Recommended

Proton VPN

Swiss jurisdiction, open source audited apps, and the rare free tier that is not a bait and switch.

9.2/10 SingleVerdict Score

Visit Site

Price

$4.99/mo

Jurisdiction

Switzerland

Speed loss

8%

Logs policy

No-logs, audited (Securitum)

Where it holds up

• Swiss privacy law jurisdiction, outside 5/9/14-Eyes alliances
• Genuinely usable free tier with no data cap
• Secure Core routing through hardened Swiss and Icelandic servers
• Fully open-source, independently audited apps

Proton VPN gives away a full strength VPN for free. No credit card, no data cap, no ads. That alone puts it in a small club: most services that use the word free actually mean a seven day trial with a paywall waiting at the end.

The company behind it is Proton AG, the same team that built Proton Mail, based in Geneva, Switzerland. Swiss law sits outside the 5/9/14 Eyes intelligence sharing alliances, and any data disclosure request needs a Swiss court order first.

Security features

Proton VPN includes a kill switch on every platform, in both a standard and an advanced mode. If the VPN connection drops, the kill switch blocks all network traffic rather than silently falling back to your normal, unprotected connection.

Split tunneling lets you route specific apps outside the VPN tunnel while everything else stays protected. On most platforms it cannot run at the same time as the kill switch, though Proton’s Windows app now supports split tunneling, the kill switch, and NetShield running together.

For protocols, Proton VPN offers WireGuard, OpenVPN over UDP or TCP, IKEv2, and its own Stealth protocol, which tunnels WireGuard traffic over TLS to disguise it as ordinary web traffic on restrictive networks. WireGuard connections use ChaCha20 encryption, while OpenVPN and IKEv2 use AES-256 with RSA-4096 key exchange and HMAC SHA-384 authentication.

Every cipher suite Proton uses supports perfect forward secrecy, meaning a new encryption key generates each session, so a single compromised key cannot be used to decrypt past traffic.

Leak testing across 60 countries found no DNS, IPv6, or WebRTC leaks, with the apps consistently keeping real IP and DNS requests inside the encrypted tunnel rather than exposing them to your internet provider. Proton also runs full disk encryption on its own servers, so data on a physical drive is unreadable if a machine is ever seized or stolen.

NetShield and extra privacy tools

NetShield is Proton’s built in ad and tracker blocker, working as a DNS filter that stops connections to known ad, tracking, and malware domains before they load. It blocks upward of 90% of ads in browsing sessions.

Proton VPN also ships with built in Tor support. Selecting a Tor server routes your traffic through the Tor anonymity network on top of the VPN tunnel, without needing to install the separate Tor Browser.

Audits and architecture

Proton VPN has been audited annually by Securitum since 2022. The fifth consecutive audit finished in May 2026, covering Proton’s own bare metal infrastructure in Zurich rather than rented third party servers.

Its Secure Core feature routes traffic through hardened servers in privacy friendly countries before it exits to the wider internet. That is a real step up from a standard single hop VPN if you are facing genuine surveillance risk, though it is not built for streaming since the extra hop hurts platform detection.

Practically, Secure Core means your traffic passes through at least two Proton owned servers instead of one, typically routed through Switzerland, Iceland, or Sweden first. Even if an attacker compromised the exit server, they would only see an anonymous connection from another Proton server, not your real IP address.

Proton also runs a public bug bounty program through Bugcrowd, paying out up to $10,000 per verified report. That gives outside researchers a financial incentive to find and disclose flaws privately rather than sell them, which is a stronger deterrent than an annual audit alone.

Using the apps

Proton VPN’s apps expose more configuration than most mainstream competitors, including manual protocol selection, NetShield levels, and Secure Core toggles right in the main window. That density is a minor learning curve for people who just want to tap connect and forget it.

None of it is hidden behind a paywall or a separate settings app, and the default connect button still works with zero configuration if you never touch the advanced options.

The client code is open source and published for anyone to inspect, which is part of what the Securitum audits actually verify against. Linux gets a genuine graphical app rather than the command line only tooling several rivals still ship there, alongside a separate CLI for anyone who prefers it.

Speed test results

Download speed drops by roughly 8.18% against a direct connection, with a 4.08% upload drop, measured over WireGuard. That is among the smallest losses of any provider in our comparison.

Proton’s VPN Accelerator feature, which optimizes how traffic is processed on busy servers, improves throughput by around 45% on congested connections. Gaming latency is the weak spot: ping increases run roughly 120% higher, enough to matter for fast paced, latency sensitive games.

Streaming and platform support

It works across more than 90 streaming platforms, with Netflix, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, and YouTube TV confirmed, and more than 20 separate Netflix regional libraries accessible. Streaming access is a paid plan feature, not something the free tier guarantees.

Device compatibility and routers

Native apps cover Windows, macOS, Linux with a full graphical interface, iOS, iPadOS, Apple TV, Android, Android TV, Chromebooks, and Fire TV. Browser extensions are available for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge for people who only need the browser tab covered.

There is no smart DNS option and no dedicated router app. A game console or a smart TV without a native client only gets covered by configuring WireGuard or OpenVPN manually on a compatible router, such as AsusWRT, DD-WRT, OpenWRT, or pfSense, using config files Proton publishes for that purpose.

Paid plans support up to ten simultaneous device connections, enough for a household spanning phones, laptops, and a router, while the free plan is limited to one device at a time.

Restrictive networks and China

Proton VPN is not officially supported in China. The Stealth protocol, built to disguise VPN traffic as ordinary web traffic, improves the odds of getting through elsewhere but connectivity inside China specifically remains inconsistent and is not something to plan a trip around.

Torrenting and P2P

P2P traffic is allowed on servers in close to 120 countries on paid plans. Port forwarding is supported and improves torrent speeds by up to 15% by letting peers connect to you directly rather than through NAT.

Port forwarding works on Windows and Linux, with macOS support still in early access. It only functions on a P2P server, requires UPnP and NAT-PMP turned off in the torrent client first, and the assigned port number changes on every reconnect, so it needs to be re entered rather than saved once and forgotten.

Customer support

Live chat is available roughly 9am to midnight Central European Time, with first responses typically arriving in under 30 seconds during that window. Email support typically answers within 24 hours outside those hours.

Outside those two channels, Proton also maintains a public knowledge base and stays active on X and Reddit, where staff regularly answer account and troubleshooting questions directly in the threads rather than only redirecting to a ticket.

Pricing and plans

Proton VPN sells three tiers: a permanent free plan, VPN Plus, and Proton Unlimited, which bundles the VPN with Proton’s other privacy apps. All prices below are current as of August 2026 and billed in USD.

Prices per month, in USD, at each billing term. Source: Proton VPN pricing page, verified August 2026.

The free plan is not a trial. It carries the same no logs policy and the same encryption as the paid tiers, with no time limit. What you give up is device choice: one connection, ten server locations, and Proton picks the server for you.

Streaming and P2P support are reserved for paid plans. Proton Unlimited adds 500GB of encrypted storage, unlimited hide my email aliases, 50 Proton Pass vaults, and full access to Proton Mail, Drive, and Calendar on top of the VPN itself, which is the better deal if you already want an encrypted email provider.

All plans support up to ten simultaneous device connections except the free tier, which is limited to one. There is no separate dedicated IP add on at the time of writing, so if a static IP matters for your setup, confirm current availability before you buy.

Both paid tiers carry a 30 day money back guarantee, refundable in full if you cancel within that window regardless of billing term. Signing up for the free plan needs only an email address and takes a few minutes, with no payment details requested at any point.

Checkout accepts Visa, Mastercard, American Express, PayPal, and Proton credits earned across Proton’s other apps. Teams that need centralized billing and device management rather than individual logins should look at Proton VPN for Business, sold as a separate product from the consumer plans covered here.

The server count caveat

Proton advertises servers in 145 countries, the largest country footprint of any VPN we track. That number has drawn pushback, since a substantial share are Smart Routing virtual servers geolocated to a country without physical hardware actually present there.

The underlying network is still large and fast, with more than 16,000 servers by recent counts. The country count specifically overstates true physical presence, so do not pick a server expecting it to sit where the label says if that matters for your use case.

Company background

Proton AG was founded on May 16, 2014, by Andy Yen, Jason Stockman, and Wei Sun, three researchers who met while working at CERN. Proton Mail, the company’s first product, launched through a public crowdfunding campaign that raised roughly $500,000, followed by a $2 million round from Silicon Valley firm Charles River Ventures.

In 2024, Proton restructured so that a newly created Swiss nonprofit, the Proton Foundation, holds a majority of the company’s voting shares, with Proton AG continuing to operate as a for profit business underneath it. The Foundation has given more than $5 million in grants to organizations including the Tor Project and GrapheneOS.

That ownership structure is unusual in the VPN industry, where several major providers sit under private equity owned parent companies with far less public disclosure about who ultimately profits.

Who it’s for

How it compares

Against Mullvad, Proton VPN trades Mullvad’s anonymous, no email signup model for a real free tier and far broader streaming support. Mullvad’s measured speed loss runs around 24%, well behind Proton’s 8%, and Sweden sits inside the fourteen Eyes intelligence alliance, unlike Switzerland.

Against NordVPN, the gap narrows. NordVPN posts the fastest measured speeds of any provider we cover, a 6% loss against a direct connection, and Panama sits outside every major intelligence sharing alliance the same way Switzerland does.

Surfshark undercuts Proton on price and allows unlimited simultaneous device connections instead of a ten device cap. It gives that up for a Netherlands jurisdiction inside the nine Eyes alliance and a noticeably larger 14% measured speed loss.

ExpressVPN runs RAM only servers, which wipe data on every reboot rather than relying on Proton’s disk encryption approach, and its British Virgin Islands jurisdiction sits outside the major alliances as well. Proton VPN scores higher mainly on its lower price and its free tier, since ExpressVPN has neither.

Private Internet Access is the cheapest option here and its no logs claim has actually been tested in real subpoenas and federal court, arguably a stronger practical proof point than an audit. Its United States jurisdiction inside the five Eyes alliance and its 35% measured speed loss are the clear tradeoffs against Proton.

The verdict

Recommended, without much hesitation. The combination of Swiss law, open source and audited apps, a real free tier, and competitive measured speed makes this one of the few providers that holds up under real scrutiny in every category we checked.