WireGuard is a communication protocol and free and open-source software that implements encrypted virtual private networks (VPNs).[5] It aims to be lighter and better performing than IPsec and OpenVPN, two common tunneling protocols.[6] The WireGuard protocol passes traffic over UDP.[7]
In March 2020, the Linux version of the software reached a stable production release and was incorporated into the Linux 5.6 kernel, and backported to earlier Linux kernels in some Linux distributions.[4] The Linux kernel components are licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2; other implementations are under GPLv2 or other free/open-source licenses.[5]