Which VPN services have direct support for OpenWrt?

Fundamentally, what you want is to ensure that the VPN service you are interested in supports the protocols you want to use, be it WireGuard, OpenVPN, or other VPN technologies.

OpenWrt supports a large number of VPN protocols, and there are (generic) tutorials for several of them to help you understand how to install and configure your router as a VPN client/gateway. The tutorials in the OpenWrt wiki and forums are generally not tailored to any specific VPN service, but should get you 95% of the way there.

The only major advantage of a VPN provider that claims to support OpenWrt is that they may have tutorials or even installer scripts that will make it easier to install. Otherwise, most standard commercial VPN services should work without issue.

2 Likes

"direct OpenWrt support" is a bit excessive. The only thing you want from them is that they give you a single VPN config file "for routers" or "for manual Linux use".

It usually ends with .ovpn

For example ExpressVPN lets you download openvpn config files you can then load into OpenWrt (or any router that supports OpenVPN)

But many (most) others also let you do that. You only need to check their manual install instructions for Linux or for Routers.

1 Like

When I search the web, I am not sure, if OpenWrt supports wireguard? If so, is there a tutorial?

Are there any known troubles with https://www.vyprvpn.com ?

Not sure what your search terms are, but yes, it is fully supported and works well. As a test, I googled "wireguard OpenWrt" and literally the first result was the OpenWrt wiki on the Wireguard.

2 Likes

Thanks, this is very helpful. I use my Android phone with DuckDuckGo and it showed me only old unsolved threads re wireguard..

The problem with the vpn-comparisons is, that the websites are more ads, than real reviews. I am looking for an Europe based service, so a lot of the "top" recommendations are not interesting. Something is always a problem, not easy to come to a decision.

Yup.... that is the world we live in, unfortunately.

As I mentioned earlier, OpenWrt will work with most VPN services. As a general rule, we try not to recommend (or anti-recommend) any specific providers because we don't want to appear to be preferentially endorsing one over another. You may find some guides that have been developed for a specific service -- usually this is because of some nuance of configuration that might otherwise not be clear, but is not an endorsement. And you will find some forum threads that do discuss, by name, some of the different VPN options. And IIRC, there are some threads where individual users do express opinions/thoughts/info about the service quality/claims, but these are not official OpenWrt positions on the subject.

Regarding finding good recommendations/reviews -- ask people you know and/or consider the reviews (and sponsorships) of the sources you trust (youtube creators, web site reviews, etc.), but obviously take all of those with a grain of salt.

1 Like

That's the good news. This was mainly my question, if there are known VPN-services, which do not work "fine" with openwrt.

As a general rule, we try not to recommend (or anti-recommend) any specific providers because we don't want to appear to be preferentially endorsing one over another.

I understand, so I prefer these, which mention openwrt on their homepage. I cannot judge VPN services by hard facts, so I get my decision from things like where the company is situated, with some often recommended vpns, you cannot find this. At the end I have to check server details for the areas I am interested. I think ovpn, which I mentioned at the beginning is not the worst choice. I think I will give ti chance, the only problem is, that you have to sign up for at least 12 months to get a good price and if it was a wrong decision, a lot of money is lost. Since I have to learn what I need, I have to risk it.

Let's see if I get it working following https://mullvad.net/en/help/running-wireguard-router/

Is it possible with openwrt, that a few (5?) homepages do not use VPN automatically?

Yup!

1 Like

This thread is worth a read if you decide to go with Wireguard, Express vpn is easy to set up on OpenWrt, you can just follow the official wiki (no need for manual configuration, just upload the ovpn file as @bobafetthotmail mentioned), I'd just add that i disable ipv6 in lan interface to avoid dns leaks when using express vpn.

2 Likes

yeah... take most of my comments there with a grain of salt too... they are written from the perspective of an 'ongoing frustration' of reading provider advertising, signing up, tracking down docs, contacting support, over and over again... from the perspective of very specific needs with relation to wireguard, payment methods etc. etc.

everyone else's comments are less laced with frustration :wink:

some general comments tho'

  • you can often use online 'populist' reviews to rule out providers... but not so much to rule in... ( personally found alot of false claims and oversimplified criteria when it came to rating 'the best', most are aimed at home users with apps, and even then they leave out critical info )
  • you get what you pay for
  • the less questions asked ( email, phone number ) during the signup process and the more you pay... generally the better the service / features
  • connection counts vary widely and while with openwrt we are only looking for a few... if you want them on all devices in you home, only a few providers offered what i'd call an appropriate number of concurrent tunnels and/or adequate 'app' support across popular distros/devices
  • when it comes to provider docs, wireguard is wildly different (if docs are provided at all) from provider to provider... and personally, i'd learn at home first from the OpenWrt wiki how to do things manually....
  • you often wont know until you sign up, the true picture when it comes to day to day performance for your particular country/city
2 Likes

why europe-based service. All decent VPN providers have multiple servers in Eurupe

Not eays to find, at least for me, but there is:

https://www.ovpn.com/en/guides/wireguard/openwrt and for openvpn: https://www.ovpn.com/en/guides/openwrt

why europe-based service.

Since I am European and I think for Europeans it is more user friendly then.

Any service should work by OpenVPN-protocol. So I recommend you to buy service in 'special' days, I recommend you to wait 'Black Friday', and 'Cyber Monday', and to get great discount.

Will running a VPN directly on my router (WRT3200ACM) mean a performance hit?

I fear there is no offer for me, which fits my needs, that is why I ordered ovpn in Sweden. They do not have all what I want, but it comes close to it. These cheap offers are dangerous, because the next time you have to pay the regular price if you forget to cancel. As already said, an explanation how to set it up with openwrt is a plus. VPN is also a question, which company you trust and I don't trust companies without an official company name with a street address. I know I could get it cheaper than 5€/mo with a 1 year subscription, but I think you always get what you pay.

The performance impact depends on two (and a half) factors:

  • your WAN/ VPN throughput requirements, relative to your router's performance
    • the type of your VPN protocol, some have a larger impact/ overhead (OpenVPN) than others (wireguard, IPsec).
  • single-core vs multi-core
    networking tasks tend to be largely single threaded.
    On a single-core router, you do get a direct impact from running a VPN session while routing at the same time, as both tasks have to time-multiplex the same shared ressources of your single-core CPU.
    On multi-core routers, the routing itself still remains largely single threaded, this means towards the upper end of your router's capabilities, you'll see one fully loaded core, while the others are often rather idle (not quite, tasks like servicing the interrupts of your LAN interfaces and both wireless cards do generate some load for them as well, which usually coincides with high load on WAN). However you're still much more likely to find otherwise 'unused' cycles on your multi-core router, than on single-core ones (more cores, more opportunities for concurrent workloads, as the maximum throughput is largely limited by the performance of a single core).
3 Likes

Probably a stupid comparison, with my PC, a Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core Processor with 32G RAM there is no difference between Wireguard-VPN and none. I have a contract with 80MBit/s and I get full speed in any case. Using Wifi I get 40Mbit/s with wireguard vpn installed on my android phone (Redmi Note 9 pro), the phone connects to an openwrt R7800.

That's strange. Why are you asking for VPN services that support OpenWrt if you just install the VPN client in your PC and smartphone?

The device where you install the client will use the CPU to run the VPN. If you are not installing the VPN in the router, OpenWrt support or performance does not matter. It is not run by the OpenWrt device

1 Like

Since this PC is not routed via the openwrt-router, but connects to the Fritzbox of the ISP directly, at least at the moment.

I have to try step by step, what can work and at the end there will be a few VLANs and the PC will use VPN of the openwrt-router.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 10 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.