Pricing: a $2.99 intro rate, and what it renews at
Proton VPN's headline price is the VPN Plus 2-year plan at $2.99/mo, billed $71.76 upfront for the full 24 months. The 1-year term is $4.99/mo, and month-to-month is $9.99/mo — expensive, as monthly VPN plans usually are, with no discount. All paid plans carry a 30-day money-back guarantee and cover 10 devices.
The renewal fine print matters just as much as it does with NordVPN or Surfshark: the 2-year intro does not renew at $2.99. Per Proton's published terms, VPN Plus renews at $83.88 per year after the first term — about $6.99/mo, more than double the intro rate. That is milder than the renewal jumps some rivals apply (NordVPN's cheapest tier renews at roughly $11.59/mo), but it is still a real step up, and it applies automatically unless you cancel.
There is also Proton Unlimited at $12.99/mo (or $7.99/mo on the 2-year term, billed $191.76 upfront), which bundles the entire Proton suite — Mail, Pass, Drive, Calendar and Docs — alongside the VPN. If you already pay separately for encrypted email or a password manager, the bundle maths can genuinely work out; if you only want a VPN, VPN Plus is the plan to price-compare.
Privacy: Swiss jurisdiction and a five-audit, open-source record
This is where Proton VPN earns the A+ privacy grade on our scorecard — the only one we award. Its no-logs policy has now passed five consecutive annual independent audits by Securitum, a European security firm. The most recent engagement ran May 20–27, 2026, with the report published in June 2026: auditors examined production VPN servers from both the free and paid fleets and found no logging of browsing activity, DNS queries, destination services, traffic contents or user-identifiable connection metadata.
Transparency goes further than most rivals: every Proton VPN app is open-source and has been independently security-audited, so the code making the no-logs promise can actually be read. Jurisdiction adds the structural layer — Proton AG is based in Switzerland, outside the 5/9/14-Eyes alliances, under privacy law with no mandatory data-retention requirement for VPN providers.
For high-threat situations there is Secure Core, Proton's multi-hop architecture: your connection is routed first through hardened servers in Switzerland, Iceland or Sweden — infrastructure Proton says includes an underground data centre in Sweden and a former military base in Iceland — before exiting elsewhere, which protects you even if the exit server is compromised. Paid plans add the Stealth protocol, which disguises VPN traffic as ordinary HTTPS. The usual caveat applies: audits are point-in-time snapshots, not continuous monitoring. But five consecutive years of them, on top of open-source apps, is the most consistent transparency record in this comparison.
Network, speed and devices: 20,000+ servers, 10 connections
Proton VPN advertises 20,000+ servers across 140+ countries on its pricing page — the largest claimed network in our comparison, ahead of CyberGhost's 9,900+ and NordVPN's 9,300+. As always, raw server counts are a rough proxy: what a big network mainly buys you is less congestion and more location choice, not a guarantee of speed.
We don't run speed tests, but the third-party record in 2026 is strong. Reviewers report WireGuard connections retaining roughly 85–90% of base download speeds on nearby servers, and Tom's Guide named Proton VPN its fastest VPN overall for 2026. Proton's own VPN Accelerator claims speed improvements of up to 400% on long-distance connections — a provider claim we pass along as exactly that. Note that Secure Core adds latency by design; multi-hop protection is not free.
Paid plans cover 10 simultaneous devices — level with NordVPN and ExpressVPN, but below the unlimited connections of Surfshark and Private Internet Access. The free plan covers a single device.
Streaming, torrenting and the free plan
Streaming is the area where Proton VPN's pitch is more modest than its privacy record. Per Proton's claims, VPN Plus unblocks Netflix (20+ regional libraries), Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, BBC iPlayer and Hulu via streaming-optimised servers. Independent 2026 reviews broadly confirm it works, but report more region-by-region variability than with NordVPN or ExpressVPN — which is why it scores 75 on our streaming dimension against their 90+.
Torrenting is better covered: paid plans get full P2P support with P2P-optimised servers and — rarer among rivals — port forwarding on supported apps, which meaningfully improves seeding performance. P2P is not available on the free plan.
The free plan deserves its own paragraph, because it is genuinely unusual: unlimited data with no speed throttling, from a reputable provider whose free servers are covered by the same audited no-logs policy. Most "free VPNs" are data-capped or monetise your traffic; this one isn't. The limits are real, though — one device, servers in around 10 countries, no streaming or P2P support, and the app connects you to the fastest free server rather than letting you pick a country. Treat it as an unlimited trial of the apps, and it has no equal in this comparison.
Using Proton VPN in China
Paid plans include Proton's proprietary Stealth protocol, which obfuscates VPN traffic as standard HTTPS to get past deep-packet inspection. That makes Proton VPN partially China-capable — and Proton is unusually candid about the limits: its own support documentation states the service is not guaranteed to work in China and that reliability is inconsistent, working for stretches and then being blocked for extended periods.
If China is your primary use case, that self-assessment matters. ExpressVPN has the stronger Great Firewall track record in tester reports, and we score it 85 against Proton VPN's 70 on that dimension. Treat Stealth as a useful extra for occasional travel, not a dependable China solution.
Who it's for, and who should skip it
Proton VPN is the pick when privacy is the point. If you want the strongest verifiable trust story available — Swiss jurisdiction, five consecutive independent no-logs audits, open-source and audited apps, plus Secure Core multi-hop and Stealth obfuscation for genuinely hostile conditions — nothing else in this comparison matches the paper trail. Journalists, activists and privacy hardliners are squarely the target audience, and the unlimited free plan makes it the easiest VPN here to try honestly before paying. Proton Unlimited is also the rational buy for anyone who wants the full encrypted suite rather than just a tunnel.
Skip it, or at least compare carefully, if your use case is mainly entertainment. Streaming reliability trails NordVPN and ExpressVPN in tester reports, large households get more from Surfshark's or PIA's unlimited device policies, and China-first users should look at ExpressVPN. And whichever plan you pick, note the renewal maths: $2.99/mo is the first-term rate; roughly $6.99/mo is the price you will actually keep paying.
The verdict
On the evidence, Proton VPN has the best privacy story in this comparison, and it is not close: Swiss jurisdiction outside the 5/9/14 Eyes, a no-logs policy that has passed five consecutive annual Securitum audits — the latest performed in May 2026 and published in June — fully open-source, independently audited apps, and a Secure Core multi-hop architecture built for high-threat use. The claimed 20,000+ server network is the largest here, 2026 tester reports on WireGuard speed are strong, and the unlimited-data free plan is unique among reputable providers.
The honest caveats are the same ones we flag everywhere: the $2.99/mo two-year intro renews at about $6.99/mo, month-to-month pricing is expensive at $9.99–$12.99, streaming reliability sits a step behind NordVPN and ExpressVPN, and Proton itself says China access is not guaranteed. We rate it 4.4/5 — the default choice for privacy-first buyers, and a considered trade-off for streaming-first ones.