Best VPN Service for 2026: How to Choose the Right VPN for You

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NordVPN remains the fastest VPN we tested, making it an excellent choice for bandwidth-intensive activities such as 4K video streaming, competitive online gaming or file sharing on remote teams. The versatile NordVPN does just about everything well, from its fantastic content unblocking to its advanced privacy features. If you primarily want a VPN for activities like streaming video or competitive gaming, NordVPN will perform well. But Express barely edges out Nord for usability and privacy, and VPNs like Proton VPN, Surfshark and Mullvad will be easier on your wallet.

It’s initially a great value at $13 per month, $60 annually or $83 total for the first two years of service, but aggressive price hikes on the one- and two-year plans drive the renewal up to $140 per year, which is about the highest you can pay for a VPN. Thankfully, you can save money on your VPN service by stacking subscriptions and add that to your existing account to avoid an exorbitant price hike.

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NordVPN speeds

In our 2025 speed tests, NordVPN emerged as the uncontested fastest VPN with an average speed loss of just 3%. Generally, we consider anything under an average 25% download speed loss perfectly acceptable, so Nord’s blisteringly fast server performance should be virtually unnoticeable for most users. Its proprietary WireGuard-based NordLynx VPN protocol delivered the best performance, with a mere 11% average speed loss on Windows compared to a still-solid 21% speed loss on the slower OpenVPN. On MacOS, both NordLynx and OpenVPN speed test results were faster than our base internet speed, which is uncommon, but can happen in cases where internet providers are limiting bandwidth.

Privacy and transparency

NordVPN ticks all of the privacy basics and then some, providing unique features for privacy-critical users, which makes it a good choice for investigative journalists, activists, whistleblowers or anyone else with heightened privacy needs. You’ll find standard options, such as NordLynx and OpenVPN protocols, a kill switch and split tunneling. Additionally, Nord packs advanced privacy amenities, including its obfuscation-focused NordWhisper VPN protocol, which attempts to hide the fact that you’re using a VPN. For enhanced privacy, you’ll find Onion Over VPN servers (which rely on Tor to make it even more difficult to trace your traffic back to you) and double VPN servers (which beef up your privacy using a pair of VPN connections). The service continues to improve, with scam call protection on Android rolled out in July and new no-logs audit results posted in February.

There’s a strict no-logs policy that undergoes annual audits by a reputable third party. Its RAM-only servers are wiped of data each time they are rebooted or shut down, so theoretically, none of your browsing data should be saved to a disk anyway. For future-proofing, NordVPN has rolled out post-quantum protection to all its apps, which may guard against threats from quantum computers.  

Usability 

Whether you’re a VPN beginner, seasoned privacy enthusiast or somewhere in between, you’ll find NordVPN’s apps intuitive. It’s easy to perform all essential tasks, like changing servers, switching VPN protocols or enabling different critical settings such as the kill switch. NordVPN offers apps for nearly every available platform, including Windows, MacOS, Linux (with a beginner-friendly GUI), Android, iOS/iPadOS, Apple TV, Android TV and the Amazon Fire TV. Visually, Nord’s app is busier compared to ExpressVPN’s minimalist app, but it’s not overwhelming or clunky like the PrivadoVPN and PIA apps. We wish split tunneling on Android were a little more flexible — you can exclude individual apps from your VPN, but not use a VPN connection for only some apps. Still, that’s a minor quibble about an otherwise polished app.

Surfshark is a solid option for anyone looking for a budget-friendly VPN experience that rivals higher-priced providers like ExpressVPN or NordVPN. Its impressive roster of useful premium features delivers a lot of value even though the service has gotten more expensive. While it can’t quite keep up with NordVPN’s speed and ExpressVPN’s usability and overall privacy, it comes pretty close at a significantly cheaper cost than those two, especially when looking at renewal rates.

Monthly pricing is the exception: Most VPNs charge about $10 to $13 for a monthly subscription, but Surfshark charges $15.45 per month, making it one of the most expensive monthly rates in the industry. Prices for Surfshark’s longer-term plans are more reasonable. The one-year plan costs $48 for the first 15 months and renews at $99 per year thereafter. The two-year plan costs $54 for the first 27 months and renews annually at the same $99 rate.

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Surfshark speeds

Surfshark’s overall speed performance has been remarkably consistent and fast in the past few years, with an average speed loss hovering in the high teens. In our most recent speed tests, we measured an average speed loss of 21%, which is speedy enough for us to consider it a fast VPN. Surfshark has a vast network of more than 4,500 servers across 100 countries, which can help ensure fast speeds and stable connections by minimizing congestion and offering more options for more users to connect to servers nearby their physical location.

A new feature Surfshark calls FastTrack is an innovative solution that the company says can boost your VPN connection speeds by up to 70% on certain servers. The feature leverages Surfshark’s Nexus Network to optimize the path your connection takes to the exit server. This can result in faster speeds if connecting through multiple servers is more optimal than connecting directly. In our testing, FastTrack boosted our speeds by about 20%, but speed differences may be more pronounced for users on slower or less stable internet connections. For now, FastTrack is available on MacOS through Surfshark’s Seattle, Vancouver and Sydney server locations.

Privacy and transparency

Surfshark has cool privacy features in addition to standard privacy protections like its kill switch, no-logs policy and DNS leak protection. Surfshark’s Dynamic Multihop lets you tunnel through any two server locations for an added layer of privacy and its Rotating IP makes it harder to track you online by switching your IP address every few minutes. We also like Surfshark’s Alternative ID, a suite of unique privacy features that allows you to generate an alter-ego complete with full name, physical address, and email address that you can use online without divulging your true identity. An alternative phone number is also available for an extra $3 per month. Surfshark’s new EverLink “self-healing VPN infrastructure” is another one-of-a-kind innovation that works in the background to automatically reconfigure the VPN tunnel in case it unexpectedly breaks.  

Surfshark also rolled out post-quantum protections this year to protect against potential future decryption threats from quantum computers, a move that follows other top VPNs including ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Mullvad. We’re encouraged by Surfshark representatives telling us that the company is committing to annual third-party audits. The latest no-logs audit from Deloitte found that the configuration of Surfshark’s IT systems are in line with its no-logs policy. Additionally, Surfshark publishes a quarterly transparency report, which details the number of legal requests the company receives each quarter and states that Surfshark has no useful information to disclose to authorities, in line with its no-logs policy.

Usability

Surfshark’s apps are slick, simple to use and deliver a consistent user experience across platforms. Apps are available for Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Apple TV, Fire TV and Android TV. If you’re into streaming, Surfshark does well to unblock content on most platforms and streaming services and offers apps for smart TVs as well as streaming devices. We did experience slow loading times with Netflix on MacOS and Hulu detected the VPN when we tried streaming content on Hulu through Surfshark’s Fire TV Stick app. Otherwise, the streaming experience was solid and what we would expect from a top-tier VPN service. Surfshark is also a great choice if you live in a large household or have lots of connected devices because you’ll be able to connect an unlimited number of devices simultaneously, compared to competitors’ usual five to 10 limit. And like many other VPNs, Surfshark offers a 30-day money-back guarantee in case you’re not satisfied with the service.     

Proton VPN is the best free VPN and the only zero-dollar virtual private network on the market that we wholeheartedly recommend. While Proton VPN’s free plan is excellent, its premium plan holds its own against the likes of ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Surfshark, and is a fantastic upgrade path for anyone who needs more servers for streaming and travel. Its privacy features, like discreet app icons on Android and guest modes, coupled with fast speeds and outstanding streaming service unblocking, make Proton VPN a solid option for casual users and privacy buffs alike. Proton’s annual plan costs $48 for the first year, the two-year plan costs $72 for the first two years, with both plans renewing at $84 annually, making it cheaper than most competing VPNs.

Despite a few limitations with Proton’s free plan — you can’t manually select a server, and you’re limited to one connection at a time — it doesn’t sacrifice privacy, sell your data or plaster your screen with ads. By contrast, PrivadoVPN lets you pick a server on its free tier, but limits you to 10GB of monthly use, which is barely enough for streaming a 4K movie. Moreover, Privado hasn’t been audited and doesn’t publish transparency reports, so unlike Proton VPN, it’s unsuitable for people with serious privacy concerns. 

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Proton VPN speeds

With an impressive 16% average speed loss in our 2025 tests, Proton VPN remained snappy even on geographically distant servers. Its performance falls comfortably under our 25% average speed loss threshold, fitting between the pack-leading NordVPN (3%) and ExpressVPN (18%). Regardless of the VPN protocol or server we used, Proton provided sufficient speeds for bandwidth-demanding activities like streaming 4K video or online gaming. 

Privacy and transparency

While Proton is great for casual users who want to stream Netflix, its unique and helpful privacy features make it an outstanding choice for anyone with serious privacy concerns, such as political activists. 

In addition to the industry-standard WireGuard and OpenVPN VPN protocols, Proton offers its proprietary Stealth protocol, which attempts to slip through firewalls disguised as normal web traffic. Stealth could be helpful in situations where VPNs are frowned upon, such as on school Wi-Fi or when traveling to certain countries. Proton undergoes annual third-party audits, helping create trust that the company is doing what it says it’s doing to protect your privacy. Its privacy policy is also one of the most reader-friendly we’ve seen, directly addressing concerns about user data and privacy.

Proton VPN’s discreet app icons let you hide the fact that you have a VPN installed on your Android phone or tablet, making the Proton VPN app icon look like a notes or weather app instead. Proton’s hidden app icons could prove helpful if you’re worried about your device getting seized and searched. For beefed-up privacy, you’ll find Secure Core servers, which use a second VPN connection, and Tor Over VPN servers, which use a VPN in conjunction with the Tor Network. Both Secure Core and Tor Over VPN servers make it even more difficult to trace your web traffic back to your computer. 

Usability 

Proton VPN is fairly easy to use, although its apps aren’t as streamlined as the minimalist ExpressVPN. Power users should appreciate Proton’s customizable apps, which feature connection profiles that allow users to specify specific servers or protocols for different situations. Although Proton VPN is privacy-forward, it’s not all work and no play. We were impressed with Proton’s excellent streaming chops. It effortlessly unblocks many foreign Netflix libraries, including Netflix Egypt, as well as Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, CBC, Disney Plus and Max.

We had no issues performing VPN basics with its apps across all platforms — switching servers, changing VPN protocols and toggling on or off the kill switch. While the kill switch works on Windows, Android and MacOS, a design oversight in the app interface doesn’t properly inform you that your IP address and internet activity may be exposed when jumping from one server directly to another on Mac, even with the kill switch enabled (an issue that plagues some other VPNs on Mac). Especially considering Proton VPN’s strong focus on privacy and transparency, we were disappointed by this flaw on its MacOS app. Nevertheless, Proton VPN is a great choice for power users, thanks to its unique privacy features and excellent streaming service unblocking.

Mullvad is a small but mighty VPN that holds its own against the top players in the VPN industry. We like that Mullvad requires no personal information to purchase or use, which is part of what makes it the best VPN for privacy. At signup, you’ll be assigned a randomly generated numerical code that you use to purchase the subscription and sign into the apps, eliminating the need for a username or password. Mullvad is fast, easy to use across platforms and delivers some of the industry’s best privacy features, but sometimes at the expense of certain casual use cases like streaming. If you’re a VPN user who has heightened online privacy needs and will be using your VPN predominantly to protect your privacy, Mullvad is the way to go — especially if you’re on a budget. But if you’re more of a casual VPN user who just wants to stream content internationally from various streaming providers, then you’ll be better off with ExpressVPN, NordVPN or Surfshark.

Mullvad’s prices are about as straightforward as it gets: $6 (5 euro) per month, whether you use it for a month, six months or indefinitely. There are no discounts or recurring subscription plans available, and you only need to pay for the months that you need the VPN, which allows for maximum flexibility. That said, you can pay upfront for up to a year at any time by adding time to your account. If you purchase 12 months, it’ll cost you 60 euro (about $72), which is cheaper than the yearly rate that many other top VPNs charge. Alternatively, you can purchase a year of Mullvad from Amazon for $57 if you want to get it for even cheaper. 

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Mullvad speeds

We measured a 24% speed loss in our latest Mullvad speed tests. While that’s a drop from the 13% speed loss we measured last year, it still makes Mullvad one of the fastest VPNs available. Considering Mullvad’s relatively small network of 603 servers across 50 countries, the VPN’s speed performance is commendable. There are other VPNs that have thousands of servers in more than 100 countries that aren’t nearly as fast as Mullvad. Mullvad’s plenty fast enough for data-heavy activities like streaming, torrenting or gaming.

Privacy and transparency

Privacy and transparency are where Mullvad really shines. Everything Mullvad does is based on the company’s uncompromising commitment to protecting user privacy, from its innovative privacy features to its anonymous sign up process, always-on kill switch and lack of recurring subscriptions.

On top of getting the basics right, Mullvad offers some additional privacy features that go above and beyond what many other VPNs deliver. Mullvad was one of the first VPN providers to offer post-quantum protections, a forward-looking privacy feature that helps protect users against potential future threats from quantum computers. And unique to Mullvad is Defense Against AI-guided Traffic Analysis (DAITA), a feature that helps protect users from having their encrypted web traffic identified using artificial intelligence. The feature does this by sending dummy packets while making each data packet the same size to prevent adversaries from leveraging AI to identify the patterns of data packets that users send and receive through the VPN tunnel and match it to actual web traffic. Mullvad upgraded DAITA this year by more strategically injecting dummy packets to optimize for speed and privacy. And the team is working on an additional method of defense. 

Mullvad also undergoes regular external audits and its apps are open-source, meaning that its source code is publicly available online for anyone to scrutinize. Additionally, Mullvad is working on a way to make its server infrastructure fully user-auditable at any time and in real time.

Usability

Mullvad’s apps deliver a consistent experience across devices and are extremely simple to use. With Mullvad, you’ll get apps for Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS and Android TV, along with browser extensions and router support (which can help you bypass its restrictive limit of five simultaneous devices). Features are easy to access and work as expected on all platforms we tested, but it would be nice to see wider support from Mullvad for streaming devices. While most top VPNs have native apps for Apple TV and Fire TV Stick, Mullvad doesn’t yet — although you can use Mullvad’s Android .apk to run the VPN on Fire TV Stick. 

Mullvad’s streaming capabilities overall are hit or miss, making it a tough sell for anyone looking to do a lot of streaming. We were denied access to content on Amazon Prime Video, Disney Plus and Hulu in our latest tests. In our spring 2025 tests, we were able to access content only on Netflix and Max. Other top VPNs typically are able to deliver access to a wide array of streaming services and on a larger selection of dedicated streaming devices. Mullvad has a 14-day money-back guarantee, so you can give it a try before fully committing to see if it’s the right VPN for you.