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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Never heard of NymVPN. Does anyone use them?
I use Mullvad, and I really trust their devs. Not really looking to change, but having more options is always good.
Yeah me neither. This kinda feels like a nymvpn ad
Same boat, Nym’s long term costs seem to scale much better, but I’d be reluctant to leave Mullvad
I looked on the website. This is actually an “early bird” special price that is ~80% discounted. So after a while, it’s going to be $162/year and $310/2 years.
I don’t really pay attention to these “discounts”. It is, generally, just a marketing tactic. Plenty of services/websites/shops have the same discount 24/7.
You’re right, it is pretty common to do that but there’s always the chance they just cancel the discount around renewal. If you have autopay then you probably already committed to the new price before you realized what happened.
What about logging policies? Seems like that would be an important category to visit - which providers store logs or don’t etc. I’ve heard of some that use RAM-only logging that allegedly never gets stored on disk.
Even so, you never knowif they’re really no log. What guarantees that apart from a verbal promise?
Best way I know is to observe them being unable to comply with legal demands to supply data when they receive them. From what I’ve heard Mullvad has passed that test, but I’ve never tried to follow up and find details.
There is no guarantee unless you could personally audit their facilities and inspect what they did with your account etc. But I would still choose one that states they have a good policy versus one that says nothing on the subject.
Why is being on the Google Play store a feature worth highlighting? To use an F-Droid expression, that would be an anti-feature.
With the upcoming restrictions on third-party apps that Google has announced maybe? It’ll be easier to get from Play, and may not be available otherwise at all.
I don’t think giving into Google seizing more power is the way. People doing that is what enables the corporation to continue and have more control over their lives, including their privacy.
As I mentioned, the availability section is security focused. F-Droid has potential security issues compared to Accrescent or the Google Play Store.
I didn’t suggest F-Droid for inclusion though. I merely used its applicable terminology. Still, with Google Play, you trust Google to ensure that the apk is from the actual source, and with F-Droid, that’s delegated to F-Droid. I don’t see that as being less secure.
My bad, I understand now.
Because it’s security focused, it includes app stores that are good for their security (regardless of privacy). Other app stores, such as F-Droid, have security issues that Accrescent and the Google Play Store don’t share. This topic has been argued to death countless times before, and I don’t want to start a flame war, but do try researching it and see what comes up.
While F-Droid has security issues, the ideological security benefit it provides that Accrescent/Play Store/Obtainium doesn’t is the guarantee that the app is open source, and if the developer goes rogue (I.e. Simple Mobile Tools) it gets removed. A lot could be improved though.
AirVPN needs some spotlight.
Whats best for mainland China?
Maybe adding number of servers and country diversity
You probably dont want to use a super well known vpn for many reasons…
I’m not sure about your statement, but using a very unknown vpn could lead to possibly tracking you because theres less of a crowd to blend in with.
Assuming your statement is correct (idk if it is), then there’s a middleground i guess.
Are you sure you can blend in? Depends on the vpn and the laws I guess… If they are able to identify your connection. As far as I know, they all have credentials connected to your account…
You are right.
It is easier to blend in though if the vpn doesn’t log (and before logging is added by feds if possible) or if the person tracking you is not a government and doesnt have that control or is just the service you use, etc.
Using one only because it’s super well known? Sure. It can be well known and scummy. But it can also be well known, trusted, vetted, etc.
And you also probably don’t want to use one that is barely known as there’s the lack of trust, getting, who runs it’s, etc.
ProtonVPN has started to become blocked on tons of websites. I have to switch servers all the time, to the point I won’t be able to keep a VPN connection up like I used to.
I’ve read Mullvad has worsened as well. There seems to be a general ban on VPN use (there was always some of course)
My last hope: non profits who offer VPN. They keep logs, don’t allow torrenting, and require a real name to subscribe. Very few server choices, if any.
I’m… fine with that. I just want privacy. No surveillance. And I trust the non profit. Plus I torrent on a VPS anyway
What I would like to see are local VPNs, with a small enough pool of users on each server to not get flagged. A rotation between servers from time to time. Compliant with the law of course (as long as the law doesn’t require total surveillance, evidently). The goal is to hide everyone’s activity from the providers and websites (yes, I know, fingerprinting)
But maybe there’s some other existing tool/service I’m not aware of?
Does using a VPS truly enhance safety while torrenting? Isn’t it still possible for downloads and uploads to be traced back to your identifiable IP address, especially considering that the VPS provider logs your IP and email details?
VPN on VPS (easy to do with gluetun)
Basically you use a container that’s a VPN connection and connect other containers to it.
Thank you for clarifying. Does using a VPN on a VPS offer the same level of privacy as connecting a VPN container to a torrent container from a home connection? I’m curious about the advantages of using a VPS in this context.
No advantages privacy-wise, but it’s like a seedbox! I keep the torrent client running. Also I’m on a limited mobile data plan on my router at home, so this helps.
When I found out you could get a free 200GB VPS (look up free tier vps) - and because I had another paid VPS already anyway - I decided to make a seedbox. It’s not a ton of storage but it works really well, very happy with it.
Gotcha, thanks for explaining this! I’m glad you’re happy with your VPS.
Exactly this, the commenter above even mentioned they have a VPS already, what’s stopping them from (this is just an option) slapping tailscale on there, enabling it as an exit node and being done with it? Would literally take 5 minutes and suddenly your traffic is coming from a datacenter and not your home IP
Both comments are me. Configuring Tailscale (or Headscale?) is on my to-do.
To be clear, connecting to the VPS is not what I use for the anonymizing part, it’s the gluetun container that connects to ProtonVPN servers. This way I can still access my VPS with its real IP. Not sure if there was a confusion there.
Simply using my VPS as relay would still attach my browsing to a single IP I’m the sole user of… or not? I do not know how that works.
I have never heard of NymVPN
Most people haven’t, till they have.
Why is proton VPN excluded from the winners for open source, license, and based on, despite having the exact same values populated as the other 4 winners?
That’s another bug on my part. I’ll fix this in version 2.0 :)
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?
I believe Wireguard/OpenVPN/etc profile availability is more important than Google Play Store.
I suggest adding AirVPN.
Why is proton consistently red in the pricing category despite being cheaper than (or on par with) other options like mozilla which is consistently yellow? Am I misreading this as green = good, red = bad?
That seems to be a bug. That’s my bad. Thanks for catching that! I’ll fix it soon and edit the post.
Edit: Fixed! Sorry about that.
Where is AirVPN? Arguably much better then these VPN providers offering static port forwarding among their features.
Provides configurations built for Wireguard and OpenVPN with each server having unlisted IPs to completely get around VPN blocks.
Owned by a “hacktivst” lawyer in Italy.
Multiple audit along with police attempting to sieze running servers. These are configured to dump there configuration on shutdown and run entirely in ram.
This is a battle tested VPN that has existed since 2010. They allow for completely anonymity using Creptocurrencies payments.
Also would be worth considering RiseUp VPN which is run by an anarchist organization. There’s also a new one BuycatVPN which I think is affiliated with the Tech for Palestine project and from an organization that’s an official partner with BDS, but I don’t know anything else about it.
I will definitely check these out. Thanks for the tip, friend.
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