Comparing VPN providers
We do not rank them yet. This page explains what we would need before we did, and what to measure in the meantime.
Why there is no table here
A ranking implies a methodology. Ours would have to say where we tested from, on what line, at what times of day, against which servers, over how many runs — and publish it, so you could judge whether the result applies to you.
We have not done that work. Publishing a league table anyway would mean either copying somebody else’s numbers or making up our own, and a comparison table is the format readers trust most. That makes a fabricated one worse than no page at all.
When there is a documented method and providers we have a relationship with, this page will carry a comparison and say plainly which entries are commercial.
What a comparison would need to cover
If you are reading someone else’s, these are the columns that decide whether it is worth anything:
- Where their servers are, relative to you. The biggest single factor in the speed you will actually get, and the one most tables omit.
- Which protocols are supported. Newer ones are meaningfully faster.
- Simultaneous connections, and whether the router counts as one.
- What happens when the connection drops. A kill switch is the difference between a brief outage and silently browsing unprotected.
- What they log, and whether anyone has checked. A no-logs claim that has never been audited is a marketing statement.
- The renewal price, not the first-year price. The gap is often large, and it is the number you will actually pay for most of the time you are a customer.
What to measure instead
A figure from your own connection beats any table, because the thing you want to know is what a VPN costs you — not what it cost a reviewer on a different line in a different city.
- VPN speed test — two measurements, one with the VPN off and one with it on, and a band that says whether the difference is worth acting on.
- How to test a VPN fairly — what to hold constant so the comparison means something.
- What actually decides VPN speed — the four factors, three of which are free to change.
As of today there is nothing in this section, because no provider has been approved and no comparison has been run. That is the honest state of it, and it will stay this way until both are true.