Protocol

VPNs that support an open vendor protocol

Providers that ship a protocol of their own with the source published. A category, and the one that separates a readable vendor build from an unreadable one.

9 providersCategory, not a protocolUpdated 14 September 2026

The HushFleet teamRegister of 26 September 2026

Support for a tunnelling protocol, one page per term. U07_protocols replaced U07_modern_protocol in schema 3.4.0: the field used to carry the fastest protocol a provider offered — one value, three terms, only two of them the name of a protocol — and now carries the whole list. These pages are generated from the contract rather than counted from a spreadsheet.

Vendor protocols — Lightway, NordLynx, Hydra, Chameleon — get no page of their own. One vendor with one implementation already has a page: its review. NordLynx is published as wireguard_derived, which is what it is.

Vendor open-source

Ranked by security

More protocols

The other eleven protocols

OpenVPN 42 WireGuard 39 IKEv2 34 Obfuscated 25 L2TP 12 Proprietary 10 PPTP 9 IPsec 7 Shadowsocks 4 SSTP 4 WireGuard-derived 315 providers in no term — the field is not published

Four of the twelve terms — obfuscated, proprietary, vendor_open, wireguard_derived — are categories rather than protocol names: each says a protocol was disguised, closed or built on another, not which one it is. A record that publishes no protocol list at all appears on none of these pages (fifteen on file).

Insufficient
1
hide.me
Commercial VPNMalaysia
Coverage57countries
Paying monthly$11.99monthly
Paying yearly$54.99yearly total
Free tierYeslimited free plan
Devices10at once
28 out of 100
Security
81 out of 100
Usability
Visit Review
Insufficient
2
CactusVPN
Commercial VPNNot published
Coverage25countries
Paying monthly$15.00monthly
Paying yearly$70.00yearly total
Free tierNopaid plans only
Devicesunlimitedat once
20 out of 100
Security
66 out of 100
Usability
Visit Review
Not recommended
3
ExpressVPN
Commercial VPNBritish Virgin IslandsKape Technologies
Coverage106countries
Paying monthly$14.99monthly
Paying yearly$59.85yearly total
Free tierNopaid plans only
Devices10at once
14 out of 100
Security
70 out of 100
Usability
Visit Review
Not recommended
4
AdGuard
Commercial VPNCyprus
Coverage59countries
Paying monthly$11.99monthly
Paying yearly$47.88yearly total
Free tierYeslimited free plan
Devices10at once
11 out of 100
Security
77 out of 100
Usability
Visit Review
Not recommended
5
NymVPN
DecentralizedSwitzerland
Coverage—not published
Paying monthly$7.99monthly
Paying yearly$34.68yearly total
Free tierNopaid trial only
Devices10at once
8 out of 100
Security
68 out of 100
Usability
Visit Review
Not recommended
6
Portmaster
P2P exitAustriaIVPN
Coverage—not published
Paying monthly$9.30monthly
Paying yearly$92.96yearly total
Free tierYeslimited free plan
Devices5at once
6 out of 100
Security
64 out of 100
Usability
Visit Review
Not recommended
7
Cloudflare WARP
Commercial VPNUnited StatesUsability: floor only
Coverage—not published
Paying monthly$4.99monthly
Paying yearly—no yearly plan
Free tierNot publishedno statement found
3 out of 100
Security
83 out of 100
Usability
Visit Review
Not recommended
8
Amnezia
Commercial VPNRomania
Coverage20countries
Paying monthly—no monthly plan
Paying yearly$50.00yearly total
Free tierYeslimited free plan
Devices7at once
3 out of 100
Security
67 out of 100
Usability
Visit Review
Not recommended
9
VPN Gate
Censorship toolJapanSoftEther Project
Coverage14countries
Price—no published price
Free tierYesfree, no data cap
Devicesunlimitedat once
1 out of 100
Security
74 out of 100
Usability
Visit Review