Both are free, both are properly encrypted, both run on the same firewall. They differ in shape: WireGuard is a scalpel, OpenVPN is a Swiss Army knife. Here is how to pick without the marketing fog.
This question arrives in the comments of every VPN video, usually expecting a winner. The honest answer is a fit, not a winner — and the two panels that matter are what each protocol deliberately leaves out. Read those, match them to your office, and you will not need anyone's top-ten list.
Illustrative panel — a fair summary, not a sales chart. Both are proven, encrypted and free to use.
WireGuard is the newer design (released in 2020) built around a small codebase and exactly one job: an encrypted tunnel between identified keys. In daily use you feel three things: it is fast, it reconnects almost instantly when a laptop wakes or a phone jumps networks, and it is quiet — no traffic flows until there is data to send, which phones' batteries appreciate. What it deliberately leaves out is everything else: no user directory, no passwords, no built-in second factor, UDP only. The Untangle setup in the video shows the result — the whole server is one app screen.
OpenVPN is two decades old, and its age bought it things WireGuard does not try to have:
Its costs are the mirror image: slower connects, heavier configuration, and performance a step behind.
Small office, staff working from home, phones and laptops: WireGuard — the setup in the video — is the right default. Simple is a security property: fewer knobs, fewer mistakes, instant revocation by deleting a tunnel.
Office whose users connect from hostile or locked-down networks, or whose policy demands password-plus-certificate logins: OpenVPN still justifies itself, and running both on the same firewall is a legitimate design — WireGuard for staff devices, OpenVPN as the fallback door.
What not to decide by: the word "military-grade" in marketing, or the assumption that the newer one must replace the older everywhere. Both protocols are open, audited and encrypt properly. The question is which one's shape fits your users — answer that, and the choice makes itself.
Watch the WireGuard side of this comparison being set up live in the full video.
▶️ Watch Full VideoBoth use strong, modern, publicly reviewed cryptography, and either is far safer than having no VPN. WireGuard's smaller codebase is easier to audit and it offers fewer settings to get wrong; OpenVPN's maturity means more eyes over more years. In practice, the bigger risk is configuration and key discipline, not the protocol name.
Yes — Untangle offers OpenVPN as its own app alongside the WireGuard app, and many offices run WireGuard as the daily driver with OpenVPN kept for the networks and users that need TCP or password-based logins.
If it works and your users are served, 'working' is a strong argument. The common reason to add WireGuard is the experience on phones and laptops — instant reconnects and better speed. Add it alongside, let people migrate naturally, and keep OpenVPN where its shape is needed.