Open Source Proton VPN Alternatives

Trusted by over 20,000 organizations for more than two decades, OpenVPN delivers enterprise-grade VPN solutions that protect your business data and enable secure remote access for distributed workforces.

Two flexible deployment options to meet your security needs:

• Access Server - Self-hosted solution giving you complete control over your security architecture with customizable access policies and private tunneling. Deploy on IaaS providers, Docker, Linux, Hyper-V, and VMware ESXi.

• CloudConnexa® - Cloud-delivered managed service that connects applications, private networks, workforce, and IoT devices without complex hardware. Features full Zero Trust controls, seamless network connectivity, and enhanced protection with content filtering.

Key benefits include:

• Zero Trust Network Access with identity, device, and IP verification
• Enterprise-grade security with SOC 2 Type 2, ISO/IEC 27001:2022, HIPAA and GDPR compliance
• Flexible pricing starting at $7 per connection per month
• 24/7 technical support and fast deployment with ready-to-use templates
• Cross-platform compatibility with client software for all operating systems and mobile devices

Perfect for businesses looking to protect vital company data, support remote employees, meet compliance requirements, and optimize costs with a scalable VPN solution built on the industry-leading OpenVPN protocol.

WireGuard is a VPN protocol and implementation designed to be far simpler than OpenVPN or IPsec while outperforming both. It runs inside the Linux kernel and is also available on Windows, macOS, BSD, iOS, and Android. The core idea: set up a network interface, exchange public keys with peers (much like SSH keys), and the tunnel just works.

Configuration is intentionally minimal. There's no connection state to manage, no daemons to babysit, and no complex certificate infrastructure. Each peer has a private key and a list of allowed IP addresses. That pairing of public keys to IPs is what WireGuard calls Cryptokey Routing, and it handles both authentication and access control in one clean mechanism.

Key capabilities:

• Modern cryptography using a curated, conservative set of primitives (Curve25519, ChaCha20, Poly1305, BLAKE2, and others), reviewed by cryptographers
• Tiny codebase with a minimal attack surface, auditable by a single person rather than requiring a large security team
• High throughput from kernel-level packet handling combined with fast cryptographic primitives, suitable for everything from smartphones to backbone routers
• Built-in roaming where both client and server automatically track each other's current IP endpoint, so connections survive network changes
• Container-ready with network namespace support, letting you move a WireGuard interface directly into a Docker container as its sole network path
• IPv4 and IPv6 support, including encapsulating one inside the other

Because identity and IP address are tightly coupled, firewall rules stay simple. You don't need complex extensions to verify packet authenticity. A rule matching an IP on a WireGuard interface is already a cryptographic guarantee.

Several higher-level tools build on WireGuard to add management UIs, access control, and multi-user features. Netbird, Firezone, Defguard, and Pangolin are all examples that use WireGuard as their tunneling layer while adding their own control planes on top.

The protocol is formally documented in an academic paper, and the kernel components are released under GPLv2.