloved by router enthusiasts). You've got four large antennas here, plus one 2.5G WAN port, one 2.5G WAN/LAN port, four LAN Ethernet ports, and a USB 3.0 port.

Setup couldn't really be much more straightforward, whether you're using the bundled ExpressVPN subscription or not. Unlike most modern-day routers, you can configure this through a web browser or via the mobile app, and it was a refreshing change not to have to load up yet another configuration app on my phone.

Everything is easily manageable via the web interface, including the VPN configuration. As with the ExpressVPN apps for desktop and mobile, you can quickly enable and disable the VPN protection, and pick from where in the world your IP location is set. You can even have different devices set to look like they're in different parts of the world.

What's more, you don't necessarily need to have the router connected to the main broadband hub coming into your home. You can set it to act as a repeater via Wi-Fi – very handy for hotels, for example, when you want to protect all your devices – or connect it to your phone and create a cellular hotspot that other devices can also connect to.

Features & Performance

The key specs you need to know about here are support for Wi-Fi 6, with speeds of up to 1,148Mbps on the 2.4GHz band and up to 4,804Mbps on the 5GHz band – which should be ample for anyone, and almost certainly much faster than whatever broadband connection you've got coming into your home (though device-to-device transfers can be much faster).

With the VPN enabled via the WireGuard protocol, you'll be topping out at 900 Mbps, though. You'll still be covered for broadband speeds unless you're on the fastest gigabit speeds. Also remember that you can exclude certain devices from the VPN if you wish. There's also support for up to 86 concurrent devices on this router, so plenty to go around!

Performance during my testing was, by and large, very good. I can only tell you about my personal results, but the Fortify router kept up with my Sky Full Fibre router whether it was right next to it or a few rooms away – you're certainly not going to have connection problems in a reasonably sized semi-detached home.

Connections remained stable with no noticeable drop-outs – no doubt helped by the 4x4 MU-MIMO connectivity here – and although walls and furniture did make a difference to speeds in different rooms, it was no more than you would expect from any other router. The 5G band was particularly strong, keeping up high speeds at relatively extended distances (a couple of rooms away in my tests).

With the VPN enabled, speeds do take a hit – it was around 15% less on average when I connected to a node in the US, for example – but this is going to vary depending on which country's servers you're linking to, what time of day it is, and how busy the ExpressVPN servers are at any given time. It's the same if you install a VPN in the standard way.

Being able to route certain devices and not others through the VPN is great: VPN protection for sensitive or geo-locked websites, and top speeds for everything else, with an easy-to-follow setup process. Turning the VPN tunnels on and off, or switching between servers in different countries, couldn't really be any easier using the router software.

Having the extra ad- and tracker-blocking protection as part of the free year of ExpressVPN is definitely welcome too, although it's worth reminding yourself that you'll have to start paying after a year. That's optional, as mentioned, but if you're not going to keep up a VPN subscription, then there's much less of a reason to opt for the ExpressVPN Fortify in the first instance.

There are also some basic parental controls on board, which are welcome, plus settings for prioritising traffic to certain devices and apps when needed (if you're using a console for online gaming). As the feature set goes, it's hard to fault – it'll easily beat whatever router your internet provider has given you in terms of flexibility.

Verdict

A VPN-equipped router can benefit anyone, no matter what type of household they're in and what type of user they are. It's not at all difficult to set up ExpressVPN (or a different VPN) on the Fortify, then getting connected to servers around the world only takes a few clicks. In those respects, it's a router for everyone.

That said, there'll be many people happy to just stick with their default router and add on a VPN app as and when needed. The Fortify router's interface is likely to appeal most to more advanced and technical users.

Certainly, if you want a router with a VPN and all the other features here, the Fortify is a superb buy – you won't get let down in terms of speed or performance, the VPN functionality is straightforward, and there are numerous features (like ad- and tracker-blocking) that will appeal.

Also Consider

The Fortify stands apart in the way it enables a VPN service on the router itself. It's certainly possible on other models, but not as easily, or with so many integrated features. With that in mind you're really having to compare the Fortify with different types of routers when it comes to other options.

Earlier this year I reviewed the very impressive Asus ZenWiFi BQ16, for example, a mesh Wi-Fi system with a lot going for it – including faster Wi-Fi 7 performance and quad band capabilities. You won't have any connectivity dead zones at home with this installed, but you are going to have to pay a significant amount to get it.

For a standalone router, the Netgear Nighthawk RS100 is certainly worthy of your consideration, bringing with it Wi-Fi 7 and decent performance at a competitive price (you might even find it on sale for less than the Fortify). As long as your performance needs aren't too demanding, and your home isn't too large, then it's a router that won't let you down.