Calculate how VPN encryption affects your network bandwidth. Compare protocols like WireGuard, IPsec, OpenVPN, and L2TP/IPsec to find the best balance of security and performance for your needs.
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VPN encryption provides essential security but adds overhead that reduces effective bandwidth. Understanding protocol overhead helps you choose the right VPN solution and properly size your network infrastructure. This calculator shows exactly how much bandwidth different VPN protocols consume.
VPN protocols add extra bytes to each packet for encryption headers, authentication, and encapsulation. This overhead reduces the available payload space, effectively lowering your throughput. Modern protocols like WireGuard minimize this overhead with efficient cryptographic primitives, while older protocols like L2TP/IPsec add more overhead due to double encapsulation.
VPN Throughput Formula
Effective BW = Base BW × (Payload / (Payload + Overhead))Accurately size your network connection when deploying VPN for remote workers. Know exactly how much bandwidth you'll lose to encryption overhead.
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WireGuard is generally the fastest VPN protocol with only ~32 bytes of overhead per packet. It uses modern cryptographic primitives (ChaCha20, Poly1305) that are optimized for modern CPUs. In benchmarks, WireGuard often achieves near-gigabit speeds on capable hardware.