History
In late 2020 a split happened in the proxy world. The original V2Ray stopped accepting new features related to XTLS technology. The developers created a fork — Project X and its core, Xray.
The first release of Xray-core came out in November 2020. The developers cut legacy code, optimized performance, and added the REALITY protocol. If V2Ray was good, Xray became "V2Ray on steroids."
Advantages
First and foremost — REALITY. While other protocols disguise themselves as a site, Reality uses someone else's legitimate site (for example, microsoft.com) as cover. The censor sees a TLS connection to Microsoft and can't block it.
Second — speed and lightness. Xray supports VLESS — a protocol without built-in encryption, delegating it to external TLS. Tests show Xray Reality sometimes works even faster than a direct connection without a proxy. In 2025-2026, post-quantum cryptography support was added.
Disadvantages
Xray inherited V2Ray's complexity. Setting up Reality with manual certificate generation is a quest for an advanced admin. Xray also requires a server abroad and a domain.
Summary
Xray is the most modern, aggressive, and resilient tool today for bypassing DPI. If V2Ray is an old Swiss Army knife, then Xray is a tactical folding knife with a titanium coating. In the VLESS + Reality combo, this is the current pinnacle of proxy technology evolution.