Best VPN Service for 2025: Our Top Picks in a Tight Race

In addition to being a top choice for privacy-conscious VPN users, ExpressVPN is a fantastic option for casual users because it’s extremely simple to use, fast and excellent for streaming. The VPN also now has servers in all 50 of the United States, making it great for getting around regional sports blackouts.

However, ExpressVPN is also one of the most expensive VPNs on the market, even after a major price overhaul in September 2025 that we were hoping would make the service more attractive to budget-conscious users. The company’s new Basic tier includes only the VPN plus a stripped-down version of its Advanced Protection offering and costs $13 per month -- which is pretty standard for the industry. But the yearly subscription costs $75 for the first 15 months and renews at $100 annually, and the two-year subscription now costs $98 total for the first 28 months and renews annually at the same $100 rate. That’s still pretty steep for just a VPN, no matter how good it is.   

Contrast that with Surfshark, whose base VPN plan offers unlimited simultaneous connections, a fuller feature set (including extras like Alternative ID) and costs $48 for the first 15 months and renews at $79 annually thereafter. But if you’re looking to bundle additional services with your VPN, ExpressVPN’s Advanced tier may even be a better value than NordVPN’s basic VPN-only plan, offering many more features at a similar intro price and lower renewal price.  

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ExpressVPN speeds

We measured an 18% average speed loss in our latest speed tests with ExpressVPN thanks to upgrades to its connection protocols, making Express the third-fastest VPN we tested this year. As long as your base internet speeds aren’t a slow crawl, you’ll have no issues streaming, gaming, torrenting or hopping on video calls while connected to ExpressVPN.

ExpressVPN cooked up inventive solutions on both Lightway and OpenVPN protocols on its latest Windows app. With the introduction of Lightway Turbo, ExpressVPN is now able to run your connection through multiple tunnels simultaneously, allowing for more data to be sent at once and significantly boosting speeds. With OpenVPN on Windows, ExpressVPN implemented Data Channel Offload, which boosts speeds by handling data packets more efficiently. In our testing, speed loss through Lightway went from 40% in January 2025 to 17% in March, and 64% to 18% through OpenVPN over the same period, following ExpressVPN’s speed upgrades. 

Privacy and transparency

Few VPN providers do privacy and transparency as well as ExpressVPN. The company’s industry-leading 23 independent audits since 2018 leave other VPN providers in the dust and demonstrate its strong commitment to being as transparent as possible. A 2025 audit by KPMG concluded that ExpressVPN’s TrustedServer technology works as advertised and in accordance with the company’s privacy policy.

In addition to being one of the most transparent VPNs, ExpressVPN is a privacy leader that continues to consistently roll out innovative privacy improvements on top of basic features that work as expected. It was one of the first VPN providers to implement post-quantum protections, which help protect against potential future threats from quantum computers. And as postquantum security standards have evolved, ExpressVPN has kept pace with those changes by integrating ML-KEM to beef up its postquantum protections. In August, the company rolled out its own implementation of WireGuard with post-quantum encryption and published a white paper detailing the process for other VPN providers to follow. ExpressVPN’s Shuffle IP feature is another privacy enhancement that works in the background and automatically assigns you a different IP address for each site you visit, making it even more difficult to track you online.

Usability

Thanks to ExpressVPN’s simple interface and consistent user experience across platforms, there’s practically no learning curve, making ExpressVPN an ideal choice for beginners. You’ll get apps for Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, Apple TV, Android TV, Fire TV Stick and even a GUI app for Linux. ExpressVPN’s new mobile apps for Android and iOS add a few useful elements that make toggling settings and selecting server locations more intuitive. We also like the new themes that let you customize the look of the app.   

If you want an excellent VPN for streaming, it’s tough to beat ExpressVPN. In our latest tests, we had no issues accessing content from a variety of streaming sites, including Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu, Max and Amazon Prime Video across all devices we tested. You can connect up to 10 devices simultaneously with ExpressVPN, which should be enough for most users. ExpressVPN offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you have the opportunity to try the service before fully committing.

It’s initially a great value at $13 per month, $60 annually or $83 total for the first two years of service, but aggressive price hikes on the one- and two-year plans drive the renewal up to $140 per year, which is about the highest you can pay for a VPN. Thankfully, you can save money on your VPN service by stacking subscriptions, meaning you can buy a discounted NordVPN plan at Black Friday and add that to your existing account to avoid an exorbitant price hike.

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NordVPN speeds

In our 2025 speed tests, NordVPN emerged as the uncontested fastest VPN with a 3% average internet download speed loss. We find anything under an average 25% download speed loss perfectly acceptable, so Nord’s blisteringly fast server performance should be virtually unnoticeable. Its proprietary WireGuard-based NordLynx VPN protocol delivered the best performance, with a mere 11% average speed loss on Windows compared to a still-solid 21% speed loss on the slower OpenVPN. On MacOS, both NordLynx and OpenVPN speed test results were faster than my base internet speed, which is extremely uncommon, but can happen in cases where internet providers are limiting bandwidth.

Privacy and transparency

NordVPN ticks all of the privacy basics and then some, providing unique features for privacy-critical users. Although we’d like to see improvements in its privacy policy and more transparency about renewal prices, Nord is great for casual users who want to stream Netflix or BBC iPlayer and privacy-critical folks like investigative journalists alike. You’ll find standard options, like NordLynx and OpenVPN protocols, a kill switch and split tunneling. Additionally, Nord packs advanced privacy amenities including its NordWhisper VPN protocol, which tries to masquerade as standard web traffic in an attempt to hide the fact that you’re using a VPN. For enhanced privacy, you’ll find Onion Over VPN servers (which rely on Tor to make it even more difficult to trace your traffic back to you) and double VPN servers (which beef up your privacy using a pair of VPN connections). The service continues to improve, with scam call protection on Android rolled out in July.

There’s a strict no-logs policy that undergoes annual audits by a reputable third party. Its RAM-only servers reset after each VPN session, so theoretically, none of your browsing data should be saved to a disk anyway. For future-proofing, NordVPN rolled out post-quantum protection to all of its apps, which may guard against threats from quantum computers -- only a handful of VPN providers, including ExpressVPN, have post-quantum encryption. 

While Nord gets most things right, its privacy policy isn’t quite as reassuring as its main rival, ExpressVPN, especially regarding business transfers. Most folks shouldn’t be worried, but anyone with serious privacy concerns about having their user data transferred in the event of a merger may want to consider a different VPN provider.

Usability 

Whether you’re a VPN beginner, seasoned privacy enthusiast or somewhere in between, you’ll find NordVPN’s apps intuitive. It’s easy to perform all essential tasks, like changing servers, switching VPN protocols or enabling different critical settings such as the kill switch. NordVPN offers apps for nearly every available platform, including Windows, MacOS, Linux (with a beginner-friendly GUI), Android, iOS/iPadOS, Apple TV, Android TV and the Amazon Fire TV. Visually, Nord’s app is busier compared to ExpressVPN’s minimalist app, but it’s not overwhelming or clunky like the PrivadoVPN and PIA apps. We wish split tunneling on Android were a little more flexible -- you can exclude individual apps from your VPN, but not use a VPN connection for only some apps. Still, that’s a minor quibble about an otherwise polished app.

Monthly pricing is the exception: Most VPNs charge about $10 to $13 for a monthly subscription, but Surfshark charges $15.45 per month, making it one of the most expensive monthly rates in the industry. Prices for Surfshark’s longer-term plans are much more reasonable. The one-year plan costs $48 for the first 15 months and renews at $79 per year thereafter. The two-year plan costs $60 for the first 27 months and renews annually at the same $79 rate. That’s significantly cheaper than the $100 that ExpressVPN charges and the $140 that NordVPN charges annually upon renewal.

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Surfshark speeds

Surfshark’s overall speed performance has been remarkably consistent and fast over the past few years, with an average speed loss hovering in the high teens. In our most recent speed tests, we measured an average speed loss of 21%, which is speedy enough for us to consider it a fast VPN. Surfshark has a vast network of over 3,200 servers across 100 different countries, which can help ensure fast speeds and stable connections by minimizing congestion and offering more options for more users to connect to servers nearby their physical location.

A new feature Surfshark calls FastTrack is an innovative solution that the company says can boost your VPN connection speeds by up to 70% on certain servers. The feature leverages Surfshark’s Nexus Network to optimize the path your connection takes to the exit server. This can result in faster speeds if connecting through multiple servers is more optimal than connecting directly. In our testing, FastTrack boosted our speeds by about 20%, but speed differences may be more pronounced for users on slower or less stable internet connections. For now, FastTrack is available on MacOS through Surfshark’s Seattle, Vancouver and Sydney server locations.

Privacy and transparency

Surfshark has cool privacy features in addition to standard privacy protections like its kill switch, no-logs policy and DNS leak protection. Surfshark’s Dynamic Multihop lets you tunnel through any two server locations for an added layer of privacy and its Rotating IP makes it harder to track you online by switching your IP address every few minutes. We also like Surfshark’s Alternative ID, a suite of unique privacy features that allows you to generate an alter-ego complete with full name, physical address, and email address that you can use online without divulging your true identity. An alternative phone number is also available for an extra $3 per month. Surfshark’s new EverLink “self-healing VPN infrastructure” is another one-of-a-kind innovation that works in the background to automatically reconfigure the VPN tunnel in case it unexpectedly breaks.  

Surfshark also rolled out post-quantum protections this year to protect against potential future threats from quantum computers, a move that follows other top VPNs including ExpressVPN, NordVPN and Mullvad. We’re encouraged by Surfshark representatives telling us that the company is committing to an annual audit cadence. The latest no-logs audit from Deloitte found that the configuration of Surfshark’s IT systems are in line with its no-logs policy. Additionally, Surfshark publishes a quarterly transparency report, which details the number of legal requests the company receives each quarter and states that Surfshark has no useful information to disclose to authorities, in line with its no-logs policy.

Usability

Surfshark’s apps are slick, simple to use and deliver a consistent user experience across platforms. Apps are available for Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Apple TV, Fire TV and Android TV. If you’re into streaming, Surfshark does well to unblock content on most platforms and streaming services and offers apps for smart TVs as well as streaming devices. We did experience slow loading times with Netflix on MacOS and Hulu detected the VPN when we tried streaming content on Hulu through Surfshark’s Fire TV Stick app. Otherwise, the streaming experience was solid and what we would expect from a top-tier VPN service. Surfshark is also a great choice if you live in a large household or have lots of connected devices because you’ll be able to connect an unlimited number of devices simultaneously, compared to competitors’ usual five to 10 limit. And like many other VPNs, Surfshark offers a 30-day money-back guarantee in case you’re not satisfied with the service.     

Despite a few shortcomings with Proton’s free plan -- you can’t manually select a server, and you’re limited to one connection at a time -- it doesn’t sacrifice privacy, sell your data or plaster your screen with ads. By contrast, PrivadoVPN lets you pick a server on its free tier, but limits you to 10GB of monthly usage, which is barely enough for streaming a 4K movie. Moreover, Privado hasn’t been audited and doesn’t publish transparency reports, so unlike Proton VPN, it’s unsuitable for folks with serious privacy concerns. 

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Proton VPN speeds

Boasting a blazing-fast 16% average internet download speed loss in our 2025 benchmarking, Proton VPN remained snappy even on geographically distant servers. Its performance falls comfortably under our recommended 25% average speed loss maximum, fitting between the pack-leading NordVPN (3%) and our best overall, ExpressVPN (18%). Regardless of the VPN protocol or server we used, Proton provided usable speeds for bandwidth-demanding activities like streaming ultra-high-definition videos or online gaming. 

Privacy and transparency

While Proton is great for casual users who want to stream Netflix or travel the world, its unique, helpful privacy features make it an outstanding choice for anyone with serious privacy concerns, like political activists. 

In addition to the industry-standard WireGuard and OpenVPN VPN protocols, Proton packs its proprietary Stealth protocol, which attempts to slip through firewalls disguised as normal web traffic. Stealth could be helpful in situations where VPNs are frowned upon, such as on school Wi-Fi or when traveling to certain countries. Like most VPN companies, Proton undergoes annual third-party audits, which have verified its no-logging policy, meaning the company isn’t collecting data about your online activity. Its privacy policy is also one of the most reader-friendly we’ve ever seen, directly addressing concerns about user data and privacy.

Proton VPN’s discreet app icons let you hide the fact that you’ve got a VPN installed on your phone or tablet, making the Proton VPN app icon instead look like a notes or weather app. Proton's hidden app icons could prove helpful if you’re worried about your device getting seized and searched. For beefed-up privacy, you’ll find Secure Core servers, which use a second VPN connection, and Tor Over VPN servers, which use a VPN in conjunction with The Onion Router. Both Secure Core and Tor Over VPN servers make it even more difficult to trace your web traffic back to your computer. 

Usability 

Proton VPN is fairly easy to use, although its apps aren’t as streamlined as the minimalist ExpressVPN. Power users should appreciate Proton’s customizable apps with features like connection profiles to specify certain servers or protocols. Although Proton VPN is privacy-forward, it’s not all work and no play. We were impressed with Proton’s excellent streaming chops. It effortlessly unblocked many foreign Netflix libraries, including Netflix Egypt, as well as BBC iPlayer, CBC, Max, Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus.

We had no issues performing VPN basics with its apps across all platforms -- switching servers, changing VPN protocols and toggling on or off the kill switch. While the kill switch works on Windows, Android and MacOS, a design flaw doesn’t properly inform you that your public IP address may be exposed when switching servers on Mac, even with the kill switch enabled (an issue that plagues some other VPNs on Mac). Especially considering Proton VPN’s strong focus on privacy and transparency, we were disappointed by its unintuitive MacOS kill switch notification functionality. Nevertheless, Proton VPN is a great choice for power users, especially power users, thanks to its unique privacy features and excellent streaming service unblocking.