How your tunnel is built
WireGuard® and OpenVPN, honestly compared.
Default
WireGuard®
A modern protocol with a deliberately small codebase and state-of-the-art cryptography. It connects almost instantly, handles switching between Wi‑Fi and mobile data gracefully, and is easy on your battery.
- Fastest speeds and quickest connects
- Battery-friendly on phones
- Required for Aultra Shield
Compatibility
OpenVPN
The long-standing industry workhorse, trusted for over two decades. Its big advantage is flexibility: over TCP port 443 it looks like ordinary secure web traffic, so it gets through networks that block other VPNs.
- Works on hotel, campus and office networks
- TCP 443 when UDP is blocked
- Proven over many years
| Property | WireGuard® | OpenVPN |
|---|---|---|
| Default in Aultra VPN | Yes | Optional |
| Encryption | ChaCha20-Poly1305 | AES-256-GCM |
| Key exchange | Curve25519, Noise protocol framework | TLS 1.2+ with certificates |
| Transport | UDP, port 51820 | UDP 1194, or TCP 443 |
| Code size | Around 4,000 lines: small and auditable | Large, mature and battle-tested |
| Aultra Shield | Supported | Not available |
| Split tunneling & kill switch | Supported | Supported |
Which one should you use?
Start with WireGuard. It's the default for a reason: it's the fastest, the lightest on your battery, and the only protocol that supports Aultra Shield's tracker blocking.
Switch to OpenVPN when a network won't let you connect: hotel and airport Wi‑Fi, campus networks and some workplaces block the ports WireGuard uses. OpenVPN over TCP 443 usually gets through.
To switch, open Settings → Protocol in the app and pick one. Your next connection uses it, and your split tunneling and kill switch settings carry over.
Both protocols are open source
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