VPN (Virtual Private Network) is becoming an increasingly popular solution for people all over the world. Whether you’re looking for privacy and security online, or a safe and efficient way to unblock websites and stream media, a quality VPN service is the ideal solution. There are currently hundreds of VPN services on the market, but the question is – how do you find the best VPN service for your unique needs?
The answer can be found in our ranking of the best VPN services, which we’ve compiled based on our testing.
Best VPN Services
This year, the following VPN services performed best in our tests:
| NordVPN – one of the best VPN services on the market [ discount coupon 70% ] |
| SurfShark – an excellent VPN service with very affordable prices [ discount coupon 86% ] |
| ProtonVPN – a VPN from Switzerland with the most progress [ kupón so zľavou 64% ] |
| ExpressVPN – a long-term, secure and reliable VPN service [ coupon discount 61% ] |
While there is no one-size-fits-all VPN service that will be perfect for everyone, you can’t go wrong by purchasing one of the VPN services listed above. Any of the recommended VPN services in our review may be the best one for you – it all depends on your unique needs.
The goal of creating this review was to identify the best VPN services on the market that meet at least the following criteria:
- Passed all tests with no data leaks detected (IP address leaks or DNS leaks)
- Excellent performance across the entire server network (connection speed and reliability)
- High quality VPN applications with all functionalities working properly
- Supports WireGuard, OpenVPN and other robust and proven data encryption standards
- Provides a money-back guarantee (from 7 to 30 days)
- Trusted and proven VPN service providers with a good reputation
- Located in a secure privacy jurisdiction (outside of the Five Eyes Alliance countries – USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand)
Here is our ranking of the best VPN services:
1. NordVPN – the current market leader in VPN services
Service name: NordVPN
Jurisdiction: Panama
Logging: none (audited)
Price: from 3,39 €
Support: live chat 24/7
Refund: 30 days
Website: NordVPN.com
NordVPN has maintained its high standards for quite some time, but in recent years it has already firmly established itself as one of the top virtual private networking services and has even increased its lead over a number of competing services.
It was one of the first VPN services to implement the NordLynx protocol into its products, built on the modern and fast WireGuard security protocol. This has given NordVPN (and its users) a huge advantage over other leading services. Unsurprisingly, it was among the fastest VPNs in almost every country in our tests.
NordVPN has many other privacy features (and even higher levels of security) in its offering:
- Threat Protection feature to block ads, tracking codes, malware, and phishing domains
- Double VPN servers for encrypting data transmissions across two servers (without significant loss of data transfer speed)
- Tor-over-VPN servers that add an additional layer of encryption over the Tor network
The service has a very fast and secure server network at its disposal. All servers run in RAM-disk mode (no physical hard disks, only server memory is used).
Another huge benefit is the fact that NordVPN recently announced that it is gradually rolling out high-speed dedicated servers for its entire network. These servers will have up to 10 Gbps of bandwidth assigned to them, and will gradually replace all the servers that the company has been leasing from third parties.
At the moment, NordVPN has around 5,400 servers in 59 countries around the world.
NordVPN has also successfully passed several independent security audits, which have confirmed that its operations comply with the rules it states in its terms of use. It has an ongoing partnership with the auditing company Versprite, which conducts product security audits and penetration tests.
With top speeds and strong security, NordVPN is a top-rated VPN service for torrenting, and it also works very well for all the major streaming services, including Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Disney Plus, and more. You can also use the NordVPN app if you need a VPN for Firestick, Smart TVs, or gaming consoles.
NordVPN also offers a service called obfuscated servers, which obfuscate data traffic over VPNs, much like regular HTTPS encryption does. This is a useful feature for circumventing censorship in countries that prohibit VPN use (for example, when using VPNs in China). However, this functionality can also be used in school networks or in workplaces that try to block traffic over VPNs.
All NordVPN subscriptions come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. In addition, with a long-term subscription, you get a discount of up to 70%, which works out at only 3,39 € per month of use. That’s excellent value for money.
There’s great round-the-clock support via live chat available 24/7.
You can read a detailed review of NordVPN by clicking here.
2. Surfshark VPN – rising star among VPN services
Service name: Surfshark VPN
Jurisdiction: British Virgin Islands
Logging: none (audited)
Price: from 2,19 €
Support: live chat 24/7
Refund: 30 days
Website: SurfShark.com
Surfshark VPN, which only officially launched in 2018, has taken the world of VPN services by storm. Despite being a relative newcomer, Surfshark offers a lot of interesting features, great data leak protection settings, access to many streaming services, and excellent performance, all at a great price. What’s more, Surfshark comes with one big advantage you won’t find with most other VPN services – it provides unlimited connections.
Surfshark is based in the British Virgin Islands and logs absolutely no data about your internet activity, which has been officially verified by the independent auditing company Cure53. Surfshark apps include a good data leak protection setup to ensure that data remains encrypted and secure, even in the event of any outages in your connection to VPN servers. There’s also a CleanWeb feature to block ads, tracking codes, and malware domains.
Similar to our other top recommended VPN services, Surfshark now runs all servers in RAM-disk mode (without physical hard drives) for added security. It offers multiple server configurations with dual protection, allowing you to encrypt data traffic across up to two VPN servers simultaneously.
Additionally, Surfshark uses a modern and highly secure version of the WireGuard protocol, and connection and data transfer speeds were at least as good as NordVPN’s.
If you want to stream media or unblock websites, Surfshark is a great choice with over 3,200 servers in 63 countries around the world. It currently supports more than 16 regional Netflix libraries, as well as most other streaming services including BBC iPlayer, Hulu, and Disney Plus. It’s also a great VPN for Android and iOS.
Surfshark continues to gain widespread popularity, and is a strong competitor to the NordVPN and ExpressVPN pair. It is also one of the cheapest VPN services on the market with a long-term subscription. You can get the service with a discount of 86%, which is just 2,19 € per month of use. This is another option offering an excellent performance/price ratio.
All Surfshark subscription plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. There is also round-the-clock support via live chat.
You can read a detailed review of Surfshark VPN by clicking here.
3. ProtonVPN – the VPN service with the most progress
Service name: ProtonVPN
Jurisdiction: Switzerland
Logging: none (audited)
Price: from 3,59 €
Support: live chat, email
Refund: 30 days (partial refund only)
Website: ProtonVPN.com
ProtonVPN has had a quality few years since its launch in 2017, regularly ranking in the top ten VPN services we’ve recommended to our readers. In past years, it was the secure email service ProtonMail that always excelled in Proton Technologies’ product portfolio. However, recent years have changed everything, as the service has come up with a number of innovations that have taken it to the highest level.
Right at the beginning of January 2021 came the NetShield function, which is tasked with blocking malware, ads, and tracking codes on websites. NetShield is available on Android, iOS, macOS and Windows, and offers two levels of protection. The first level prevents your browser from loading resources from domains that host malware, spyware, or other malicious software. Malware protection is enabled by default. The second level of protection available blocks ads and tracking codes.
In June 2021, a new application was released for Linux systems. It features a sophisticated and fully-functional graphic user interface that makes it much easier to use. ProtonVPN is the only VPN service that offers a full-featured and free open-source Linux app.
In July 2021 the company launched the VPN Accelerator function, which improves VPN connection stability and can increase data transfer speeds by more than 400% in certain situations. VPN Accelerator is a technology unique to ProtonVPN, and should better leverage the capabilities of the large network of VPN servers at the company’s disposal. If you’re the technical type and are interested in learning more about this service, you can find more information here.
In October 2021, the company incorporated the advanced, fast and secure WireGuard protocol into its products. The benefits of this protocol are faster speeds, near instant connections to servers, better performance, and increased battery life for your devices. WireGuard is extremely fast and lightweight, open source, and, combined with VPN Accelerator technology, is another major performance leap forward. WireGuard is the default protocol via Smart Protocol technology for all ProtonVPN users on Windows, macOS, iPhone/iPad, Android, Chromebook and Android TV.
By the end of October 2021, ProtonVPN had already expanded to 63 countries worldwide, with the Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Egypt, Nigeria and Georgia being added in succession. For these servers, Smart Routing technology has been used, where the server is not physically in the country, but a virtual location is used. Similarly, connectivity in other problematic countries such as Brazil, South Korea and Taiwan are also being addressed. The network has also been expanded with four new servers at the Limassol data centre in Cyprus.
Also in October 2021, ProtonVPN launched a live chat. Users no longer have to rely solely on an online form and subsequent email communication. Any user with a subscription to the service can now get help and answers to their questions in real-time via a live chat with the support team. Support is available on weekdays from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
ProtonVPN has eliminated almost all of the issues that we have faulted it for in the past, and the VPN apps themselves have also undergone several improvements over the years. They are the best we can currently find among VPN services in terms of functionality, design, and ease of use.
The measured data transfer speeds were competitive with the best players on the market, which was also not the standard in the past.
In April 2022, the service passed an external audit by the renowned Securitum company, which confirmed that ProtonVPN is indeed a service that does not log its customers’ activities.
The service is available for a long-term subscription with a 64% discount, which is only 3,59 € per month of use.
You can read a detailed review of ProtonVPN by clicking here.
4. ExpressVPN – a quality stalwart among VPN services
Service name: ExpressVPN
Jurisdiction: British Virgin Islands
Logging: none (audited)
Price: from 4,99 $
Support: live chat 24/7
Refund: 30 days
Website: ExpressVPN.com
In a crowded market of VPN providers, ExpressVPN maintains a very high standard and has long maintained a top position in anonymity and security on the internet. While a number of VPN services struggle with multiple bugs and issues, ExpressVPN has been providing consistent quality service for several years now.
ExpressVPN offers its own Lightway protocol, unlike other services that rely on the widely available WireGuard protocol. However, Lightway is open source, so anyone can check it. However, Lightway is open source, so anyone can use it. In benchmark tests, we found that the Lightway protocol offers both higher speed and reliability than OpenVPN, as well as very similar results to the popular WireGuard.
ExpressVPN provides a network of high-security servers in 160 locations in 94 countries around the world (more than 3000 servers). Like NordVPN and Surfshark, ExpressVPN runs all servers in RAM-disk mode (without physical hard drives) with TrustedServer for data security. This technology has been independently audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers, which has also verified and successfully confirmed compliance with the service’s policy of not logging user activity.
In addition to security, ExpressVPN also excels in streaming. It is one of the best VPN services for Netflix and provides uninterrupted access to its many regional libraries. ExpressVPN equally does well with Disney Plus, Hulu, and the BBC iPlayer service.
Additionally, it offers minimalist VPN apps with a clean design that are very reliable. Although ExpressVPN is slightly more expensive than some of our other recommended VPN services, it remains a safe and reliable choice for all users.
All subscription plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee. ExpressVPN provides round-the-clock live chat support and many video guides.
You can get a long-term subscription service at a discount 61%, which is only 4,99 $ per month of use.
You can read a detailed review of ExpressVPN by clicking here.
