I made a spreadsheet comparing different open source VPN providers.
Part 2 here
Providers
Notes
- Please do not start a flame war about Proton.
- Please do not start a flame war about cryptocurrencies. Monero is the only cryptocurrency listed because of its privacy.
- The very left column is the category for each row, the middle section is the various VPN providers, and the right section is which VPNs are the best in each category.
- IVPN has two differing plans, which is why “Standard” and “Pro” are sometimes differentiated.
- For accounts, “Generated” means a random identifier is created for you to act as your account, “Required” means you must sign up yourself. Proton VPN allows guest use under specific conditions (e.g. installed from the Google Play Store), but otherwise requires an account.
- Switzerland is seen as more private than Sweden. Gibraltar is seen as privacy neutral.
- All prices are in United States Dollars. Tax is not included.
- Pricing is based on the price combination to achieve the exact time frame. For example, Proton VPN does not have a 3 year plan but you can achieve 3 years by combining a 2 year plan with a 1 year plan.
- The availability section is security based. Availability is framed around a GrapheneOS and secureblue setup.
- The Proton VPN Flatpak is unofficial, but based on the official code.
- Availability on secureblue is based on the
ujust install-vpncommand. Security features must be disabled on secureblue in order to use the GUI for IVPN and Mullvad VPN, but not for Proton VPN. Mozilla VPN and NymVPN are available as Flatpaks, which are safer than layering packages. - I wanted to include more categories, such as which programming languages they are written in, connection speed, and security, but that became far too difficult and complex, so I decided to omit those categories.
Takeaways
- NymVPN is very very new, but it’s off to a strong start. It wins in almost every category. I actually hadn’t heard of it until I started this project.
- If you want a free VPN, Proton VPN is the only one here that meets that requirement.
- If you want to pay week-by-week, IVPN is the only one that allows that.
- If you’re paying month-by-month on a budget, Mullvad VPN is the cheapest option.
- NymVPN is the cheapest plan for anything past 1 month.
- If you want to use Accrescent as your main app store, IVPN is the only VPN available there for now.
- If you want to pay for a bundle of apps, including a VPN, Proton sells more than just a VPN.
- Mozilla VPN is terrible. The only thing it has going for it is a verified Flatpak, but NymVPN also has that so it doesn’t even matter.
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Are any of these good options for port forwarding? I’m currently using PIA and I’d rather not.
Proton VPN supports port forwarding. IVPN and Mullvad VPN do not. Mozilla VPN and NymVPN don’t explicitly state whether or not they do from what I found, so I’m not sure.
NymVPN doesn’t supports it. I asked their support. They have plans for the future.
If you are looking for reliable port forwarding consider Windscribe VPN.
Mozilla VPN is just mullvad so they do not
Why not PIA? I was looking into it for port forwarding
It’s owned by an Israeli spyware company.
Of course 😔
Oh boy, seems I missed something again. What’s wrong with PIA? I’ve been using them forever.
Oh, you know, the usual. Bought out by an Israeli spyware company.
Yeah the spreadsheet is kind of useless without that information
I wouldn’t call it useless, for people who just use a vpn for privacy, for all I know the only main use case for port forwarding in a vpn is torrenting linux iso’s rather than genuine privacy measures.
That’s why I said kind of
I had the same dilemma after mullvad stopped allowing you to create port forwards. I switched to Proton which works fine but I’m curious what other options are out there. It can be hard to find the details about port forwarding, especially if it only works when using their app and not with openvpn/wireguard which is easier for running containers.
AirVPN lets you open 5 ports and allow p2p. Works with their app and openvpn/wireguard. I’ve been paying for it couple years now and I’m pretty happy with it
I have Pure VPN. It allows port forwarding but isn’t on the list. I don’t see it talked about much so I don’t know how it compares to others, but I’ve just been using it because I got a great deal for a 5 year plan forever ago.
Pure vpn seams like a pretty generic scammy vpn like surfshark or nordvpn they have there own blog dedicated to why they are the best stating reasons like securing yourself in public wifi, protecting you from scams or getting hacked, protecting you against ddos atacks??? and just advertising vpn’s as a jack of all trades privacy toolkit, which they really aren’t.
VPN companies that are willing to lie to consumers about what vpn’s actually do means they could be lying about other things, like there no logs policy.
Proton does a better job at explaining what a vpn actually does and doesn’t do.
That explains it. It’s been working well enough for me, but I’ll probably change as soon as this plan is up.
I mean I’m using pia, so not much better but I’m broke so I ain’t paying for mullvad or anything. I might switch to nymvpn when I get the chance though, it seams pretty good.