In late 2025, Mullvad VPN — the privacy-centric service known for its strict no-logs policy and minimalist approach — unveiled GotaTun, a new Rust-based implementation of the WireGuard VPN protocol (Speed & Privacy) . This development marks a strategic leap forward in VPN performance and connection reliability, aligning with Mullvad’s broader plans to fully transition away from older protocol frameworks and optimize user experience across devices.
GotaTun is not an entirely new VPN protocol but rather a userspace implementation of WireGuard written in Rust, inspired by Cloudflare’s open-source BoringTun project. By harnessing Rust’s safety features and efficiency, Mullvad aims to enhance speed, stability, and maintainability — particularly on mobile platforms like Android, where legacy implementations have historically struggled.
Why GotaTun Matters: Performance, Privacy, and Stability
WireGuard has become a dominant protocol in the VPN world due to its simplicity, strong cryptography, and speed advantages over older standards like OpenVPN. However, not all implementations of WireGuard are created equal. Before GotaTun, Mullvad used wireguard-go, a Go-based userspace implementation that cross-platform compatibility but also introduced challenges such as stability issues and higher crash rates — especially on Android devices.
GotaTun changes the equation:
Rust for Safety and Performance: Rust is celebrated for its strong memory safety guarantees and efficient use of system resources. Unlike Go or C, Rust minimizes the kinds of security bugs and crashes that arise from unsafe memory handling. By basing its WireGuard implementation on Rust, Mullvad is boosting both connection reliability and runtime safety.
Improved Stability: Early reports indicate a substantial reduction in app crashes linked to VPN processing. Previously, a large proportion of Android crash reports were tied to wireguard-go. With GotaTun, crash rates have reportedly dropped dramatically, improving the user experience.
Enhanced Integration: GotaTun fits more naturally with Mullvad’s predominantly Rust-based codebase. This removes the complexity and overhead of bridging between Rust and Go using foreign function interfaces — a source of troubleshooting difficulty in the past.
Rolling Out GotaTun: What Users Can Expect
Mullvad first deployed GotaTun in its Android app in late 2025, bundled with version 2025.10. According to testing and user feedback, this initial rollout has been successful:
No crashes attributed directly to GotaTun, compared with previous instability tied to older implementations.
Performance gains reported, especially on mobile platforms where computation overhead and battery efficiency matter most. Some real-world user tests even suggest speeds several times faster than before.
Mullvad plans to expand GotaTun support to desktop and iOS platforms in 2026, as part of its broader strategy to phase out legacy protocols like OpenVPN and embrace a modern, optimized WireGuard-only approach.
Technical Advantages of Rust and WireGuard Integration
Rust’s performance and safety benefits are core to GotaTun’s appeal:
Memory Safety: Rust eliminates common errors such as buffer overflows and null pointer dereferences through compile-time checks, reducing the risk of security vulnerabilities. This makes VPN code that handles encrypted traffic inherently safer.
Efficiency for Mobile: Rust’s lighter memory footprint and predictable behavior allow for smoother operation on constrained environments like smartphones and tablets, where users often experience slower speeds or sudden disconnections.
Better Obfuscation Compatibility: GotaTun’s enhancements support advanced features like multihop routing and Device-Aware IP Traffic Allocation (DAITA), enabling customizable privacy configurations without sacrificing performance.
These technical strengths give Mullvad an edge in an increasingly competitive VPN market. By optimizing its WireGuard stack under the hood, the service ensures both high throughput and reliable connections, meeting the expectations of privacy-savvy users who also demand modern performance standards.
How GotaTun Fits into Mullvad’s Broader Vision
Mullvad has signaled a broader shift in its product roadmap: a complete retirement of OpenVPN support by early 2026 and a full embrace of WireGuard technologies as the backbone of its service offerings. GotaTun directly supports this vision by not only implementing WireGuard more effectively, but also by creating a platform for future innovations such as built-in obfuscation and censorship circumvention tools.
Moreover, GotaTun’s open-source roots foster community collaboration, allowing developers worldwide to inspect, audit, and contribute to this foundational component — something that aligns neatly with Mullvad’s transparent philosophy.
Conclusion: A Smarter, Faster VPN Experience
Mullvad’s launch of GotaTun marks a key moment in the ongoing evolution of VPN technology. By reengineering its WireGuard implementation in Rust, Mullvad improves speed, stability, and maintainability — delivering tangible benefits to users who value both privacy and performance.
As the rollout continues across platforms and expands into new features, GotaTun will likely set a benchmark for how modern VPN services balance security, efficiency, and user experience in a rapidly changing digital landscape.
