Proton VPN Review: A Very Solid Contender

Proton VPN is a solid service that gets the job done. It’s good in all respects: it's fast, secure, and gets through to Netflix. That said, I dislike the way the interface was designed. Still, as a standalone service, it’s one of the best VPNs out there. However, bundled with its sibling products, it becomes a real powerhouse worth checking out for anybody on the market.

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How Much Does Proton VPN Cost?

Let’s get down to brass tacks first. Proton VPN has a number of plans: there’s the free tier, the paid version (called Proton VPN Plus), and Proton Unlimited, which is a bundle of all of Proton’s products. Each paid plan has different pricing depending on how long you sign up for. Let’s take a look at your options.

Proton VPN Free

Proton’s free plan makes it one of the best free VPNs. It offers five servers scattered across Europe, Japan, and the U.S., all of them without bandwidth limits, which is rare for a free offering. This unlimited bandwidth means it gets busy, and you will occasionally have to deal with some slowdowns, but you can’t argue with the price.

The only free service I like more is Windscribe (read my Windscribe review to see why), mainly because it has more servers.

Proton VPN Plus

You'll need to pay to make the most out of Proton VPN. Proton VPN Plus gives you all the features the service offers at either monthly, annual, or biennial intervals. This includes split tunneling, an ad blocker, and unlocking all of Proton VPN’s 6,500+ servers, among other goodies.

The monthly price isn’t good, but then again, it very rarely is. At $60, the annual plan is a pretty good deal. This price seems to be where most VPNs settle, and Proton VPN offers a lot of functionality for the money.

The two-year plan isn’t quite as good. At $108, it’s only slightly cheaper than just signing on for the yearly plan twice. I expect more for signing on for such a long time. For example, CyberGhost, though in many ways inferior to Proton VPN, offers its two-year plan for just under $60—read about the service in my CyberGhost review.

That said, with Proton VPN, the price stays the same, unlike with CyberGhost or NordVPN (read about its pricing policies in my NordVPN review), which have introductory offers. Pay $108 now, and in two years, you’ll pay the same again.

Proton Unlimited

Finally, there’s the Proton Unlimited plan, which bundles the VPN with all of Proton’s other products: Mail, Calendar, Drive, and Pass, its password manager. If you like Proton’s entire suite of services, this is a pretty good deal.

In my opinion, the two-year plan is the best value. You’re essentially only paying $84 on top of $108 to get a private email and a really solid password manager for two years (I’m less impressed with Drive). This is the way to go if you want to secure a lot of your online life in one fell swoop.

Proton and Privacy

Proton prides itself on its customers’ privacy. The fact that it’s headquartered in Switzerland—one of the most privacy-friendly jurisdictions in the world—is plastered across the site and, for once, is more than just a box to tick: Proton’s main office is in Geneva and a majority of its staff work from there.

Proton VPN also has an airtight privacy policy that states it’s a no-log VPN. A knowledgebase article goes into more detail. The strongest indication that Proton takes users’ privacy seriously is that there’s no evidence saying otherwise. The service has been scandal-free, though I regret that it won’t let you sign up anonymously.

Proton Security

Regarding privacy’s big brother, security, Proton VPN covers all the bases. It uses the WireGuard and OpenVPN protocols by default and has a custom-made Stealth protocol to help obfuscate connections. This last one will come in handy for people who are trying to circumvent internet censorship and would like to fly under their government's radar.

On paper, all protocols are solid. They offer advanced encryption protocols that should help secure your traffic and prevent anyone from figuring out you’re using a VPN. In practice, I found no issues testing connections; they all connected where they needed to go and without “leaking” my real IP address.

Speed and Performance

Proton VPN is very fast, and in fact, a lot faster than it was two years ago when I last reviewed it. I assume the company’s engineers have worked hard in the intervening time, and it shows.

To test Proton VPN’s speed, I used speedtest.net, measuring my speed from my home office in Prague, Czechia, then connecting to locations further and further away (distance slows down VPNs). I put the results in the table below (all results rounded up or down to the nearest whole number):

This is an excellent result, with even the connection to faraway Japan showing a very acceptable loss of less than 25%. This makes Proton VPN a great option for streaming, as you’ll still be able to display your shows in high quality even if you’re on the other side of the world. The loss of ping, or latency, is unavoidable with VPNs, so this result is still decent.

Using Proton VPN

Proton VPN has apps and clients for all major OSes, including Windows and Mac, and even a GUI for Linux. Mobile users can download Android and iPhone apps. There are also browser extensions for major players like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.

I’m not a huge fan of Proton VPN’s clients and apps. Where most VPN services opt for a straightforward interface—which, let’s face it, makes sense considering how simple VPNs actually are—Proton VPN has decided to pull out all the stops when putting together its client.

There is just so much happening on screen that it’s kind of hard to know where to start. There’s the map, which doesn’t actually do much except look like something you’d find in a Bond villain’s lair, and some graphs and metrics below. Proton VPN offers you some tips when you first open the client, and they help, but it still seems overkill.

For some reason, the most important part of the application, where you choose your servers, is tucked away like some afterthought in the bottom left. Thankfully, you can collapse this massive window and get something a little closer to sanity.

However, this doesn’t solve all the interface issues. For some reason, the settings are placed in two places: four buttons above the server list and the more traditional three horizontal stripes at the top left of the screen. Not all of the options in these two menus overlap, so you may end up looking for a certain setting in the wrong place.

For example, the kill switch is handled through the main screen (note that it’s off by default, something you may want to change) and isn’t in the settings screen. Port forwarding, on the other hand, can be found on both. It feels more finicky and confusing than it needs to be and mars an otherwise good experience.

Proton VPN Mobile App

What irks me a little is that the Android app, which I tested, handles this much better. You control the app through three screens, and it’s clear what goes where.

Though you could argue that even three screens is a bit much, at least it isn’t the Byzantine settings menu of the Windows app.

Proton VPN on Linux

Even simpler, and thus more to my taste, is Proton VPN’s Linux app, which has been completely stripped down. I really like this app as it has everything you need daily right in front of you, with everything else hidden behind simple menus. I also like that the killswitch is enabled by default in this app.

In fact, if, like me, you’re a devoted member of Team Penguin, I would recommend Proton VPN as I think it’s one of the best VPNs for Linux—admittedly not a huge field, but still.

Interface gripes aside, Proton VPN is a solid service. It’s fast, secure, and backed up by a company that takes privacy seriously. It’s a decent choice as a standalone VPN, though I feel it does best when bundled with other services, especially Proton Mail and Proton Pass—read more about why I switched from Google to Proton.

That said, if you think the interface is too much, you could check out our ExpressVPN review or Mullvad review, two other private VPNs with simple one-button interfaces and the same commitment to quality.