Why does every VPN need to rewrite their own client? (programming.dev)

submitted 12 hours ago by onlinepersona@programming.dev to c/programming@programming.dev

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I've been testing VPN services and somehow every one with a client has written their own. Proton, Windscribe, IVPN, Mullvad, AirVPN, NordVPN, and the list goes on.

Don't these services all do the same thing? Connect to a server to get a list of servers, then use WireGuard or OpenVPN to make a connection, and have some fancy stuff like split tunneling or a killswitch. It should just take configuration by adding profiles per service and it should be possible to use the same client.

What am I missing?

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[-] GottaHaveFaith@fedia.io 3 points 11 hours ago

a lot of them do offers wireguard/openvpn config files as an alternative to their clients, but those offers more features such as speed tests, quickly switching between profiles (I don't really want tens of different VPN profiles on my network manager), some extra settings easily reachable such as a network killswitch if you get disconnected etc

this post was submitted on 28 Jul 2026

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