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VPNSmith Guides & Comparisons

Understand how a WireGuard tunnel works, what a GDPR VPS truly costs, and how to forge your own infra. Long-form, sourced, kept up to date.

All · 117 VPS Comparisons · 12 Self-host VPN · 75 Tunneling & Obfuscation · 13 clusters.self-host-vpn-head · 9 clusters.vpn-trust-audits · 1 clusters.commercial-vpn · 2 clusters.vps-hosting · 3 clusters.wireguard · 1 Cloud Privacy · 1

An aisle inside a data center: rows of tall black mesh-door server cabinets with blue cabling on the right, a polished concrete floor, and a mobile cart carrying a monitor at the far end

FeaturedTunneling & Obfuscation2026-10-07

Best VPS for V2Ray and Xray in 2026: What Actually Matters (and What Doesn't)

V2Ray and Xray run on almost any VPS. The choice is decided by datacenter location, IP reputation, traffic allowance and how fast you can replace a blocked IP. Contabo, Hetzner and Oracle's free tier compared on those criteria, with figures read on their official pages in October 2026.

6 min readRead the article

Two cream-coloured RJ45 wall sockets on a dark panel, four white Ethernet cables plugged in with blue and purple connector boots, a red LED lit on the upper socket

Tunneling & Obfuscation

2026-08-097 min

v2rayN with sing-box core: what changes (2026)

Switching v2rayN from the Xray core to sing-box: which protocols actually need it (TUIC, AnyTLS, Naive - not Hysteria2), how the DNS fields change meaning, why Bootstrap DNS must be an IP, and where the files live.

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A green stick insect resting along a stem, its body nearly indistinguishable from the plant it sits on

Tunneling & Obfuscation

2026-08-025 min

Hysteria 2: What Masquerade and Obfuscation Actually Do

Hysteria 2 stacks three layers of disguise: QUIC that mimics HTTP/3, optional obfuscation when QUIC itself is blocked, and a masquerade that answers real HTTP requests. What the documentation says each one is for, and when it tells you to skip them.

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Macro close-up of the Windows key on a dark laptop keyboard

Tunneling & Obfuscation

2026-07-315 min

What Is v2rayN? The Client Everyone Downloads Expecting a VPN

v2rayN is a GUI client for Xray and sing-box on Windows, Linux and macOS. It ships with no servers, it is not a VPN service, and it is a different project from v2rayNG. What it does, what you still need, and which one you actually want.

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A fibre optic patch panel packed with turquoise and white cables plugged into rows of blue ports

Tunneling & Obfuscation

2026-07-306 min

sing-box VLESS Reality 2026: The Fields Guides Get Wrong

A current sing-box VLESS + Reality config, checked against the official documentation for 1.13. Includes the inbound fields that were deprecated in 1.11 and are still copied into most tutorials.

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Network rack with colorful patch cables and green status LEDs in a dark data center

Tunneling & Obfuscation

2026-06-237 min

AmneziaWG: the DPI-resistant WireGuard fork, self-hosted (2026)

AmneziaWG is a WireGuard fork that hides your tunnel from DPI. What Jc, S1/S2 and H1-H4 do, how to self-host awg on a VPS, and which params must match.

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A forest path that splits into two routes around a tree

Tunneling & Obfuscation

2026-06-198 min

What Is VPN Split Tunneling? How It Routes Your Traffic (2026)

VPN split tunneling lets you choose which traffic goes through your VPN and which goes straight over your normal connection. How it works, the types, why people use it, the honest privacy trade-off, and how to do it on self-hosted WireGuard.

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Networking equipment and cabling inside a data center

Tunneling & Obfuscation

2026-06-1912 min

sing-box vs Xray 2026: The Real Difference Is Scope

sing-box vs V2Ray vs Xray for 2026: protocols, REALITY, Hysteria2 and TUIC support, client apps, and which one to self-host for censorship circumvention.

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A glacier winding between mountain peaks at dusk, with rocks in the foreground and a pink sky

Tunneling & Obfuscation

2026-06-0612 min

Anti-DPI VPN 2026: bypass with obfuscated WireGuard

2026 anti-DPI stacks compared (AmneziaWG, Trojan-GFW, Xray REALITY, Shadowsocks-2022) for a Contabo Frankfurt VPS. Real-world DPI resistance from GFW Report/OONI, latency, legal risk.

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Electronic board with microcontroller and copper traces on a dark background

Tunneling & Obfuscation

2026-06-039 min

wstunnel: TCP/UDP over WebSocket in 2026 (complete guide)

wstunnel wraps WireGuard, SSH, or any TCP/UDP traffic in WebSockets on port 443. Contabo install, what to expect on latency, corporate firewall comparison.

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Tunneling & Obfuscation

2026-06-0311 min

V2Ray setup 2026: VMess and VLESS, step by step

Complete guide: set up V2Ray with VMess and VLESS protocols to bypass censorship in China, Iran, Russia. More stable than Shadowsocks in 2026. Includes server config, client apps (Windows/Mac/Android/iOS).

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Close-up of electronic components with colorful chips and resistors

Tunneling & Obfuscation

2026-06-0310 min

Shadowsocks vs VPN 2026: an honest comparison

Shadowsocks-rust vs WireGuard: protocol, real-world perf, plausible deniability, censorship bypass. When each one beats the other 2026.

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Developer silhouette in front of screens displaying security code

Tunneling & Obfuscation

2026-06-0310 min

Cloak: TLS obfuscation for self-host VPN in 2026

Cloak turns your WireGuard or Shadowsocks into a fake HTTPS site. Contabo install, WG/SS integration, performance, plausible deniability, deployment patterns.

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