Vulkan is a low-level, low-overhead cross-platform API and open standard for 3D graphics and computing. It was intended to address the shortcomings of OpenGL, and allow developers more control over the GPU.
Thus, when well optimized, applications written with Vulkan in mind perform better than those written in OpenGL. Most Windows games are written in DirectX. DXVK, which is part of Steam's Proton and Wine, converts DirectX instructions to Vulkan calls and has very little overhead. It performs almost as good as on Windows, whereas converting the DirectX instructions to OpenGL calls has much more overhead.
Unlike OpenGL where it had two options to get the libraries and possibly cause confusing and extra thought, the Vulkan library is supplied directly from KhronosGroup. Vulkan-Headers-1.3.295 must be installed before Vulkan-Loader-1.3.295. While this is the baseline for what is needed to get Vulkan working, some applications require more software in relation to Vulkan: SPIRV-Headers-1.3.290.0, SPIRV-Tools-1.3.290.0, and Glslang-14.3.0. They are necessary to compile Vulkan shaders into bytecode which Vulkan as an API can process, unlike OpenGL where shader code is written as a string, OpenGL compiles it into a binary, then runs it every frame. Using bytecode for OpenGL is possible, however, and requires extra setup.