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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I do not agree with placing switzerland over sweden in that location category
and i think a category should included, that tracks age of vpn or something like that, considering this is nymvpns biggest flaw… still hard to say how trustworthy it is + their software is less battle tested
(
and just for someone curiouse, it should be mentioned that nymvpn does use mullvad servers/ has a deal with mullvadsry i mixed that up obscura and mullvad had partnership, not nymvpn)I agee. Switzerland is close to be the worst country for privacy with the current revisions of the law.
I’d be happy to hear your elaboration on this. From what I know, Switzerland is seen as the gold standard in terms of privacy.
The issue is that age doesn’t correlate with security. There could be an outdated, insecure VPN that’s been around for 10 years, or a modern, secure VPN that’s been around for 10 days. If I included it, there would be no “good” or “bad” values. Nevertheless, I will include this in version 2.0.
I knew NymVPN used a small bit of Mullvad VPN’s code, but I didn’t know they used their servers. Could you link to this?
this is awkward i am sorry it seems like my memory failed me, for one it is was mullvad and obscura that have a deal, not nymvpn…
and then i also thought somehow that vpns are in sweden protected by the constitution, but it appears its more like normal laws. Which appear to be effective tho. But mainly i thought about that recently switzerland was proposing laws like this https://tuta.com/blog/switzerland-surveillance-plan (possible that laws like these get proposed in sweden aswell ofc) which makes it sound like the privacy stands of the goverment is not that strong anymore, but there are probably no effects really at the moment. I think i would rank sweden and switzerland equally i guess, i mean the famouse mullvad example kind of proofs that they are safe i think…
But like my research into the countries is not that deep, so if you really looked into this deeply and switzerland is really better for some reason, than i guess it is like this.
But i still think the age is important, like sure its completly possible that an old vpn suddenly gets infiltrated or idk what really, but since for vpns are mostly trust based, i think that the track record is the best option for this… and new vpns just dont have that long of a record (personally i would not use like a 1 month old vpn for example, whoever good it sounds)
or can nymvpn offer garantuees similar to tor?