#1
hide.me
A rare genuinely usable free plan (no card, P2P allowed on the 10 GB free tier) plus audited no-logs claims twice over - DefenseCode 2015 and Securitum 2024…
audited crypto accepted
intro €2.69/mo (about $3.04/mo)
Best Free VPN Trials 2026
Ranked on documented facts, not sponsored placement - every provider page shows the evidence.
Short answer: Three free models exist - donation-funded (RiseupVPN), funnel free tiers (Proton, Windscribe, hide.me) and card-required trials (NymVPN, AirVPN). The unlimited-data free apps in this ranking are the ones the FTC cases are about.
providers on this page: 43 · independent audit on file: 44% · court-proven no-logs: 0 · open-source apps: 51%
quick picks
- Free forever, no account at all Riseup VPN - donation-funded collective, install and run, no users table
- Unlimited-data free tier from an audited operator Proton VPN - unlimited data, ~5 countries, no ads, no logs architecture - the paid funnel exists
- A usable free monthly allowance Windscribe - 10GB/month with confirmed email, buildable locations
#2
Amnezia VPN (self-hosted with obfuscation)
The most credible self-hosting on-ramp in the VPN space, built by and for people inside the censorship: the app is free and open source, you connect it to your…
audited open source
intro $5 /mo
#3
Proton VPN
The most honest mainstream deal in 2026: open-source apps, real audits, a genuinely usable free tier with no data cap, and a transparent renewal model - and in…
audit open source crypto accepted
intro $3.49/mo renews $83.88 / 12 mo ($6.99/mo)
#4
Speedify
Speedify is the rare VPN whose differentiator is real: channel bonding that splits traffic at the packet level across Wi-Fi, cellular, Ethernet and satellite…
audit
intro $4.99 /mo
#5
Norton VPN
The most improved big-brand VPN of the mid-2020s, and now the rare antivirus-company VPN whose privacy claims are backed by published paperwork: two VerSprite…
audited
intro $2.99 /mo renews $8.33/mo
#6
X-VPN
A heavyweight free-mobile VPN from a Singapore entity with real strengths on paper - no account required, an unusually deep protocol lineup, a self-published…
audit crypto accepted
intro $2.99 /mo
#7
NymVPN
The only consumer VPN with a real metadata-protection architecture - a 5-hop noise-generating Sphinx mixnet with cover traffic - and it costs just $4/mo on the…
audit open source crypto accepted
intro $4/mo
#8
Lantern (Brave New Software)
A censorship-unblocking tool that now wears nonprofit clothes: Lantern's parent became the 501(c)(3) Brave New Software Project and the site now reads like a…
canary open source
intro $3.63 /mo
#9
Tailscale (managed WireGuard mesh)
The gold standard for connecting your OWN devices, and a poor substitute for a consumer VPN - which is exactly what it says on the tin. Tailscale is a…
audit open source
intro $8 /user/mo
#10
Sentinel dVPN (Cosmos bandwidth marketplace, token P2P)
Sentinel is real decentralized-VPN infrastructure - an open-source Cosmos chain with on-chain sessions, Wallet-only signup and per-gigabyte pricing that…
open source crypto accepted
intro $1 /mo
#11
Windscribe
The freemium that actually respects you: a 10 GB free tier, transparent $9/$69 pricing with no renewal rug-pull, open-source Linux CLI, and a CEO who publicly…
intro $5.75/mo
#12
OpenVPN Access Server
The incumbent of self-hosted business VPNs, and still a safe pick in 2026 - with one honest fork in the road. Access Server is the polished, supported way to…
audit open source
intro $7 /mo
#13
Outline VPN (Outline Foundation, ex-Jigsaw/Google)
The most polished way to hand censorship-resistant access to people who cannot configure a VPN: a few clicks in the Outline Manager builds a Shadowsocks server…
audit open source
intro $3 /mo
#14
Opera VPN (browser)
The most honest thing to say about Opera's 'VPN' is what Opera's own documentation quietly admits: it is a browser-scoped secure proxy, not a VPN. The Android…
audited
intro $0
#15
Riseup VPN
The most trustworthy free VPN on structural grounds: an anarchist Seattle collective that has run since 1999, funds itself by donations, asks no account…
canary open source community-owned crypto accepted
free
#16
Hotspot Shield
The most polished sales machine with the most compromised track record: a 2017 CDT complaint to the FTC - built on Carnegie Mellon research - documented…
audit
intro $7.99/mo renews $95.99 / 12 mo ($8/mo)
#17
TunnelBear
The friendliest VPN on the market and the only one with a published annual independent audit habit (Cure53 since 2017), but that honesty buys less privacy than…
audit
intro $3.33 /mo
#18
Hysteria2 (QUIC/UDP-based censorship-resistant proxy)
Hysteria 2 is not a VPN provider - it is free, MIT-licensed proxy software you deploy on your own server, and this dossier treats it that way: there is no…
open source
intro $5 /mo
#19
ZeroTier
A network fabric, not an anonymity VPN - and the honest category match for it is 'Hamachi successor with an enterprise SDN conscience'. ZeroTier connects YOUR…
audit open source
intro $18 /mo
#20
Self-hosted WireGuard on a cheap VPS
Not a VPN service - the protocol every commercial VPN wants to be built on, and the most evidence-backed tunnel protocol in existence. You are the provider…
audit open source
intro $5 /mo
#21
AdGuard DNS (public + personal encrypted DNS)
The mainstream default of DNS-level filtering, with a genuinely honest scoping the operator itself states plainly: AdGuard DNS sits at the resolver - it…
open source
intro $2.49 /mo
#22
Tor (The Onion Router)
The reference point for anonymity - but not a VPN, and this dossier is honest about that. Tor is a US-registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit (2006, born from mid-1990s…
open source community-owned
free
#23
I2P (Invisible Internet Project)
I2P is a genuinely different thing from a VPN and should never be bought as one: it is a free, decentralized garlic-routing network optimized for services…
canary open source
intro $0 /mo
#24
Xray / VLESS REALITY (modern obfuscation proxy core)
The current state of the art in self-hosted censorship circumvention, and the reason 'buy a VPN' no longer has one right answer for people behind serious…
open source
intro $5 /mo
#25
VPN Gate (public volunteer relay experiment)
VPN Gate is a legitimate, transparently-run academic experiment that is genuinely free forever and genuinely useful for one thing: getting past government…
audit open source
intro $0 /mo
#26
Calyx VPN
CalyxVPN is one of the very few genuinely free, genuinely anonymous VPNs - no account, no email, open-source client and server, run by a respected New York…
watch open source crypto accepted watch
intro $0 /mo
#27
NextDNS (configurable DoH/DoT DNS filtering)
The strongest case on this site for 'sometimes the answer is a DNS blocker, not a VPN' - and a product whose limits the operator itself does not oversell…
open source
intro $1.99 /mo
#28
PrivadoVPN
A genuinely cheap freemium VPN built around one of the market's most generous free tiers (10 GB/month, no credit card, verified live 2026-11-03), with a strong…
crypto accepted
intro $1.11 /mo
#29
StrongDNS
A relic that still technically works, sold by a corporate family with the worst possible privacy pedigree - and, to be fair, honesty about what the product is…
crypto accepted
intro $4.17 /mo
#30
Psiphon
A transparency-first circumvention tool, not a privacy VPN - and it says so itself ('If you require anonymity over the Internet then you should use Tor instead…
open source
free
#31
Oxylabs
This dossier exists to say plainly: Oxylabs is not a VPN and should never appear in a consumer VPN shortlist. It is one of the two dominant corporate web-data…
audit
intro $30 /mo
#32
Cloudflare WARP (1.1.1.1 app)
A free, fast, one-tap encryption tool that is deliberately NOT an anonymity VPN - judge it as such. Cloudflare's own docs say the quiet part: WARP collects…
free
#33
Webshare
A competent budget proxy vendor for scraping and automation - and this dossier is honest that it is not a privacy product. Webshare is a California-founded…
intro $2.99 /mo
#34
Betternet
Mostly a ghost with a live storefront: the operator lives at betternet.co, while betternet.io redirects straight to GoDaddy's 'domain for sale' lander and…
audit
intro $6 /mo renews $8/mo
#35
Snowflake (Tor bridges via volunteer WebRTC proxies)
Snowflake is a bridge, not a tool you 'use' the way you use a VPN: it is the Tor Project's pluggable transport that smuggles Tor connections past censors by…
audit open source
intro $0 /mo
#36
Touch VPN - Fast Hotspot Proxy
A text-book ad-funded freemium trap that has quietly become an in-house brand of the least trustworthy conglomerate in consumer VPNs. The app works and is fast…
no-logs contradicted
intro $12.99 /mo
Visit site
Read review
#37
Althea
Althea should not appear in any consumer VPN comparison as a VPN, and this dossier exists mainly to say so precisely: the project started (2017-2019) as a…
open source crypto accepted
free
#38
Thunder VPN
Thunder VPN is the app-farm version of the free-VPN trap: a 100-million-install product whose operator does not exist on paper under any verifiable name. The…
no-logs contradicted
intro $0 /mo
Visit site
Read review
#39
Hola VPN
The canonical case study of 'you are the product' in this industry, and the model has not gone away: Hola's own privacy policy (April 2026) and FAQ state that…
no-logs contradicted
intro $2.99 /mo
#40
UrbanVPN
The rare VPN where no investigation is needed - the privacy policy is the evidence. Urban VPN's parent self-declares as a data broker and sells behavior…
free
#41
Turbo VPN
A 500M-install free VPN from the Qihoo 360-linked developer cluster (Innovative Connecting / Autumn Breeze / Lemon Clove, per TTP 2025 and OTF 2025)…
yes - ad-supported free tier + premium upsell
#42
Super VPN
One of the most decorated free-VPN trap apps in the record, and still running: SuperVPN is the rare provider whose no-logs claim was falsified twice by its own…
no-logs contradicted
intro $5 /mo
Visit site
Read review
#43
VPN Proxy Master
The worst documented app in this comparison set: 100M+ installs, ownership in the Qihoo 360-linked shell network (TTP 2025), and a peer-reviewed NDSS 2026…
no-logs contradicted
yes - ad-supported free tier + premium upsell
Free is a business model - the only question is who pays
40 of the 43 providers on this page document a free tier or trial. The filter is deliberately narrow: it catches the honest free products - donation-funded, funnel tiers with real limits, and card-required trials - and excludes the "free unlimited" app-store tier where the FTC cases and breach databases live[6].
The three honest models, compared
Donation-funded (RiseupVPN): no accounts, no billing, no funnel - funded by the same collective that has run Riseup's mail for decades[3]. Limits: small network, best-effort performance, and a political project you should agree with. Funnel tiers (Proton VPN, Windscribe, hide.me): real product with real limits, designed to convert you to paid - the privacy architecture is the same as the paid tier[1]. Trials (NymVPN, AirVPN, IVPN's paid trial): full features for days, sometimes card-gated. Each model is fine; mixing them up is how people end up on a data-harvesting app.
The free tier as a privacy decision, not a price decision
Two questions decide whether a free product is honest. One: what does the operator sell - subscriptions (fine), donations (fine), or attention and data (documented: Onavo[5], Avast, Hola)? Two: does the free tier share infrastructure with the paid product? When it does (Proton), the free tier inherits the audits and the no-logs architecture. When it does not - a separate "free" app from an unknown developer - you are the product, and the free-VPN trap dossier has the incident record.
What to actually do
Occasional travel: a funnel tier with a data cap beats a suspicious "unlimited" app every time. Testing before buying: prefer a short paid trial or the money-back window over card-required "free" weeks, and calendar the cancel date. Budget privacy as a daily driver: the paid honest tier starts around $2-6 (the cheapest hub), which is the cheapest product in this market that comes without a data-side business. If a "free week" needs a card, it is not a trial - it is a renewal you will forget, so read the cancel terms first. And whatever you pick, run the leak test - free clients are the ones that most often ship without DNS leak protection.
Sources
- Proton VPN - free VPN product page (limits and funding) - accessed 2026-09-30
- Windscribe - pricing and free plan terms - accessed 2026-09-30
- RiseupVPN - donation-funded, no accounts - accessed 2026-09-30
- FTC - order bans Avast from selling browsing data, $16.5M settlement - accessed 2026-09-30
- TechCrunch - Apple pulls Facebook's Onavo from the App Store - accessed 2026-09-30
- The Register - UFO VPN database exposed (23M "free" users) - accessed 2026-09-30
- Have I Been Pwned - SuperVPN/GeckoVPN breach (10M records) - accessed 2026-09-30
FAQ
What is the difference between a free tier, a trial and a money-back guarantee?
A free tier runs indefinitely with limits (data, locations, speed). A trial is full-featured for days and usually wants a card up front. A money-back guarantee is a paid subscription you can cancel inside a window - refunds have a paper trail, which matters if you paid anonymously. On this page: 40 of the 43 providers document a free tier or trial.
Which free options are honest?
Three models. RiseupVPN is donation-funded with no accounts at all[3]. Proton VPN's free tier is unlimited data with no ads, funded by the paid plans it funnels toward[1]. Windscribe gives 10GB/month with a confirmed email. The dishonest model - "free unlimited VPN" apps outside our ranking - is the one with FTC orders and breach databases attached.
What happened with the big free VPN apps?
SuperVPN leaked 10M user records and reappeared in a 10M-user credential sale; UFO VPN left a 1.2TB database with ~23M users exposed - both products logged everything while advertising strict no-logs[6][7]. Facebook's Onavo harvested traffic until Apple banned it[5]. Avast sold browsing data until the FTC's $16.5M order. The free tier is a business model; the question is whose.
Do card-required trials auto-convert?
Usually, yes - that is the design. NymVPN's 7-day trial requires a card on select plans, AirVPN's 3-day trial costs EUR 2. The failure mode is the forgotten trial converting to a full-price month, then renewing at the standard rate. Calendar reminder on day one, or pick a data-limited free tier that cannot bill you.
Is the free tier of an audited provider safe?
Proton VPN's free tier runs the same audited architecture as the paid product[1] - the limits are commercial (few countries, one device), not privacy theater. The trade is honest: the free tier exists to upsell. Read the free tier's actual limits on the provider page rather than in app-store copy.
Why is a paid plan usually the better deal?
Because at $2-6/month (see the cheapest hub) you get full locations, full speed, streaming and support - less than a coffee. Free tiers make sense for occasional travel and testing; as a daily driver they trade convenience for limits, and the unbranded "free unlimited" apps trade your data for it.