How we test VPNs

VPN customers have an unbelievable quantity of selection out there, however numerous these selections are dangerous. Upwards of 180 digital personal networks can be found for business customers alone. For the informal consumer who simply desires a VPN to guard themselves on-line or change their digital location, the danger of study paralysis may be very actual.

It does not assist that VPN suppliers like to make deceptive claims about their very own product. Learn just a few of their homepages and you may begin to see some phrases repeat. “Lightning-fast.” “Financial institution-grade encryption.” “Zero-logs coverage.” It is designed to sound good with out that means a lot, and sadly, even the most effective suppliers love to speak like this.

Our workforce at Engadget began digging into the VPN world that can assist you reduce by way of all this litter and choose the supplier you truly need and wish. We have developed a rigorous testing course of that mixes investigative journalism, goal testing and qualitative evaluation. This text explains how we analysis and take a look at a VPN.

Replace, Might 28, 2025: This story has been fully overhauled to replicate the up to date 2025 Engadget VPN testing methodology.

Desk of contents

Our course of at a look

Test the desk for a fast illustration of our VPN testing course of.

VPN testing: Our 11 steps

A fast word earlier than we begin — each time we are saying “VPN” on this article, we’re referring to a business VPN, the type any particular person can obtain and use. Company VPNs like Cisco Safe Consumer and Perimeter81 require a distinct testing course of.

1. Set up and configure the VPN on a number of platforms

Essentially the most work you may probably should do with a VPN comes once you obtain and set up it. We run by way of that course of on as many alternative platforms as attainable. Once we cannot hit all of them, we attempt to get not less than one in every class — desktop, cellular, good TV and browser — plus the “huge 4” of Home windows, Mac, iOS and Android.

We take cautious notes on the entire course of, attempting to assume from the attitude of somebody who has by no means used a VPN earlier than. How simple is it to seek out the set up file? How do you log out and in? Are there quality-of-life options, like a programmable auto-connect to save lots of work the subsequent time you open the VPN app?

After putting in every VPN, we run by way of the essential duties of connecting, disconnecting and altering server areas. If these go easily, 90 p.c of customers will face only a few issues with the interface. Then again, any hiccups on the essential connection course of bode poorly for the operability of the VPN’s extra superior options.

2. Take a look at speeds

We take it as a right {that a} VPN will scale back your looking speeds. Besides in sure uncommon circumstances the place your ISP has severely misconfigured your native pathways, it is not attainable for a VPN to provide you quicker speeds than your regular web service. Meaning the “quickest VPN” is the one which drags down your regular speeds as little as attainable.

We use Ookla’s pace testing software program to test every VPN’s servers in three classes. Obtain pace describes how a lot knowledge can transfer from an internet server to your gadget in a single second; this determines how rapidly internet pages load and when streaming movies have to buffer. Add pace is identical in reverse, and issues most for torrenting, social media sharing and outbound communication out of your laptop.

The third metric is latency, measured by the size of a “ping” — the time in milliseconds {that a} single knowledge packet takes to journey between your gadget and the net. Latency, which is very depending on distance, is necessary for something that occurs on-line in actual time, like gaming or video chat.

All three pace stats can fluctuate as particular person server masses change. To get a transparent image of efficiency throughout the complete community, we choose six server areas for every VPN, together with the one the app designates because the quickest. We then take a look at every location thrice throughout two days, averaging every outcome to get a ultimate rating.

3. Take a look at safety

A VPN’s most necessary job is to maintain your actual IP handle hidden. If it will possibly’t do this, we will not advocate it. The only means we take a look at a VPN’s safety is by checking our IP handle whereas related. If the VPN server is hermetic, any IP lookup device ought to present the server’s handle, not our dwelling community.

IP leaks — during which your house IP handle is seen even whilst you’re related by way of a VPN — are most frequently attributable to VPNs utilizing public DNS servers that make your requests seen to your web supplier. The wrongdoer may also be a misconfiguration in real-time communication protocols (WebRTC) or a failure to correctly incorporate IPv6 site visitors.

We additionally test for weak, outdated VPN protocols like PPTP, or untested proprietary protocols with no out there supply code. We end this step by testing the VPN’s encryption by analyzing just a few knowledge packets utilizing Wireshark.

4. Take a look at pricing and offers

Subsequent, we see how a lot the VPN prices. We learn the tremendous print on multi-year offers to see if marketed financial savings cease after the primary billing interval; when VPNs supply “bonus months” for brand spanking new sign-ups, it’s normal for costs to go up later. We additionally consider any free plans, non permanent free trials or money-back ensures — paying particular consideration to the refunds, as VPNs sometimes refuse to honor their acknowledged insurance policies.

We shut out by seeing if there are any particular pricing reductions or coupons that will make the VPN extra inexpensive. In the end, we attempt to make a name about whether or not the VPN offers the consumer sufficient worth to justify its value.

5. Try pricing bundles

Most of the high VPNs are increasing their choices into bigger bundles, like NordVPN Full, Surfshark One, or ExpressVPN’s Id Guard suite. This could additionally occur from the opposite route, as firms like Norton and Proton add VPNs to their current product traces.

VPN bundles virtually all the time come at a further subscription price, which they often earn with added worth — and typically do not. Every time we evaluation a VPN, we take a look at the merchandise related to it and advise you on whether or not or to not heed the VPN’s inevitable calls to improve.

6. Shut-read the privateness coverage

The following step is to take a seat down with the VPN’s privateness coverage and browse it like a lawyer would. A VPN privateness coverage is technically legally binding, in that the supplier could be sued for false promoting in the event that they violate it. As a substitute of mendacity outright, the less-trustworthy VPNs reduce their threat by hiding controversial practices behind obscure language and loopholes.

For instance, a VPN would possibly declare on its homepage to have a “zero-logs coverage,” however it’s not possible to offer VPN service with out holding not less than some logs. The sincere suppliers lay out precisely what knowledge they maintain, how they anonymize it and what they do with it. Pink flags embrace saving your knowledge for longer than crucial, logging exercise for non-security functions like advertising, or claiming that the privateness coverage doesn’t apply to companions or mum or dad firms.

7. Test the VPN’s capability to vary geolocation

When a VPN adjustments your digital location, it wants to take action in a means vacation spot servers cannot see by way of. The websites you’d need to change your location for, like Netflix, YouTube and sports activities streams, block content material in areas the place they do not have a licensing settlement to stream it (that is why Netflix libraries change in each nation). These websites know VPNs can circumvent their blocks, so that they ban VPN entry each time they detect it.

The most effective VPNs struggle again by updating their server IP addresses rapidly sufficient that streaming platforms cannot block them. We take a look at a VPN’s unblocking capability by connecting to a number of streaming web sites — every in a number of totally different nations — and searching for proxy errors. We test to see if content material is accessible and whether or not speeds stay quick sufficient to view it.

8. Examine the server community

A VPN’s “server community” is the collection of IP addresses it lets customers hook up with. Giant server networks are a typical promoting level for VPNs, which argue that extra servers means higher efficiency and extra areas means extra choices to avoid blocks.

Whereas it is true {that a} bigger community is an efficient signal, it is easy to artificially inflate the numbers. For one factor, a VPN supplier can arrange digital servers with IPs from areas the place it is not bodily current. That is useful for getting areas in nations like China and India that ban most VPNs, however means you’ll be able to’t all the time belief {that a} server which seems to be near you truly is.

It is also widespread for suppliers to lease server house from third-party knowledge facilities to get extra areas out sooner. Whereas handy, this provides extra potential failure factors, for the reason that knowledge heart operators could not observe the VPN’s safety requirements (that is how NordVPN was briefly compromised in 2018).

When reviewing a VPN, we examine not simply the amount of its server community, but in addition its high quality. If it does not disclose which servers are digital and/or rented, we test the IP addresses of suspicious areas and analysis whether or not the VPN has labored with knowledge heart suppliers.

Most VPNs embrace options past the core capability to connect with a server. These extras vary from important safety measures like kill switches (which reduce you off from the web in case you aren’t related to a VPN server) to tangential nice-to-haves like advert and malware blockers (which regularly work effectively however cannot substitute a chosen antivirus).

We take a look at two issues: whether or not these options work and whether or not they’re simple for newbies to make use of. The previous will depend on the characteristic — for instance, for an ad-blocker, we’ll see if it blocks various kinds of advertisements. The latter is qualitative and will depend on the place the characteristic is discovered within the VPN app, how effectively it explains itself and what customization choices exist.

10. Use the customer support choices

No VPN consumer is so effectively designed that you’re going to by no means need assistance. Good buyer assist begins with an up-to-date data base written in clear English by a human creator, with logical group and loads of screenshots. An lively consumer group is a bonus, whether or not hosted on the VPN web site or someplace else (typically Reddit).

Most VPNs produce other tech assist choices, usually stay chat and/or e-mail tickets. We take a look at each by submitting a easy query. With stay chat, we decide whether or not it is attainable to speak with a human and the way lengthy it takes to achieve that time. With e-mail, we measure how lengthy it takes to get a reply from the specialists and the way helpful it’s for fixing the issue.

11. Examine the VPN’s background

Step one is to seek out out precisely who we’re coping with. We comb by way of the VPN’s historical past since its launch, searching for any safety breaches, violations of its personal privateness coverage or any makes an attempt to drag the wool over the shoppers’ eyes. Information archives are the most effective supply, however we additionally incorporate educational analysis by safety investigators and printed third-party audits of the VPNs themselves.

Once we discover black marks on a VPN’s report, we attempt to place them in context. A previous safety breach does not essentially disqualify a VPN from our advice — a lot of the greatest choices have slipped up not less than as soon as. The most effective proof comes from how the supplier responded to the incident. Did they modify something or double down? Did their restoration produce lasting enhancements, or did the identical drawback occur once more a 12 months later?

Privateness violations are way more critical. A VPN that breaks its settlement to not log info on its customers can’t be trusted to maintain its phrase sooner or later with out proof of drastic inner change. One other main purple flag is a scarcity of transparency, like when it is unclear the place a VPN is predicated or who owns it.

Get began with our VPN opinions

Reviewing a VPN is a matter of affected person investigation, rigorous testing and an unwillingness to take something at face worth. We’re consistently refining our course of, so we’ll be sure to replace this web page each time we modify any of the steps above.

Now that you simply perceive our course of, you are able to dive into our protection of the most effective VPN providers (quickly to get an in depth replace), or head straight to our in-depth ExpressVPN evaluation to see the method in motion.