The best VPN services boost your online security and privacy by hiding your IP address, encrypting your traffic, and making it hard to trace your online activity.
The way in which your VPN communicates with both your device and the internet is governed by a set of directions called a protocol. WireGuard is one such protocol, a set of rules and directions that tell a VPN how to communicate with the internet and manage encryption and privacy protection.
The protocol itself is developed by security researcher Jason A. Donenfeld. It was originally developed for Linux, but is now available as an app on all common desktop and mobile platforms for those that want to manage their own connection tunnels.
However, as a consumer you’re much more likely to come across WireGuard as a default or optional protocol in your VPN client of choice. It’s supported by all the best VPNs, and forms the basis for some proprietary protocols like NordVPN’s NordLynx.
Since work began on WireGuard in 2016, it’s risen to become one of the most frequently used protocols across the VPN market. Some VPNs, like Mullvad, have embraced WireGuard while retiring support for OpenVPN on some platforms.
It’s also largely supplanted the 25-year-old OpenVPN protocol as a fast, lightweight, and safe option for VPN users. Keep reading for a breakdown of how WireGuard works, as well as its pros and cons.
Lighter resource usage
A frequently touted advantage of WireGuard is its lighter resource usage compared to OpenVPN.
OpenVPN, and other older protocols like IKEv2, require hundreds of thousands of lines of code to run, while WireGuard can run on less than 5,000. That simplicity means fewer bugs, less security risks, and faster CPU speeds while the VPN is active.
That also makes it a better pick for low-powered devices, such as low-end mobile phones and laptops. Many of the best VPNs now offer apps for TVs and routers – WireGuard is also a great pick for these devices due to its low resource usage.
For Linux users, WireGuard has long been a go-to pick as it runs directly in the kernel (the part of the OS that manages system processes). OpenVPN can run in the kernel too, but this was only added in 2025.
And in terms of data throughput over gigabit ethernet, a test by WireGuard itself found that WireGuard was able to transmit 20 per cent more data than IPSec protocols and 300 per cent more than OpenVPN. The test also maxed out CPU usage with IPSec and OpenVPN, but not with WireGuard.
Excellent encryption
WireGuard also differs from OpenVPN and other protocols when it comes to encryption. While many VPN protocols use AES encryption with a 256-bit key, WireGuard uses ChaCha20 with a 256-bit key to encrypt packets of data.
ChaCha20 differs from AES in that it runs at full efficiency regardless of the computer’s processor, whereas AES requires a specific AES-compatible processor to run perfectly.
That ChaCha20 encryption is paired with the Poly1305 message authentication code, which makes it much more difficult for bad actors to intercept, alter, or redirect your web traffic. This also makes WireGuard very resilient to ‘timing attacks’, in which hackers attempt to determine your encryption protocols by measuring the time it takes to implement encryption algorithms.
Either way, any encryption standard using a 256-bit key will take thousands of years to crack with a conventional computer. As for post-quantum encryption, Surfshark has taken the lead by becoming the first VPN provider to bring full post-quantum security to a WireGuard protocol.
WireGuard also swaps the industry-standard SHA hash function for BLAKE2. A hash function maps data onto a fixed value, and BLAKE2 is faster than many competitors while offering indifferentiability, meaning its output is impossible to parse from random data. Similarly, the protocol makes use of Curve25519 for elliptic curve cryptography, as it’s one of the fastest curves to offer 128-bit encryption with a 256-bit key.
WireGuard drawbacks
WireGuard actually publishes a list of ‘known limitations’ on its own website, as a measure towards accountability. Some of these, like a lack of in-built obfuscation and lack of TCP support, are offloaded to VPN providers and clients to deal with, while others are the targets of ongoing update and fix efforts.
That lack of TCP support – WireGuard only supports UDP – means that data transfer is more efficient but more susceptible to packet loss.
WireGuard is designed for simplicity and efficiency, so doesn’t include certain features common to most VPN protocols. It doesn't have a way to allocate dynamic IP addresses, for instance. This means in theory that your VPN IP address could be the same every time you connect, potentially allowing you to be tracked online.
WireGuard doesn't automatically delete your IP address when you disconnect, either. It might stay in memory for who-knows-how-long after the session has ended. OpenVPN and other protocols work harder to protect your privacy by deleting IPs when they're no longer needed, reducing the opportunity for your address to be logged.
There's also no support for forward secrecy - a system where VPN data is encrypted using a new private key every session. WireGuard uses the same key by default, which means if a hacker gets into the server and can steal your key, they may also be able to decrypt your traffic.
By default WireGuard also doesn’t do anything to obfuscate your traffic, so it can be vulnerable to DPI (Deep Packet Inspection). This doesn’t put your data at risk but it would be obvious to anyone with access to your ISP’s records that you’re using a VPN.
Bear in mind that if your VPN provider offers WireGuard, you’ll only be able to use it with servers using UDP unless you or they are using a third-party tool to send UDP data packets via TCP such as ‘udptunnel’ or ‘udp2raw’. Be warned though, this will almost certainly slow down your connection and data processing times.
WireGuard has come a long way since its Linux-only days. The project’s Downloads page lists an impressive number of supported platforms including Windows and macOS, while admitting that performance is best with the Linux Kernel.
Should you use WireGuard?
Wireguard has been designed for speed and light resource usage, and in doing so its developers have ditched some of the features that make OpenVPN so secure, but also slow.
With that said, the best VPNs offer client and server-side solutions for any gaps in WireGuard’s security, and it can generally be considered as safe as OpenVPN when accessed through a reliable provider.
For example, Surfshark’s Nexus technology rotates your IP address regardless of which protocol you use, and NordVPN’s WireGuard-based NordLynx protocol uses double NAT to authenticate users without revealing your IP, either to NordVPN’s servers or other sites.
And for those on low-powered devices, WireGuard is the obvious choice thanks to its ability to run on simpler, less powerful CPUs.
WireGuard is certifiably faster and more efficient than any other free or open-source VPN protocol on the market, and is available on most popular VPNs. However, there are other protocols – from OpenVPN-based options to proprietary protocols like ExpressVPN’s Lightway and Lightway Turbo, so you generally have a choice if you want to prioritize security over speed.
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