WireGuard vs OpenVPN: which is the better VPN protocol? | IPVanish (2024)

OpenVPN has long been considered the industry standard tunneling protocol for VPN providers. Enter WireGuard®, the newest VPN tunneling protocol, promising to do everything better than the outdated connection types of yore– including OpenVPN. Nevertheless, the question remains: which protocol is better between WireGuard vs OpenVPN?

Although both protocols have their pros and cons, the short answer is that WireGuard is a clear winner in most instances. Let’s dive into the differences between WireGuard and OpenVPN.

WireGuard vs OpenVPN At A Glance

What is WireGuard?

WireGuard is the latest advancement in VPN connections. Developed by Jason Donenfeld, WireGuard is an open-source security VPN protocol created to be faster, safer, and more power-saving than any other connection type. The protocol is quickly becoming the new industry-standard VPN connection type for its advanced cryptography, lightning-fast speeds, and fewer lines of code. The main characteristics of WireGuard stem from this simplified code, which translates to easy implementation and auditing, along with better resource consumption.

WireGuard Benefits

• Generally, it is the fastest VPN protocol
• It requires less battery consumption

WireGuard Drawbacks

• The protocol is newer and has been put through less rigorous testing
• Its traffic is easily detected and blocked by firewalls

What is OpenVPN?

OpenVPN remains the most widely used VPN protocol and has been the standard connection type for the last two decades due to its flexibility and trustworthiness. Developed by James Yonan, OpenVPN is an open-source protocol, too, capable of bypassing most firewalls and network restrictions. However, OpenVPN is quite complex, with over 600,000 lines of code, making it hard to implement and audit.

OpenVPN Benefits

• The protocol’s flexibility makes it compatible with any platform except iOS
• Its traffic can be scrambled to avoid VPN connection blocks

OpenVPN Drawbacks

• Less frequently updated codebase that requires entire teams to audit
• Users may face connection issues changing between mobile and Wi-Fi networks

Comparing WireGuard vs OpenVPN

Now that you know a little about WireGuard and OpenVPN, let’s compare these protocols more closely:

Speed

WireGuard dominates OpenVPN on the performance front. No other VPN protocol with default settings can provide the consistently fast speeds that WireGuard delivers. That’s because WireGuard is much less complex than OpenVPN, with far fewer add-ons. This is a testament to the efficiency of WireGuard’s smaller codebase and not the only benefit that comes from its simplification.

While OpenVPN is not the best protocol out there when you’re prioritizing speed, it strikes a good balance between security, privacy, and speed. But the protocol’s older and more robust architecture simply can not keep pace with the lean, minimalistic WireGuard.

Security

In terms of security, WireGuard and OpenVPN are quite evenly matched, though for different reasons.

If we compare both protocols, OpenVPN has an edge with the flexibility of multiple encryption techniques over WireGuard. However, this same flexibility also carries increased complexity and the risks of improper implementation, which could have the inverse effect and lead to vulnerabilities.

Despite being more than 20 years old, OpenVPN is still widely regarded as the most secure VPN protocol. This is due, in part, to Edward Snowden’s 2013 leaks, which showed that the NSA could crack most VPN protocols at the time –including OpenVPN– but only when a previously-shared key was used.

But while OpenVPN may have a long track record and a large community of developers working on it, WireGuard has some advantages as well.

First of all, it’s newer than OpenVPN. It uses more modern cryptographic methods that are trusted by security experts, so it has fewer vulnerabilities than OpenVPN does. In addition, since it uses less code than OpenVPN does—which means there are fewer opportunities for hackers to exploit—it has a smaller attack surface. More importantly, if a hole is found in any cipher or algorithm, all endpoints are forced to update to a new version immediately, ensuring no one uses the compromised WireGuard code.

Privacy

WireGuard and OpenVPN are both reliable VPN protocols that provide decoy IP addresses. In its default configuration, OpenVPN doesn’t store any personally identifiable information on users. So, whether you use OpenVPN through an app like IPVanish or a DIY setup spun out yourself, (assuming it’s configured correctly,) your connection identifiers are concealed.

However, there are some privacy concerns worth mentioning with WireGuard’s default code.

In its out-of-the-box setup, WireGuard’s cryptokey routing algorithm stores a user’s IP address on the VPN server until it reboots. So, if you’ve configured WireGuard yourself without the aid of an app, you run the risk of your source IP address being identified. Fortunately, if you use WireGuard through a verified no-traffic-log VPN service, rest assured that your privacy will stay protected from prying eyes. At IPVanish, we mitigate this issue by adding IP obfuscation to maintain our no-traffic-logs VPN.

Nevertheless, while comparing WireGuard vs OpenVPN, we consider the older protocol more privacy-friendly because it is a logless protocol in its default state. So anyone who uses OpenVPN, even without the assistance of a reputable VPN service provider, can trust that their IP address data remains hidden.

Deep Packet Inspection

In the face of strict firewalls and ISP blocks against VPN traffic, there is no face-off between WireGuard vs OpenVPN: you only have one option. OpenVPN is most helpful for circumventing censorship and thwarting deep packet inspection.

This VPN connection type has multiple implementation options and can run over either the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) or the Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) transports. Quickly compare TCP vs UDP and you’ll find TCP is more reliable while UDP is faster. But the main advantage that TCP has is that it’s useful for evading traffic blocks by governments and other organizations.

OpenVPN via TCP uses the same port as HTTPS traffic (port 443) for its connections. That’s crucial because even countries with strict censorship are unlikely to block this port, lest they stop all online shopping and banking from working properly. However, some advanced deep packet inspection techniques can detect OpenVPN traffic no matter which port number is used. In these instances, we recommend enabling Scramble within the advanced protocol settings to add another layer of obfuscation to your VPN traffic.

In contrast, WireGuard only uses UDP and does not support use over TCP, which makes it trivial to detect and block. Even the creator of WireGuard has emphasized that the protocol does not focus on obfuscation and that deep packet inspection is a known limitation. Therefore, OpenVPN is best at evading censorship and deep packet inspection as it can use TCP along with traffic packet obfuscation through Scramble.

Auditability

Privacy advocates prefer using open-source VPN protocols because they’re auditable. But being open-source does not mean auditing is simple. OpenVPN is the most widely audited open-source VPN protocol, but it has hundreds of thousands of lines of code. It takes a team considerable time to properly audit a code as large as OpenVPN.

WireGuard is also an auditable and open-source protocol. However, coming in at about 6,000 lines of code, WireGuard is roughly 1% of the length of the OpenVPN protocol. This means it is much more auditable than OpenVPN and will eventually become the more widely audited protocol. Instead of a team taking days to audit the code, a single engineer can audit WireGuard in a few hours.

Mobility

Mobile phone owners regularly switch between Wi-Fi and cellular networks on their devices, often without even realizing it. The best VPN protocols should be able to make that transition easy without hiccups.

WireGuard is ideal for mobile devices as it handles network changes seamlessly. The same can’t be said about OpenVPN, however. The older protocol struggles when users regularly move between networks and may turn sluggish as it re-establishes a connection, or even cause a service disconnect.

At IPVanish, we typically recommend using the IKEv2 protocol for mobile devices on the go that will be roaming between different networks. The protocol is rock solid against most cybercrime threats and unwanted third parties, though the Snowden leaks indicate that it has been compromised by the NSA.

In the matchup between WireGuard vs OpenVPN, though, WireGuard has the edge because its stateless nature makes it capable of dealing with regular network changes.

Compatibility

Long considered something of a multitool for secure networking, there are many ways that OpenVPN can be configured. The protocol has support for plug-ins and script hooks where clients can be identified and different routes and other changes on the server-side can be applied for that client session. But that allows for the possibility of poor speed performance and greater security vulnerabilities. The protocol also supports VPN connections on less popular platforms, including ChromeOS, and in routers.

That said, most VPN app users (specifically iPhone owners) will find that OpenVPN is not compatible with iOS.

In contrast, the code on which WireGuard is built allows for cross-platform compatibility of modern devices but struggles to meet the breadth of support that OpenVPN has with older systems. Though the list of supported devices is expected to grow with time, WireGuard is only available on major platforms at this time– iOS, Windows, macOS Android, Fire TV, and Linux.

At this time, neither platform has a universal edge over the other in terms of compatibility. OpenVPN supersedes the newer protocol with its quantity of cross-platform support, but its incompatibility with iPhone and iPad is not easy to overlook. In contrast, WireGuard is a clear winner when it comes to supporting all major platforms; however, it’s only compatible with popular devices made in the most recent years.

Which Protocol Should You Use: WireGuard or OpenVPN?

OpenVPN and WireGuard complement each other, as each VPN protocol is strong in one area where the other is weak. So you should use the protocol whose benefits best support your needs.

WireGuard addresses many of the flaws in OpenVPN. The new protocol is lauded by security experts worldwide and is the default connection type in all new IPVanish installations. It’s much faster than OpenVPN, consuming less battery while remaining even more secure due to its smaller attack surface. WireGuard connections are also more reliable, especially for mobile users as they can handle network changes better than OpenVPN.

Nonetheless, OpenVPN is still the best protocol in the cases of privacy and deep packet inspection.