Short answer: Proton VPN is the privacy-first choice on this list and fourth in our ranking. It comes from Proton, the Swiss company behind Proton Mail, and its free tier is a real product rather than a lead magnet with a data cap. Choose it if privacy is the reason you are buying a VPN rather than a side benefit of one.
The facts, and where they come from
Everything in this table is what Proton VPN published on its own site on 6 September 2026, with the page we read it on. Where a detail was not stated there, the table says so rather than filling the gap from somewhere else. Prices were seen from Europe; they differ by country and change often, so treat the renewal price as the number that matters.
Entry price | free plan at €0.00; paid from €3.49/month |
Money-back window | 30 days |
Simultaneous devices | Up to 10 |
Free tier | Yes: no data cap, limited country choice |
Governing law | Switzerland (stated in the Proton terms) |
Our ranking | #4 of 7 in our VPN ranking |
Checked on | 6 September 2026, protonvpn.com/pricing |
A no-logs policy is deliberately absent from this table. Every provider here states one, so the statement itself separates nobody; what would separate them is an independent audit with a published scope and date, and that is discussed in the review rather than reduced to a tick.
Price and plans
On 6 September 2026, Proton VPN advertised an entry price of €0.00 for the free plan; paid plans from €3.49 a month, covering up to 10 devices, with a money-back window of 30 days. Prices were seen from Europe and differ by country.
The free plan is the part worth weighing. It carries no data cap and is funded by the paid subscriptions, which makes it the only free tier on our list that behaves like a product rather than a sample.
The number that actually decides it
Not the entry price. Almost every VPN headline is a first-term price on a two- or three-year plan paid up front, and the subscription renews at a different rate. Before you commit, work out two figures: what leaves your account today, and what the same subscription costs in year two. A provider that is cheapest on the first number is regularly not cheapest on the second.
The renewal rate is published in the provider’s own terms and on the checkout page, and it is the one figure we will not reproduce here, because it changes and a stale number in a comparison table is worse than none. Read it where it is current, then decide.
The money-back window is the other half of the price question. It is not a courtesy. It is the only trial you get, and it is long enough to find out whether the service is fast enough on your line and works with the things you bought it for. Use it in the first week, not on the last day.
Apps and platforms
On 6 September 2026, Proton VPN listed apps or extensions for these platforms on its own download page:
Platform | How it runs |
|---|---|
Windows | Desktop or mobile app |
macOS | Desktop or mobile app |
Linux | Desktop or mobile app |
Android | Desktop or mobile app |
iOS | Desktop or mobile app |
Chrome | Browser extension |
Firefox | Browser extension |
Android TV | TV or console app |
Fire TV | TV or console app |
Apple TV | TV or console app |
Chromebook | Browser extension |
Where the connect button, the location list and the settings sit in the desktop app.
The number of platforms matters less than whether the one you actually need is on it. The awkward cases are always the same three: a router, a television, and a work machine that will not let you install anything. A router install covers every device on the network at once, including the ones that have no app at all, and it counts as a single connection against your device limit, which is the reason it is worth the afternoon it costs to set up.
A browser extension is not the same product as the app. It routes that browser and nothing else: not your email client, not a game, not a second browser. It is a proxy with the provider’s name on it, and it is useful for exactly what it does.
The same controls on a phone: connect, choose a location, change settings.
Network and support
Network: servers in 140 countries (protonvpn.com/download, read on 6 September 2026). Support: Live chat; no 24/7 claim on the page we read.
Server counts are the most quoted and least useful number in this industry. A larger network mostly means more places to land and less crowding at peak times; it says nothing about whether the route to you is fast. What is worth checking is whether the provider has servers in the specific country you need. A network of thousands is no help if none of them sit where your bank, your broadcaster or your employer expects you to be.
How the location picker is organised. The list is shortened for the illustration.
Support is easier to judge and gets judged less. The question is not whether live chat exists but whether a refund request goes through it without a fight. That is the one interaction most subscribers will have, and it happens inside the money-back window, which is another reason not to leave that window to its last day.
All seven side by side
Read from each provider’s own site on 6 September 2026. Entry prices are the advertised first-term rate seen from Europe and renew at a different rate; "not stated" means the detail was not on the pages we read, not that it does not exist.
Provider | Entry price | Devices | Refund | Governing law | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
€3.49 | 10 | 30 days | not stated | no | |
€2.49 | unlimited | 30 days | British Virgin Islands | no | |
$2.49 | unlimited | 30 days | not stated | no | |
Proton VPN | €3.49 | 10 | 30 days | Switzerland | yes, no data cap |
€2.49 | not stated | 30 days | British Virgin Islands | no | |
not shown | unlimited | 30 days | Colorado, USA | no | |
€2.19 | 7 | 45 / 14 days | Romania | no |
Two columns carry more weight than they look. Governing law decides who can compel a provider and through what process. It does not tell you whether anything is kept, but it sets the ceiling on what any privacy promise can be worth. And refund is the only trial you get; CyberGhost’s 45 days applies to long plans only, with 14 on monthly.
What is deliberately not a column: server counts, speeds and no-logs ticks. Every provider here states a no-logs policy, so the column would read "yes" seven times and separate nobody. What separates them is whether an independent audit exists, what it covered and when it was published, and that belongs in the text, not in a tick box.
Privacy and logging
The Proton terms state that for users outside the United States the agreement is governed by the substantive laws of Switzerland. Of the seven providers we rank, this is the clearest jurisdiction statement we found, and it is the one most often given as the reason to choose Proton.
Why the no-logs promise separates nobody
Proton VPN states that it does not log what you do online. So does every other provider on our list, without exception. A sentence that appears on all seven sites cannot be the thing that tells them apart, which is why you will not find it as a tick in our comparison table.
An IP and DNS check tells you which address and resolver a site actually sees. The values shown are examples.
What would tell them apart is an independent audit, and the scope of that audit matters as much as whether one exists. "Audited" can mean a full review of the server infrastructure and the internal processes around it, or a narrow look at one desktop application. Those are not the same claim, and a comparison table that renders both as a green tick is worse than one that leaves the column out. Where we discuss an audit, we say what it covered and when it was published, or we say that we have not seen one. That rule is set out in our editorial policy.
What jurisdiction actually decides
It decides who can compel the provider to hand something over, and through what process. That is all. It does not tell you whether the provider keeps anything worth handing over, and a favourable jurisdiction on top of poor internal practice buys you very little. Read it as a ceiling on what any privacy promise can be worth rather than as the promise itself.
The practical version, for most people: your threat model is probably an untrusted network and an internet provider that logs, not a state actor with a court order. For that, every provider here is sufficient, and the jurisdiction question is a tie-breaker rather than a decision. If your threat model is genuinely the second one, a VPN is one layer of several and this page is not the whole answer.
Streaming and torrenting
This is what most people buy a VPN for, and it is where the whole industry is least reliable. We are not going to publish a table of ticks saying Proton VPN works with Netflix, Hulu and the rest, because that table is out of date by the time anyone reads it.
Why it keeps changing
Streaming platforms actively identify and block addresses they associate with VPNs and data centres. A provider adds addresses, the platform blocks them, the provider rotates. That loop runs continuously, which means a route that works this morning can fail this evening, on the same server, from the same house. Nothing about that is unique to one provider.
Proton VPN advertises that it works with particular services. That is the company’s claim about its own product, and it is a reasonable claim to make; it is not a guarantee, and no provider can honestly offer one. Treat any specific promise about a named platform as a statement of intent.
How to find out for yourself, properly
Inside the money-back window, and in this order. Sign up, install the app, connect to the country whose catalogue you want, and open the service on the device you will actually use. A television behaves differently from a laptop, because a TV often ignores the VPN entirely unless the router is carrying it. Play something for a few minutes rather than checking that the page loads. Then try a second server in the same country, because one blocked address does not mean the provider is blocked.
Do that in the first week. It is the only test that answers your question, and it is the reason the refund window matters more than any feature list.
Torrenting
Proton VPN allows peer-to-peer traffic on servers it marks for it, and says so in its own documentation. Two things are worth separating here. A VPN hides the traffic from the network you are on and hides your IP address from the peers you connect to. It does not make the activity legal where it is not, and it does not make you anonymous. The account you are signed into and the fingerprint of your device are untouched by it.
If this is your reason for subscribing, the feature that matters is the kill switch: it cuts the connection when the tunnel drops, instead of quietly letting traffic out over your ordinary line. Check that it is on before the first download, not after.
Getting started, and what to check in the first week
The money-back window is a deadline, not a cushion. Everything below fits inside it comfortably if you do it in the first few days, and none of it is worth doing on the last one.
Day one: install it where it actually matters
Start with the device you were thinking of when you bought it. If that is a laptop, install the Proton VPN desktop app rather than the browser extension. The extension covers that browser and nothing else, which is a different product on the same subscription. If it is a phone, install it there first, because a phone joins networks you do not control far more often than a laptop does.
What a before-and-after speed test looks like. The figures are examples, not our measurements.
Then turn on the kill switch before you do anything else. It cuts your connection when the tunnel drops instead of quietly letting traffic out over your ordinary line, and it is off by default more often than it should be.
Day two: test the thing you bought it for
Not a speed test. Connect to the country you need and use the actual service, play a few minutes of video, log into the account, open the site that was blocked. A page that loads is not the same as a service that works, and streaming platforms in particular will let you reach the home screen and then refuse to play.
If it fails, try a second server in the same country before concluding anything. One blocked address is not a blocked provider, and this is the single most common reason people ask for a refund they did not need.
Day three: the awkward devices
Televisions, games consoles and anything else with no app of its own. The answer for all of them is the router: install once there and every device on the network is covered, counting as a single connection against your device limit. It costs an afternoon and it is the only route that covers hardware the provider has never heard of.
Before the window closes
Decide, and if the answer is no, ask for the refund while you still can. The request goes through support, and how that interaction goes is the one thing about a provider that almost nobody tests before subscribing and almost everybody experiences at some point.
Features worth knowing
Proton's features are built around one idea: that the threat you are defending against might be sophisticated. Whether that describes you is the question to ask before paying for it.
Secure Core: routes traffic through a hardened server in Switzerland, Iceland or Sweden before it reaches the exit country. It costs you speed, and it means an attacker watching the exit server cannot trace back to your real address.
NetShield: DNS filtering for ads, trackers and malware domains.
VPN Accelerator: Proton's set of network optimisations for long-distance connections, where VPNs usually suffer most.
Tor over VPN: reach.onion addresses through the normal client, without the Tor browser.
Split tunnelling and a kill switch: both present, both unremarkable, which is the right outcome.
Open-source apps, independently audited: on every platform, with the reports published.
The kill switch and auto-connect live in the connection settings.
Proton also runs the only free tier we would suggest anyone actually use: no ads, no data cap, no logging, paid for by the subscribers. It is slower and limited to a few countries, and that is an honest trade rather than a trap.
The point of comparison is NordVPN: similar money, more polish, fewer of the guarantees that Proton's Swiss base and open-source stack provide. Which is better depends entirely on whether you need those guarantees.
The verdict
Choose Proton VPN if privacy is the reason you are buying rather than a side benefit, or you want a free tier that behaves like a product.
Look elsewhere if you are shopping on price alone. Surfshark and CyberGhost are cheaper on a long plan.
The Swiss jurisdiction is stated plainly in the terms, and the free plan is the only one on our list without a data cap. Both are unusual, and both are checkable.
Whatever you decide, the decision is provisional until you have run it on your own connection. Every provider on this list gives you a money-back window for that, and it is the only part of the buying process where you get a real answer instead of a claim. Use it in the first week: install it, run it on the connection you actually have, and test the things you bought it for.
Where Proton VPN sits against the other six, and why, is set out on our ranking page. What our commercial agreements can and cannot influence is in the affiliate disclosure: placement yes, stated facts no.
What it does well
A free plan with no data cap, funded by the paid subscriptions
Governing law stated plainly as Switzerland in the Proton terms
Servers in 140 countries
Eleven platforms including Chromebook, Apple TV and Fire TV
What to weigh against it
Not the cheapest paid plan on the list
The free plan limits which countries you can connect to
No 24/7 support claim on the page we read: live chat only
How this compares with the others we rank
A review of one provider only tells you half of anything. These are the other six in our ranking, with the reason each one exists on the list:
NordVPN: the safe default and our number one.
Surfshark: the cheapest full-featured plan on our list.
IPVanish: the one for routers and manual configuration.
ExpressVPN: the premium option, priced like one.
Private Internet Access: configurable and cheap, registered in the United States.
CyberGhost: the most forgiving for a first-time user.
The order comes from our review methodology, and what our commercial agreements can and cannot influence is set out in the affiliate disclosure. If you want the short version of how to choose between them, the buying guide sits under the table on the ranking page: jurisdiction, whether anyone independent has examined the logging policy, what you pay in year two, and the refund window as the only trial that means anything.
Further reading
Free VPNs: what a free service gives up, and how Proton differs.
Free VPNs on Android: the same question on a phone.
VPN glossary: the vocabulary, from kill switch to split tunnelling.
VPN vs proxy: why a browser extension is the second of those two.
How we review: what evidence goes into these pages and what we refuse to measure.
Corrections: what we got wrong and when we fixed it.
Frequently asked questions
Is Proton VPN’s free plan actually usable?
It is the one free tier among the providers we rank that behaves like a product rather than a trial: Proton publishes it without a data cap, funded by the paid subscriptions. The limits are on which countries you can connect to, not on how much you use it.
Where is Proton VPN based?
Switzerland. Proton VPN comes from Proton, the company behind Proton Mail. Jurisdiction decides who can compel a provider to hand something over and through what process; it does not by itself tell you whether anything worth handing over is kept.
Does Proton VPN keep logs?
Proton VPN states that it does not keep logs of what you do online. That is a claim by the company, not a finding by us. What lifts a no-logs statement above marketing is an independent audit, and the scope of that audit matters as much as whether one exists. A full infrastructure review and a check of a single desktop app are very different things.
Who should not choose Proton VPN?
Anyone buying on price alone. Proton VPN is not the cheapest paid plan on this list and it does not try to be; you are paying for the privacy posture rather than the headline discount.