WireGuard vs OpenVPN – which is better?
What is OpenVPN?
OpenVPN is a VPN cum protocol software that employs VPN techniques to protect point-to-point as well as site-to-site connections. Today, OpenVPN provides the best balance of speed and security. However, it is quite complex, having finished 600,000 lines of code and not easy to implement.
OpenVPN Pro
It is an established open source VPN tunneling protocol that has the support of a large number of security experts and auditors
It uses the OpenSSL and TLS encryption libraries as primary cryptographic standards
The protocol provides decent performance in terms of speed and security
Cons of OpenVPN
Users may face connection problems due to strong encryption
Manual configuration of the protocol may be difficult on some platforms
It requires a third party application to run
Using cryptographic primers that are outdated and have a very large attack surface
OpenVPN has long been accepted as the industry standard tunneling protocol for VPN services. With no other modern protocols to challenge OpenVPN’s position as a desirable VPN tunnel, it’s easy for it to claim the top spot in terms of security and performance among all the protocols.
Enter WireGuard, a nascent VPN tunneling protocol that promises to do everything better than outdated PPTP, L2TP etc while hinting at replacing OpenVPN.
However, the question remains, which protocol works better between WireGuard vs OpenVPN?
The brief is – both protocols have their own pros and cons but WireGuard is the clear winner due to its speed, security and auditing capabilities.
Without further ado, let’s start comparing these VPN protocols in detail:
What is WireGuard?
WireGuard is an innovative VPN protocol that strives to provide a more secure, simpler, and faster solution for its users than any existing protocol. The protocol runs on top of UDP and offers a small code size of nearly 3,700 lines.
Many of the main features of this protocol come from the simplicity of this code, which facilitates easy implementation, faster performance, and fewer bugs.
WireGuard Pro
It implements advanced cryptography to provide a secure online connection
It is relatively faster than the OpenVPN protocol
This can reduce battery consumption and improve roaming support on mobile devices
Uses modern cryptographic primers and has a small attack surface
Cons of WireGuard
It only supports UDP protocol and does not use port 443 (HTTPS traffic port)
A protocol is considered a product in progress
It only works well on Linux distributions
