WireGuard
A modern VPN protocol, around 4,000 lines of code, designed to be small enough to audit properly.
Glossary
OpenVPN
The long-established open-source VPN protocol, slower than WireGuard but more configurable and more widely supported.
Why it matters
It runs over TCP port 443 if configured to, which makes it resemble ordinary HTTPS traffic and therefore harder to block. On a restrictive network it often works where WireGuard does not.
What most explanations leave out
Its codebase is orders of magnitude larger than WireGuard’s, which means more surface area but also two decades of scrutiny. "Older" is not the same as "less secure" here, and a provider that ships only WireGuard has removed your fallback on hostile networks.
Related terms
Obfuscation
Disguising VPN traffic so it resembles ordinary encrypted web traffic to a system inspecting the connection.
VPN protocol
The set of rules governing how the tunnel is established and how data is encrypted inside it.
Terms are defined here because they appear in our scoring rubric or in provider reviews, not to fill a glossary.