Should I choose Wireguard or OpenVPN?

[kellanphil 0]

Which is more suited for faster speeds. Ive read that wiregaurd is typically faster but on the AirVPN config generator it lists OpenVPN UDP as the best performance so im a little stumped. Can any one offer thier insight. Im running it on a QNAP NAS with an intel processor and 1GB speed.

[Tech Jedi Alex 1499]

UDP for best performance in comparison to TCP, not Wireguard. Try them both (= OpenVPN and Wireguard), see what's better for your use case.

[gundamlord 0]

in my testing on other vpns and my own home vpn. wireguard is faster than openvpn all the time in my tests. 

[Tech Jedi Alex 1499]

I can similarly report that Wireguard outperforms OpenVPN when you set it up to have parameters like Wireguard's only mode of operation – that is, listening on some UDP port and a connection with the ChaCha20-Poly1305 cipher, so using options like --proto udp and --data-ciphers CHACHA20-POLY1305 in OpenVPN. I did not take OpenVPN DCO into account, however, because of kernel module naming (the current kernel module in 6.16 is different from the ovpn-dco out-of-tree module one can use with OpenVPN 2.6; you need the still-in-alpha OpenVPN 2.7 to use the kernel one).

I tested this setting up my own VPN server where OpenVPN and Wireguard are configured and running in parallel. And I pretty much default to Wireguard at this point: When viewing DASH streams, with OpenVPN it pretty much always starts with 480p and gradually ramps up to HD, whereas with Wireguard it immediately starts with HD.

OpenVPN outright wins in a landslide if you take everything else into account, though. Wireguard can be restricted but simply restricting UDP. OpenVPN can even pose as normal web traffic (with some help).