Remote work demands secure access. We compare ZTNA (Twingate) vs. traditional VPNs (OpenVPN, WireGuard) plus identity management (Okta) to find the best fit for small business teams.
Twingate replaces traditional VPNs with a Zero Trust model that grants per-resource access, eliminating lateral threat risks while being simple to deploy for small teams.
OpenVPN is the open-source standard for businesses that want full infrastructure control, offering battle-tested security at the cost of higher setup complexity.
WireGuard's minimal codebase and modern protocol deliver dramatically faster throughput and lower latency than OpenVPN, ideal for bandwidth-intensive remote work.
The shift to remote work has turned every coffee shop, home office, and co-working space into a potential security liability. For small businesses, the question isn't whether to secure remote access — it's how. The old answer was a traditional VPN: a tunnel that drops every remote employee onto the corporate network. The new answer is Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), a model that grants access only to specific resources, one connection at a time. We tested both approaches to find the things actually worth buying for a small team.
Enterprise VPN solutions are built for IT departments with dedicated staff. Small businesses need something that works out of the box, scales as they grow, and doesn't require a networking degree to maintain. According to Forbes Advisor, the best business VPNs prioritize no-logs policies and third-party audits for trust and transparency.1 Tom's Guide notes that modern solutions like Twingate are redefining secure remote access by eliminating the traditional VPN model entirely.2
Twingate is the standout for small businesses that want enterprise-grade security without the enterprise headache. Instead of a traditional VPN that places every user on the network (and exposes it to lateral threats), Twingate uses a Zero Trust model: each connection is authenticated, encrypted, and scoped to exactly one resource. Setup takes minutes, not days, and there's no hardware to manage. For small teams that need to secure access to cloud apps, databases, and internal tools, Twingate is the most future-proof choice.
OpenVPN remains the gold standard for businesses that want full control over their infrastructure. It's open-source, battle-tested, and runs on virtually any platform. The trade-off is complexity: you'll need to manage your own server, certificates, and client configurations. For a small business with a technically savvy founder or a dedicated IT person, OpenVPN offers unmatched flexibility and a proven security track record.
WireGuard is a modern protocol that's dramatically faster and leaner than OpenVPN. Its codebase is tiny — roughly 4,000 lines versus OpenVPN's 100,000+ — which means a smaller attack surface and easier auditing. For remote workers who need fast, reliable connections for video calls, large file transfers, or real-time collaboration, WireGuard is the performance king. Many commercial VPN services now offer WireGuard as an option, and it's built into the Linux kernel.
A VPN is only as secure as the credentials that unlock it. Okta provides the identity layer that modern remote access demands: single sign-on (SSO), multi-factor authentication (MFA), and lifecycle management. While Okta isn't a VPN itself, it's an essential companion for any business VPN stack. Pair it with Twingate or OpenVPN to ensure that only the right people — with the right devices — can access your resources.
The core debate in remote access today is ZTNA versus the traditional VPN. Here's how they compare:
| Dimension | ZTNA (Twingate) | Traditional VPN (OpenVPN / WireGuard) |
|---|---|---|
| Access Model | Per-resource, least-privilege | Full network tunnel |
| Setup Complexity | Low — cloud-managed | High — self-hosted |
| Security Granularity | High — app-level rules | Low — network-level |
| Performance | Excellent — direct peer-to-peer | Varies — depends on server |
| Scalability | Automatic — no hardware |
For most small businesses, ZTNA is the better bet. It reduces the attack surface, simplifies onboarding, and aligns with modern security best practices. Traditional VPNs still have a place — particularly for legacy apps, site-to-site connections, or teams that need full network access — but the industry is moving decisively toward Zero Trust.2
We evaluated each solution on four criteria: security (encryption, authentication, audit trail), ease of setup (time to first connection, documentation quality), performance (latency, throughput, reliability), and scalability (adding users, managing permissions). We consulted Forbes Advisor's business VPN rankings1 and Tom's Guide's expert reviews2 to validate our findings.
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| Pick | Price | Access Model | Setup Time | Security Granularity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Twingate ▶ Pick | — | Zero Trust / ZTNA | Minutes | Per-resource | Check price ↗ |
OpenVPN best for self-hosted / control | — | Traditional VPN | Hours to days | Network-level | Check price ↗ |
WireGuard best for speed / performance | — | Traditional VPN | Moderate | Network-level | Check price ↗ |
Okta Workforce Identity best for identity / sso integration | — | Identity / SSO | Moderate | User-level | Check price ↗ |
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Each contender was provisioned on a clean cloud box and driven through its real workflow — the agent ran the official setup where one existed, then exercised the core features the way a new user would across a week of trials before scoring.
| Manual — requires planning |
