Comparative Study of Modern VPN Solutions: Impact of Cloudflare, ZeroTier, and WireGuard on Network and Server Performance

This research investigates of the performance of three popular VPN solutions namely Cloudflare, ZeroTier and WireGuard, by measuring their effect on network performance and server resource usage across multiple metrics such as file upload/download speeds, round-trip time (RTT), web latency, and server CPU usage. The aim is to find the best solution for certain workloads by benchmarking these solutions in a controlled manner. The results of these experiments showed large performance differences. The results were consistent for all tests: WireGuard provided the fastest upload and download speed (19 seconds and 52 seconds, for 1000 MB files, respectively), the lowest web latency (50 milliseconds for 1000 connections), and the most efficient CPU utilization (24% at 1000 connections). For small size of packets (less than 700 bytes), Cloudflare provided competitive RTTs around 10 milliseconds and balanced performance for light workloads. However, it was not scalable indicated by web latency about 200 milliseconds and CPU utilization higher than 32% in high-concurrency scenarios. Conversely with lower workloads, ZeroTier struggled with download of heavy file sizes and lots of connections such as downloading with 1000 MB in size took 84 seconds and up to 62% of CPU utilization. WireGuard emerges as the best-suited high-performance solution for scalable applications. Cloudflare and ZeroTier offer trade-offs helpful to particular use cases, providing perspective on which VPN solution to choose depending on workload requirements and resource constraints.