No Kape, no Ziff Davis, no Aura - providers that answer to their users, not a holding company.
Short answer: Mullvad VPN is our top pick as of 2026-09-28 (8.9/10) - read why, and who we ranked below it and why.
The most honest VPN on the internet, and in 2026 still the one this industry is measured against: numbered accounts, cash or Monero accepted, open-source client
The anti-affiliate champion candidate holds up: no affiliate program (stated out loud on the homepage), flat honest pricing, quarterly warrant canary, annual th
The best-evidenced no-logs claim in the business - twice tested in US courts (2016, 2018) and twice found to have nothing - plus the cheapest long-term renewal
One of the strongest no-logs receipts in the industry - a Swedish court could not prove logs exist, the servers are diskless RAM-only, and monthly transparency
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
Structurally the most trustworthy free VPN: a Seattle activist collective running RiseupVPN as a donation-funded experiment - no account, no IP logging, open-so
A genuinely interesting infrastructure story wrapped in a jurisdiction problem: Golden Frog built one of the few fully self-owned server networks and invented C
Community-run Italian operator with the best power-user transparency stack in the business: fully open-source Eddie client (GPL-3.0), 258 bare-metal entry IPs a
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
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 f
A marketing machine with a real 45-day refund and honest-ish renewal math ($56.94 stays $56.94) - but it has the weakest trust story of the Kape brands: Romania
The quiet overachiever: hide.me ships dynamic port forwarding, multihop, split tunneling, a real free tier and the widest crypto-payment list of the ten (BTC th
The most expensive mainstream VPN ($300 per 2 years, $30/mo monthly) with the most hostile refund stance: 'All sales are final and refunds are not possible once
A small, quiet Swedish outfit with an honest-ish pitch: no audit, no circus, 10 simultaneous devices, port forwarding, AnyConnect-style obfuscation and a 30-day
Mozilla gutted its VPN/privacy products team in 2025 layoffs; long-term commitment doubtful. WireGuard (Mullvad-based) backend, transparent pricing, no intro ga
Nord Security's business VPN arm, per-user pricing. Prices unverified.
Newer (2024) minimal-design VPN: your exit = Mullvad's, plus self-hostable server option; flat pricing, no intro games. Small but architecturally honest.
No discounts, no intro games - and almost no new development since ~2018; leaked internal concerns in 2019. Expensive honesty with a stale codebase.
Guardian-powered Brave-branded VPN; honest flat pricing but it's a wrapper, not Brave infrastructure.
Verified live 2026-09-27 ('free for personal use' on page); WireGuard-based zero-trust access, self-host or cloud.
Verified live 2026-09-27; open-source WireGuard mesh with SSO, self-host or cloud.
The incumbent protocol; still the audited-workhorse fallback everywhere.
Commercial self-hosted management layer on the open protocol.
One-script WireGuard/OpenVPN on a Raspberry Pi; the homelab favorite.
Free LAN-over-internet tool (gaming use case); zero privacy claims - fine for LAN parties, not for privacy.
One line (`ssh -D 1080 user@vps`) gives a browser-usable SOCKS5 proxy with no extra software - the zero-cost trick most people never hear about. TCP-only (QUIC/
Multi-protocol university project (VPN Gate's engine); powerful, aging codebase.
The oldest brand in this batch (2005) and the most forgotten: now a footnote inside Ziff Davis's VPN portfolio alongside IPVanish - the sibling that was court-p
Verified live 2026-09-27 (pricing page). WireGuard mesh with control-plane SaaS; exit nodes make it a consumer VPN alternative; paid plans for teams.
The protocol that ate the VPN market; in-kernel since Linux 5.6. Every commercial 'proprietary protocol' is WireGuard + tweaks in 2026.
SDN/virtual networks; the self-hoster's alternative to Tailscale.
Verified live 2026-09-27; self-hosted enterprise WireGuard platform with SSO/identity.
Unlimited devices and a genuinely documented 2025 Deloitte ISAE 3000 no-logs audit - the strongest paper trail in the Kape/Nord orbit. But it is half of the Nor
1M+ (TTP: ranked #82-99 US App Store 2024) installs. Not independently audited in this dossier Included as second instance of the multi-brand farm pattern.
Nonprofit privacy institute; VPN is a member perk, not a product. (Specific VPN subpage 404'd at crawl 2026-09-27 - site restructured.)
100k+ (estimate, not verified) installs. Open-source; run by a nonprofit education/research institute Genuinely non-commercial; 'free' as mission rather than fu
Verified live 2026-09-27. Not anonymity: traffic still terminates at Cloudflare (US corp) - it's an encrypted transport, explicitly not 'privacy from Cloudflare
DIT-inc anti-censorship tool for China/Iran; Windows-only, dated; active but legacy.
10M+ (Play, current listing); extension user base historically tens of millions installs. Not applicable - peer-to-peer bandwidth-sharing architecture The most
1M+ (TTP: >1M US iOS lifetime) installs. Not independently audited in this dossier The completely opaque tier: an operator you cannot identify even with corpora
Effectively a discontinued brand: 'Ivacy Powered by PureVPN' no longer sells new Ivacy subscriptions and funnels everything into PureVPN's Gaditek checkout. Leg
Clone-ecosystem Play Store VPN; UNVERIFIED ownership - confidence low.
1M+ (TTP: >200k US iOS lifetime) installs. A 'Now VPN' appears in MVPNalyzer NDSS 2026 Unencrypted Traffic list (package ambiguity possible) Dev-rename history
10M+ (TTP: >5M lifetime US iOS downloads) installs. Not independently audited in this dossier Ownership chain documented through the Hong Kong registry.
Flagged in Top10VPN/academic ownership studies as China-operated; marketing in both directions (censorship evasion app run from censored country).
1M+ (TTP: >500k US iOS lifetime) installs. Not independently audited in this dossier Thin-shell operator with minimal transparency even by this family's standar
'Free VPN Planet' ecosystem app; freemium funnel; ownership opaque.
10M+ (Play) installs. No ads/trackers per own claims; open-source apps; no-logs policy independently audited (Securitum) The freemium free tier done honestly: u
100M+ (downloads per vendor) installs. Open source; ad-funded free tier (PsiCash paid tier removes ads); publishes transparency data Respectable, purpose-built
1M+ (estimate, not verified) installs. Open-source client; no third-party trackers; service docs state no user IP logging The most trustworthy free VPN on struc
Another Signal Lab whitelabel; indistinguishable backend from Thunder/Snap.
1M+ (not in top-100 lists) installs. Not independently audited in this dossier The 'Signal' branding invites confusion with the Signal messenger - unrelated.
Signal Lab family app; research flagged it for excessive tracker SDKs.
Clone-ecosystem free VPN repeatedly flagged in VPN-app security studies; treat as unknown-ownership risk.
Signal Lab clone-app family member (same dev fingerprint as Snap/Secure VPN). Free tier monetizes via ads and broad permissions.
Clone-ecosystem app; ownership murky (Signal Lab-linked per research reports). UNVERIFIED ownership - confidence low.
Not a VPN - onion routing. Every 'VPN vs Tor' comparison should say: different threat models; Tor = anonymity, VPN = privacy from local network.
50M+ (Play, 2026-09-27) installs. Not independently audited in this dossier Category: western ad-funded free VPN. Less dangerous than the Chinese shell family,
10M+ (Play) installs. Publishes annual independent security audits; records aggregate connection counts and publishes law-enforcement request reports The 2 GB c
A 500M-install free VPN from the Qihoo 360-linked developer cluster (Innovative Connecting / Autumn Breeze / Lemon Clove, per TTP 2025 and OTF 2025), undisclose
Lite variant of Turbo VPN; Play-Store-only funnel, duplicate codebase of the flagship.
Free 'residential IP' VPN for streaming; users' home connections may serve as exit nodes for others - the Hola model with a cleaner interface.
US-funded anti-censorship tool (Ultrareach). Long documented as opaque and not anonymous-grade; useful for unblocking, not privacy.
Academic anti-censorship project; volunteer-run exits = no trust guarantees, logs vary per relay; great for censorship research, bad for anonymity.
10M+ (TTP: ranked #34-36 US App Store 2024) installs. Not independently audited in this dossier Second WCOMES app (AppVPN) below.
Was among top free VPNs ~2018-2021; SuperSoftTech-adjacent; presence fading - treat as legacy/risky.
10M+ (Play) installs. Not independently audited in this dossier Generous, honest free tier. Best for occasional use; capacity is enforced by data caps, not by s
10M+ (TTP: ranked #23-36 US App Store 2024) installs. 'wirevpn' named in MVPNalyzer NDSS 2026 failure lists: Unencrypted Traffic, Leak, Tracking Same-name app f
Free Connected Ltd. Heavy Play Store ASO + influencer ads; privacy policy permits broad data collection on free tier.
Aggressive upsell funnel from PC-utility maker; heavy affiliate presence in download sites.
10M+ (Play) installs. Not independently audited in this dossier Only app in the set with any public ownership pushback - unresolved either way; the HK papers re
Trail of Bits' 'set up a personal IPsec/WireGuard VPN' script - the honest $3.50/mo alternative (cloud VM cost only).
Verified live 2026-09-27 ('free, but you'll need...' self-host copy). The serious answer to Russia/Iran DPI: AmneziaWG obfuscation + self-hosted configs.
Romanian VPN+SmartDNS combo; niche survivor.
Long-running Australian Smart DNS for streaming.
Self-hosted Tailscale control server - removes the trust assumption from Tailscale.
Verified live 2026-09-27. Google/Jigsaw Shadowsocks-based self-host for journalists; access keys you share like tickets.
The best privacy-per-dollar for IP replacement: you control the box and nobody logs you on their side. But one IP tied to your payment and identity means zero a
Verified live 2026-09-27; StrongVPN sibling (Ziff Davis) for streaming unblocking.
Verified live 2026-09-27 (signup page). Smart DNS + hybrid VPN; the streaming-unblock category that quietly became 'VPN + DNS' bundles.
Small Danish Smart DNS; needs status re-verification.
A polished, paid DNS resolver with strong filtering, per-endpoint rules and honest no-logging options from the Windscribe team. DNS-only like the rest: it impro
The most expensive VPN in the room wearing the most auditing laurels: $8.33/mo forever after a $2.99 teaser, owned by Kape Technologies (ex-Crossrider adware, a
High-performance UDP/QUIC proxy built for bad networks: brutal speed on lossy connections and brute-force-resistant authentication, popular where UDP throttling
Verified live 2026-09-27 (now branded 'Open Web Protocol'). Longest-running dVPN; node quality/abuse problems are real; payments in MYST.
The only consumer VPN with a real metadata-privacy architecture - a 5-hop Sphinx mixnet with cover traffic and zk-credential unlinkability - and clear Swiss leg
Verified live 2026-09-27; site cites ~$0.033/day style pay-per-use. Largest real dVPN ecosystem (Cosmos SDK chain, client apps), quality varies per node.
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 segment
Currently the state of the art against deep-packet-inspection censors: VLESS-REALITY borrows real TLS handshake fingerprints so your server looks like a benign
Apple's dual-hop proxy for Safari traffic; 'not a VPN' by Apple's own words - no region choice, no full-device coverage.
The mainstream encrypted DNS with ad/tracker blocking on default resolvers - zero effort and genuinely useful for tracking hygiene. Same hard limit as all DNS t
Popular Iran-focused auto-proxy client that consumes Sing-box/Xray/Reality/Hysteria/Trojan/SSH configs on all platforms (repo push 2026-08-10). The app is clean
Garlic-routing anonymity network with its own internal sites ('eepsites'), actively developed (repo push 2026-09-27). Excellent for in-network anonymity and hid
Verified live 2026-09-27 ('free version has a daily' cap visible). Nonprofit-branded anti-censorship tool with a freemium funnel.
Excellent configurable DNS filtering (blocklists, per-device analytics, encrypted DoH/DoT) with a generous free tier - it cuts tracker noise and malicious domai
A conceptually neat 'you can't trust a single VPN' startup whose domain redirects to a host that no longer answers and has no recent Wayback snapshots - as of 2
The self-hosted network-wide ad blocker that also becomes your local DNS authority - full control, zero recurring cost, great homelab value. As a VPN alternativ
Verified live 2026-09-27. Real anti-censorship engineering; free tier ad-supported, throughput-boosts paid via PsiCash.
Verified live 2026-09-27; browser-based pluggable transport for censorship circumvention.
A legitimate academic experiment (SoftEther-based volunteer relays) that still publishes live server lists - genuinely free circumvention when your needs are ca
Reskin of Avast SecureLine. Exists to A/B test price ladders in antivirus checkouts.
Mesh-ISP protocol (routers pay routers per GB) - the most technically credible dVPN-adjacent deployment; consumer exposure limited to Althea-powered local ISPs.
Gen Digital; product seems in maintenance mode inside Norton bundles; free cap tiny.
Privacy-chain ecosystem VPN (masternode mesh); niche, token-centric; confidence low on current consumer UX.
Small, technically credible, P2P-friendly; founder posts honest postmortems. Status needs re-verification 2026.
Ex-Luminati; the industrial-scale residential proxy network - the ethical and legal center of the proxy market (Hola feeds it historically).
Smartproxy rebranded to Decodo (2024); mid-market scraping proxies.
Verified live 2026-09-27: $399 hardware (Deeper Connect device) replaces subscription - you pay upfront for a router-node; earn DPR by sharing bandwidth.
UK niche provider popular in IPTV/Kodi communities; no independent audits, no verifiable pricing at crawl time.
Ultra-cheap P2P-friendly service; site poorly maintained; status uncertain 2026. Unknown ownership - treat with suspicion.
Ex-Cloak; Ziff Davis (ex-J2 Global). Mostly bundled via employers; consumer side quiet.
Small Dutch consumer/SMB provider; lifetime-deal marketing on deal sites; no audits.
Mixnet protocol with paid relays; more research project than consumer VPN in 2026.
CIS-market provider; ownership opaque (RU/UA ties disputed); avoid without re-verification.
Site verified 2026-09-27. P2P model resells users' idle bandwidth as Bright Data proxies - you are the product in the most literal sense.
Budget residential/socks proxies; popular in sneaker/streaming/automation scenes.
Solana-linked dVPN brand; activity level uncertain 2026 - verify before listing.
Antivirus-bundle VPN; McAfee VPN is white-labeled infrastructure, not proprietary.
Registrar cross-sell; uses OpenVPN/WireGuard; basically an upsell SKU.
Gen Digital (Norton/Avast/Avira). Sold mostly as a 360-suite bundle; standalone exists. 'VPN' here is a checkbox in an antivirus bundle.
Not a VPN - a browser-scoped proxy owned since 2016 by a consortium incl. Chinese investors (Kunlun/Qihoo 360 heritage). Fine for geo-messing, not privacy.
Verified live 2026-09-27; homepage now markets itself as 'DePIN that works' - VPN narrative subordinated to token/depin narrative. Pay-per-use OXT.
Enterprise scraping-proxy giant; the 'clean' end of a market that also runs on infected/rented devices.
Passive-income residential bandwidth sharing (Hola/Bright Data model with a payout veneer).
Official consumer product of OpenVPN Inc. Basically a demo of the OpenVPN protocol stack.
Old-school rotating HTTP proxy; simple, small, long-lived.
Ziff Davis-owned; appears to have been quietly folded into StrongVPN/Encrypt.me marketing. Status needs re-check.
Small retro proxy shop for scraping/sneakers.
Decentralized VPN on the IPSE ecosystem; activity level uncertain 2026 - confidence low.
TotalAV/TotalAdBlock ecosystem add-on; renewal-price complaints are endemic in this family.
Site served 200 but pricing is client-rendered; zero verifiable price data. Small, aging brand.
Peer-to-peer ecosystem (messenger + crypto + tunnel); closed-source token economy, documented spam/abuse ties - treat as untrustworthy until proven otherwise.
Lifetime-deal-heavy vendor (StackSocial etc.); privacy policy allows US data sharing; classic lifetime-bait economics.
Small lifetime-deal vendor; unclear status.
Aggressive affiliate-funnel brand, opaque ownership, endless $0.99-2/mo lifetime spam. Avoid without audit.
Developer-friendly datacenter/residential proxy SaaS.
Ancient consumer VPN (2005-era); still selling; relevance mostly historical.
A brand in palliative care that still markets like it's 2018: ZenMate's own announcement closed new signups on March 16, 2023, killed its apps on May 1, 2023, a
Legacy cheap provider, lifetime plans; current operational status unclear.
The most polished sales machine with the most compromised track record: a 2017 CDT complaint to the FTC - built on Carnegie Mellon research - documented undiscl
A privacy veteran with real strengths - 8 devices, serious obfuscation stack (Stealth/Stunnel/Shadowsocks/OpenConnect), crypto payments, dedicated IPs and port
McAfee/Gen Digital-owned since 2018. Friendliest UX, first VPN with public annual security audits (2016+). Free tier deliberately tiny.
2020 breach exposed ~900GB of user logs/DNS records despite 'zero-log' claims. Still distributed. Textbook free-VPN trust failure.
VERIFIED LIVE 2026-09-27: monthly $9.95, annual $59.88, $250 lifetime still sold. New owners TERMINATED all lifetime subscriptions April 2025 without refunds -
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 bette
The most successful VPN marketer on earth: polished apps, huge network (7,664 servers / 150 countries verified from their own API on 2026-09-27), strong streami
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 audit
VERIFIED LIVE 2026-09-27: intro $1.11/mo. Zurich-based, post-2021 entrant riding affiliate wave; free 10GB tier is real but tied to an account with marketing em
VERIFIED LIVE 2026-09-27: $14.99/mo, $89.99/yr. Differentiated product (channel bonding) rather than price games; niche but real.
Gen Digital. Same network as AVG/HMA variants; 2020 Avast data-selling scandal (Jumpshot) permanently stained the family name.
The most famous logging receipt in VPN history: in 2011 HMA itself blogged that it had handed the FBI the connection logs that convicted a LulzSec member. Fourt
SuperSoftTech app; 2022 leak exposed ~235M records incl. plaintext emails/passwords; also the 2023 breach. Top-10 Play Store traffic for years despite this.
The cautionary tale of the entire industry: the service that literally proved a VPN's 'no logs' can be a lie - real logs to DHS in 2016, then sold three times (
Cheap intro pricing wraps a genuinely compromised privacy history: a documented 2017 FBI case where its 'no logs' records identified a user, plus a 2025 IPv6-le
Because the logging promise is only as good as the owner. Kape Technologies - built on the Crossrider adware platform - owns ExpressVPN, CyberGhost and PIA AND the review sites vpnMentor/WizCase. When one company owns VPNs and reviewers, the reviews are marketing.
No. Independence removes one conflict of interest, but you still need evidence: audits, court tests, jurisdiction, funding. We score ownership as one factor, never the whole.