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.
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.
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 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.
Yeah me neither. This kinda feels like a nymvpn ad
no love for windscribe? :(
CEO is a jackass but the product is fantastic and has a great free tier
CEO is a jackass but the product is fantastic
evergreen
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 :)
Great work!
+1 to add NordVPN
Why? They (used to) push disgustingly deceptive marketing and had an embarrassing server breach.
Is it even open source?
No, only some of their clients are.
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…
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.
Nice comparison. Thanks for sharing! Any reason NordVPN was excluded?
It isn’t open source.
However, their client software for Linux at least is:
Those are clients/for clients tho.
Server is proprietary closed-sauce.
I wonder which VPNs of the ones listed open sourced their backend/server side?
edit: Neither Mullvad or Proton have…
I believe Wireguard/OpenVPN/etc profile availability is more important than Google Play Store.
Whats best for mainland China?
Nymvpn seams great! I’ve never heard of it either. I just hope it stays around and gets a name for itself.
No .ods file?
Soon :)
I plan to make a version 2.0 with some requested changes.
Isn’t Mozilla VPN built on Mullvad? Also, why this instead of https://thatoneprivacysite.xyz/#detailed-vpn-comparison
Isn’t Mozilla VPN built on Mullvad?
Yes. That’s included in the comparison.
Also, why this instead of https://thatoneprivacysite.xyz/#detailed-vpn-comparison
They don’t include NymVPN.
Are any of these good options for port forwarding? I’m currently using PIA and I’d rather not.
Why not PIA? I was looking into it for port forwarding
It’s owned by an Israeli spyware company.
Proton VPN supports port forwarding. IVPN and Mullvad VPN do not. Mozilla VPN and NymVPN don’t explicitly state whether or not they do from what I found, so I’m not sure.
NymVPN doesn’t supports it. I asked their support. They have plans for the future.
If you are looking for reliable port forwarding consider Windscribe VPN.
Mozilla VPN is just mullvad so they do not
I had the same dilemma after mullvad stopped allowing you to create port forwards. I switched to Proton which works fine but I’m curious what other options are out there. It can be hard to find the details about port forwarding, especially if it only works when using their app and not with openvpn/wireguard which is easier for running containers.
AirVPN lets you open 5 ports and allow p2p. Works with their app and openvpn/wireguard. I’ve been paying for it couple years now and I’m pretty happy with it
Yeah the spreadsheet is kind of useless without that information
I wouldn’t call it useless, for people who just use a vpn for privacy, for all I know the only main use case for port forwarding in a vpn is torrenting linux iso’s rather than genuine privacy measures.
That’s why I said kind of
Oh boy, seems I missed something again. What’s wrong with PIA? I’ve been using them forever.
Oh, you know, the usual. Bought out by an Israeli spyware company.
I have Pure VPN. It allows port forwarding but isn’t on the list. I don’t see it talked about much so I don’t know how it compares to others, but I’ve just been using it because I got a great deal for a 5 year plan forever ago.
Pure vpn seams like a pretty generic scammy vpn like surfshark or nordvpn they have there own blog dedicated to why they are the best stating reasons like securing yourself in public wifi, protecting you from scams or getting hacked, protecting you against ddos atacks??? and just advertising vpn’s as a jack of all trades privacy toolkit, which they really aren’t.
VPN companies that are willing to lie to consumers about what vpn’s actually do means they could be lying about other things, like there no logs policy.
Proton does a better job at explaining what a vpn actually does and doesn’t do.
That explains it. It’s been working well enough for me, but I’ll probably change as soon as this plan is up.
I mean I’m using pia, so not much better but I’m broke so I ain’t paying for mullvad or anything. I might switch to nymvpn when I get the chance though, it seams pretty good.
Wow, Nym’s payment model past month-to-month looks good. I don’t really need port forwarding, so the advantage I see they have over Mullvad is the decentralized nature of their servers. Mullvad does have multi-hop but it goes through Mullvad owned or rented servers. Does anyone know if Nym really does use servers that aren’t leased/rented by them for decentralization? Otherwise, they are no different from Mullvad and only the payment model is better.
Mullvad does not offer port-forwarding anymore.
Can Nym be used on an OpenWrt router? Does it require a special app or can it be used with a standard wireguard config?
Can Nym be used on an OpenWrt router?
A guide is in the works.
Does it require a special app or can it be used with a standard wireguard config?
Nym looks interesting and I hadn’t heard of it before, but based on my reading I wouldn’t say it supports wireguard.
It implements wireguard but it still looks like you need to use their client instead of a vanilla wireguard one.
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.
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.
