OpenVPN vs WireGuard: Speed test

Recently we have been testing WireGuard tunnel. And today we wanted to share with your our speed test comparison results of WireGuard and OpenVPN connection made on the same Pritunl server. To say the truth, we have been surprised by the results of our test.

Speed test logic

We wanted to test two protocols in same conditions. First, both WireGuard and OpenVPN speed tests were run form the same Pritunl installation. In one of our previous articles we showed how to add WireGuard support to your Pritunl OpenVPN.

Second, we ran multiple tests to each of the destination servers. Total we ran five speed tests to three different destinations – Panama, Amsterdam and Turkey. Speed test were run from a private internet network and NOT high-speed datacenter connection. The results are presented below.

OpenVPN Speed test

What we can see is that the speed does not vary too much even to the distant servers. Also each attempt showed almost equal results which says that there weren’t any issues related to the load of the speed test server.

WireGuard Speed test

First results caught us off guard but the more speed tests we did, the more obvious it became. You can see for yourself the results in the table below.

Conclusion

As we can see WireGuard is a clear WINNER. The speed test results of WireGuard tunnel are significantly better than OpenVPN ones. WireGuard is proving to be better both in terms of connection speed and latency. And just so you know, our VPNs support WireGuard as well 😉