ProtonVPN review

ProtonVPN sells three paid tiers on top of a genuinely useful free plan. The 1-month plan lists at $9.99 per month and renews monthly with no commitment. The 1-year plan drops the effective rate to $4.99 per month, billed once a year. The 2-year plan is the headline play at $3.59 per month billed up front. Every paid plan is backed by a 30-day money-back window.

Proton also offers a Proton Unlimited bundle that combines Proton VPN Plus with Proton Mail Plus, Proton Drive Plus, Proton Pass Plus, and Proton Calendar at a substantially lower price than if each were purchased separately. Renewal pricing reverts to the standard published rate after the intro term, so factor that in if you plan to keep the subscription past year two.

ProtonVPN Free is the rare free VPN that earns a place on a serious shortlist. There are no ads, no data caps, no speed limits beyond what shared bandwidth naturally imposes, and no logs of user activity. The free plan runs on servers in 5 countries (US, Netherlands, Japan, Poland, Romania) with access to the full WireGuard and OpenVPN stack.

The free plan is a strategy for the company, not a loss leader: Proton uses the free tier as an introduction to its privacy-first ecosystem (Mail, Calendar, Drive, Pass) and converts a meaningful share of free users into paid plans over time. Pricing is funded by paid subscribers rather than ads or data resale, which is the structural reason the no-logs claim holds up. If you only need a VPN occasionally and want to start without a payment method, Proton Free is the default answer.

Secure Core is ProtonVPN's multi-hop feature, similar to NordVPN's Double VPN. Traffic routes first through a hardened server in a privacy-friendly jurisdiction (Switzerland, Iceland, or Sweden) before exiting through a regular VPN server in the destination country. The first hop is in a country with strong legal protections against compelled data handover, which means the second-hop operator (or an attacker watching the second hop) never sees the user's real IP.

Secure Core servers are physically housed in Proton-operated data centres rather than rented third-party hosting. The trade-off is throughput: the second hop adds latency, and the bandwidth ceiling is lower than a single-hop WireGuard connection. For users whose threat model includes exit-node surveillance or a compromised destination server, Secure Core is a meaningful upgrade. For most consumer use cases, the regular VPN exit is fine.

ProtonVPN has been independently audited 6 times since 2018. The named firms on the public record are Securitum, Cure53, F-Secure, KPMG, and JP Cert, with the most recent assessment in 2025. The audits cover the apps, the browser extension, the no-logs policy, and the cryptographic implementation. Cure53 focused on app security, KPMG on the policy itself, and Securitum on the broader stack.

Proton is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, which is outside the 14-Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance and has strong legal protections against compelled data handover for foreign governments. Swiss data protection law requires a Swiss court order before any user data can be compelled, and Proton publishes transparency reports showing the number of legal requests received and rejected. Combined with the open-source apps on every platform and the 6 audits, Proton is the strongest privacy-first pick in the consumer market.

NetShield is Proton's ad-blocker, tracker-blocker, and malware-domain filter. It runs at the DNS layer on the desktop and mobile apps, blocking ad networks, known phishing domains, and trackers before they load. NetShield also includes malware protection, blocking connections to known malicious domains at the DNS level. The Stealth protocol is Proton's obfuscation mode, designed to wrap the tunnel inside a regular HTTPS envelope for restrictive networks.

The paid fleet runs 20,000+ servers across 120 countries, the largest published fleet of any audited consumer VPN with a free tier. The apps are open-source on every platform (Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Chromebook), which is the structural reason the audit cadence holds up: anyone can inspect the code that runs locally.

ProtonVPN is the right pick for buyers who want a free VPN that is actually safe, plus a paid tier with a feature stack and a Swiss jurisdiction outside 14-Eyes. It fits users who care about open-source apps, Secure Core multi-hop through privacy-friendly jurisdictions, NetShield DNS-level ad blocking, and 6 independent audits from a mix of security firms and Big Four accounting firms. It is also a strong fit for users who want Proton Mail, Proton Drive, Proton Pass, and Proton Calendar bundled under one login.

Consider alternatives if the free plan is the deciding factor and you do not need a paid tier (Proton Free is the obvious answer), if you want unlimited simultaneous devices (Surfshark), if you want the largest server fleet in the consumer market (PIA at 35,000+), or if you want a flat monthly price with no upsell (Mullvad at $5.50 per month). None of those gaps are disqualifying, but they are real.

If ProtonVPN is close but not quite right, three VPNs cover similar buyer profiles with different trade-offs.

• Mullvad - the privacy-first alternative with a flat price. Mullvad is based in Sweden (14-Eyes), ships open-source clients, and runs on a flat $5.50 per month pricing model. No free tier, no feature bundle, no streaming optimisation. Best when a quiet tunnel with a flat price matters more than a feature stack.
• NordVPN - the premium alternative. NordVPN caps simultaneous devices at 10, ships Double VPN, Onion Over VPN, Meshnet, and Threat Protection, and is based in Panama outside 14-Eyes. No free tier, smaller audit count (5 vs 6), but faster WireGuard throughput in our measurements.
• ExpressVPN - the reliability alternative. ExpressVPN has 12 audits (the deepest record on the consumer market), runs TrustedServer RAM-only infrastructure across the entire fleet, and ships Lightway. Higher headline price ($6.67 per month on the yearly plan), no free tier, no Double VPN or Secure Core.