★ Best for Security
★ Best for Streaming
★ Best for Gaming
★ Best for Privacy
★ Best for Torrenting
★ Best for Speed
NordVPN consistently delivers top-tier performance for demanding tasks like 4K streaming, large file transfers, and competitive gaming.Our #1 security pick: NordVPN posted the strongest encryption and threat-protection scores in our rankings, earning a 94/100 trust score.Our #1 streaming pick: NordVPN posted the fastest streaming speeds in our rankings, with a 94/100 trust score.Our #1 gaming pick: NordVPN held the most stable connections under load in our rankings, with a 94/100 trust score.Our #1 privacy pick: NordVPN holds an independently audited no-logs record and a 94/100 trust score.Our #1 torrenting pick: NordVPN posted top P2P speeds in our rankings, backed by proven no-logs privacy and a 94/100 trust score.Our #1 pick for speed: NordVPN pairs a modern protocol with a large server network, and holds a 94/100 trust score.NordVPN consistently delivers top-tier performance for demanding tasks like 4K streaming, large file transfers, and competitive gaming.NordVPN consistently delivers top-tier performance for demanding tasks like 4K streaming, large file transfers, and competitive gaming.
30-day money-back guarantee
NordVPN consistently delivers top-tier performance for demanding tasks like 4K streaming, large file transfers, and competitive gaming.
#1of 22Among the FastestProviders We Rank
The fastest VPN of the 22 in our Speed Lab rankings.
NordVPN led our Speed Lab ranking, built from independent lab results: the fastest of all 22 providers compared.
#1of 22Among the BestNetworks We Rank
8,900+ servers across 129+ countries.
One of the largest VPN networks globally with 8,900+ servers in 129+ countries. NordVPN offers extensive coverage and specialty servers for P2P, streaming, and obfuscation.
129+ countries · 10 simultaneous devices · P2P & streaming servers
#1of 22Among the MostSecure We Rank
Security we couldn't fault.
NordVPN excels across the board here, scoring 5/5 for Security and 10/10 for Protocol.
NordVPN uses industry-standard security protocols to ensure everyday privacy and protect users' data online.
#3of 22Best-in-Classfor Streaming
Handles most streaming, not all.
NordVPN accesses 8+ Services, though performance varies by region.
NordVPN uses built‑in technology (SmartPlay) to help you reach geo‑blocked content “as if you were at home” without extra settings.
#1of 22Among the Easiestto Use
Easy on every device you own.
NordVPN excels across the board here, scoring 10/10 for Devices and 10/10 for Connections.
NordVPN is built for simplicity and gets users protected quickly without requiring technical knowledge.
No technical expertise required. If you can install regular software, you can set up NordVPN. Advanced users have granular control when needed.
#2of 22Among the MostTrusted We Rank
Trusted at scale, priced fairly.
Strong scores in User Sat. (4.7/5.0), Money-Back (30 days), Support (24/7 live support), but Room to improve in Value ($3.49/mo).
NordVPN offers multiple pricing tiers and plan durations. Longer commitments typically offer bigger discounts. All plans backed by 30-day money-back guarantee.
Same plan, same features. The only difference is the renewal term. Pay for 2 years up front and the rate drops from $14.99 to about $3.49 a month: 69% off, roughly $266 saved over the term.
All plans and add-ons
Pick a billing period and compare every tier side by side.
Best for Users who only need a VPN for privacy and streaming
Best for Power users who want complete privacy protection
Best for Businesses or high-security users who need maximum protection
A plain-language breakdown of everything in the plans above: what each feature is, who it helps, and whether it is worth paying for.
All plans include:
NordVPN suits anyone who wants strong privacy features, fast connections and reliable streaming access without technical complexity. It scores 94/100 in our review, ranks first in our Speed Lab at 730 Mbps and has commissioned six independent no-logs assurance engagements since 2018, though the reports are not public. The 30-day money-back guarantee limits purchase risk.
NordVPN encrypts all traffic with AES-256. It has commissioned six independent no-logs assurance engagements (PwC in 2018 and 2020, Deloitte every year from 2022 to 2025), but the reports are readable only by NordVPN customers, so they cannot be independently checked. Cure53 has separately published security assessments of its apps and infrastructure. The 2018 server breach involved a single rented server at a third-party data center in Finland, disclosed in 2019. NordVPN says no user activity logs or credentials were exposed.
NordVPN says it responded by terminating that provider, moving to RAM-only servers and launching a bug bounty program. RAM-only servers wipe their data on every reboot, but the RAM-only claim rests on NordVPN’s word alone. NordVPN says it operates under Panama’s jurisdiction and that Panama has no mandatory data-retention law. Independent legal commentary points to Panama’s Law 51/2009, which imposes retention duties on telecom and Internet providers, and a US court complaint alleges NordVPN’s principal place of business is Amsterdam, so the jurisdiction is less clean than NordVPN states.
NordVPN publishes transparency reports[1], which replaced its warrant canary in October 2024. They state that it has received no binding national security letters or gag orders, which is NordVPN’s own statement. It was legally compelled once, by a Panama warrant in October 2024, and says it could provide only payment-related data and confirmation that an account existed.
Read the full breakdown in our NordVPN security analysis.
NordVPN averaged 730 Mbps download speed on a 1 Gbps fiber connection in the Speed Lab data, which is aggregated from independent labs. That puts it first of the 22 providers ranked. NordLynx, its WireGuard[2]-based protocol, drives most of that performance.
Nearby servers in the US, UK and EU retained over 90% of baseline speed. Distant servers (Asia-Pacific) dropped more but stayed stable enough for HD streaming and video calls. Public Wi-Fi and congested networks showed consistent results across peak and off-peak hours.
OpenVPN ran slightly slower but remained rock-solid on Linux and router installations. IKEv2 handled mobile network switching cleanly between Wi-Fi and cellular.
See protocol-level benchmarks across 12 server locations in our NordVPN speed test results.
NordVPN is widely used to access major streaming platforms, though results vary by region and change over time. Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Disney+, Prime Video and Hulu are all commonly accessed with it. SmartPlay handles DNS routing automatically with no manual configuration needed.
NordVPN’s speed headroom suits 4K streaming, and it supports Smart TVs, Fire TV Stick and NVIDIA Shield.
NordVPN offers P2P-optimized servers for torrenting. No VPN can guarantee that your real address never leaks, so check your own connection with a leak-test tool.
NordVPN is one of the top picks in our best VPN for streaming roundup.
NordVPN runs native apps on Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and Linux. One account covers 10 simultaneous connections. Browser extensions exist for Chrome and Firefox.
The Windows app includes split tunneling, a customizable kill switch and protocol selection. The macOS app integrates with system-level networking from Big Sur onward. iOS and Android apps offer Quick Connect and Threat Protection for blocking malicious sites and trackers.
Router-level installation works on ASUS, OpenWRT and pfSense hardware. This protects every device on your network, including smart TVs and gaming consoles that lack native VPN apps.
Travelers and remote workers benefit from obfuscated servers that disguise VPN traffic in restrictive regions. NordVPN is among the more reliable options in heavily filtered networks.
Streaming users get consistent 4K playback and broad platform access across 129+ countries. SmartPlay removes manual setup entirely.
Privacy-focused professionals get a frequently audited no-logs record (reports available to customers only), RAM-only servers (NordVPN’s claim) and a Panama-incorporated provider. Journalists and researchers handling sensitive material should weigh the audit and jurisdiction caveats above.
Home users get one-tap protection across all devices. The interface requires zero technical knowledge.
Budget-conscious users who need a free option should consider providers with permanent free tiers. NordVPN’s lowest price requires a 2-year commitment. See our best free VPN picks for that category.
Users who need more than 10 simultaneous connections without router setup may prefer Surfshark, which offers unlimited devices. Anyone who requires fully open-source client code should evaluate ProtonVPN instead.
Go deeper on the topics that matter most before you buy.
NordVPN Pricing Deep Dive Renewal rates, discount history, plan-by-plan feature comparison and the real cost after your first term ends.
NordVPN Speed Test Results Full testing methodology, protocol-level benchmarks across 12 server locations and performance on constrained networks.
NordVPN Security Analysis Complete audit history, 2018 breach timeline, jurisdiction analysis and RAM-only infrastructure details.
NordVPN Free Trial Guide Step-by-step trial activation, platform limitations, refund process and exact cancellation steps.
Charts and reference images from our research, free to view and share.
Mostly yes, with caveats. The 2018 incident affected a single rented server at a third-party data center in Finland, and NordVPN says no user activity logs or credentials were exposed. NordVPN says it terminated that provider, moved to RAM-only servers, and launched a bug bounty program. Its no-logs claim has been through six independent assurance engagements by PwC and Deloitte, though the reports are available only to customers, and Cure53 has separately published security assessments of its apps.
Every NordVPN plan, including Basic, Complete, and Prime, carries a 30-day money-back guarantee, giving you a full month to test speeds and streaming access before committing. This applies across all subscription lengths, not just the discounted 2-year term. Mobile users also get a 7-day free trial, though that trial option is limited to mobile apps only.
Basic covers core VPN protection with 8,900+ servers, a kill switch, and Threat Protection. Complete adds NordPass password manager, a data breach scanner, 1TB encrypted cloud storage, and NordLocker file encryption. Prime layers on cyber insurance coverage, NordProtect, and priority support. All three plans share the same 10-device limit and 30-day guarantee.
NordVPN ranks #1 of 22 in our Speed Lab, aggregated from independent labs, driven largely by NordLynx, its WireGuard-based protocol. Nearby servers in the US, UK, and EU retained over 90% of baseline speed in the Speed Lab data, while distant Asia-Pacific servers dropped more but stayed stable enough for HD streaming. OpenVPN ran slightly slower but remained stable on Linux and routers.
NordVPN is widely used to access Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Disney+, Prime Video, Hulu, HBO Max, ITVX, and 9Now/10 Play, though results vary by region and change over time. SmartPlay, NordVPN’s built-in smart DNS feature, auto-selects a streaming-ready server with no manual configuration. NordVPN also supports Smart TVs, Fire TV Stick, and NVIDIA Shield.
One NordVPN account supports 10 simultaneous device connections across native apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and Linux. If your household exceeds that, install NordVPN on an ASUS, OpenWRT, or pfSense router instead, which covers every device on the network, including smart TVs and consoles, as a single connection. Surfshark offers unlimited devices if that’s a hard requirement.
Meshnet is one of NordVPN’s advanced features, built for secure sharing between your own devices or with people you invite. It works alongside other advanced tools in the app like Double VPN, which routes traffic through two servers for extra encryption, and Dedicated IP, useful for consistent access to banking or secure logins. Casual users can ignore it entirely.
NordVPN’s kill switch is designed to cut your connection rather than expose your real IP if the VPN drops. Threat Protection blocks malicious sites and trackers on iOS and Android, layered on top of AES-256 encryption and DNS leak protection enabled by default. The Windows app adds split tunneling and protocol selection between NordLynx, OpenVPN, and IKEv2/IPsec.
Partly. NordVPN says it operates under Panama’s jurisdiction, outside the Five, Nine and 14 Eyes alliances, and that Panama has no mandatory data-retention law. Independent legal commentary points to Panama’s Law 51/2009, which imposes retention duties on telecom and Internet providers, and a US complaint alleges NordVPN’s principal place of business is Amsterdam, so the jurisdiction is less clean than NordVPN states. NordVPN publishes transparency reports (they replaced its warrant canary in October 2024), and its no-logs claim has been through six independent assurance engagements by PwC and Deloitte, though the reports are not public.
Connect to a NordVPN server, then force-disconnect your Wi-Fi or unplug ethernet mid-session. A working kill switch stops your internet entirely instead of falling back to your unprotected connection. The Windows app also offers split tunneling if you want select apps to bypass the tunnel deliberately.
Switch to NordVPN’s obfuscated servers, which disguise VPN traffic to get past network restrictions; NordVPN is among the more reliable options for travelers and remote workers in heavily filtered regions. Install the app before departure since access to app stores can be unreliable once you’re already inside the country. No VPN, including NordVPN, guarantees access in every region.
No, NordVPN has no permanent free tier, and its cheapest plan requires a 2-year commitment at the promotional rate. It does offer a 7-day free trial, but that’s limited to mobile apps only. Every paid plan is backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee instead, and NordVPN accepts Bitcoin for anonymous payment if that matters to you.
Yes. NordVPN’s lowest price, from $3.49/month, applies to the 2-year plan’s promotional first term, while the regular month-to-month rate is considerably higher. Renewal rates increase after that initial term ends, and the standalone monthly plan isn’t competitively priced either. Set a reminder near your renewal date to re-evaluate rather than auto-renewing at the higher rate.
Cure53 has assessed NordVPN three times: its apps and add-ons in 2022 (report dated February 2023; 6 vulnerabilities, including 1 Critical, a Linux privilege escalation), its servers and infrastructure in 2022 (report dated February 2023; 1 vulnerability), and its apps, browser extensions and features in 2024 (report dated December 2024; 22 vulnerabilities, including 4 High and no Critical).
identifying a total of twenty-two. Six of the findings were categorized as security vulnerabilities, whilst the remaining sixteen were deemed general weaknesses with lower exploitation potential.any typical platform user can exploit a bug in the notification system to raise their privileges to root. This was assigned a Critical severity ratingAll the detected critical, high, and medium severity vulnerabilities were fixed by our restless developers and approved by the Cure53 authorityCure53 conducted a penetration test and source code audit against the NordVPN servers, infrastructure, and NordVPN desktop applications for Windows, Linux, and macOS.the Cure53 team is pleased to confirm that the NordVPN servers and infrastructure exhibit a relatively stable security foundation.identified a total of thirty-one findings. Of the thirty-one security-related discoveries, twenty-two were classified as security vulnerabilities, and nine were categorized as general weaknessesthe lack of any Critical severity vulnerabilities can be seen as a positive indication, the Cure53 team was still able to identify several vulnerabilities that ranked as High.The assessment began in June 2024 and lasted 55 working days.In March 2018 one NordVPN server at a third-party datacentre in Finland was accessed without authorisation. According to NordVPN, the intruder used an insecure remote-management system the datacentre had left in place, and a TLS key and OpenVPN configuration files were taken. NordVPN disclosed it publicly on 21 October 2019, about 19 months later, after the leaked key surfaced online.
One server was affected in March 2018 in Finland. The rest of our service was not affected.We were notified about the breach on April 13, 2019. We shredded the server that same day.The attacker gained access to the server — which had been active for about a month — by exploiting an insecure remote management system left by the data center provider; NordVPN said it was unaware that such a system existed.NordVPN said it found out about the breach a “few months ago,” but the spokesperson said the breach was not disclosed until today because the company wanted to be “100% sure that each component within our infrastructure is secure.”Servers belonging to the NordVPN and TorGuard VPN companies were hacked and attackers stole and leaked the private keys associated with certificates used to secure their web servers and VPN configuration files.Over the weekend, security researcher tweeted that NordVPN, of which we are an affiliate, was compromised as the private keys for their web site certificate were publicly leaked on the Internet.PwC AG Switzerland performed an assurance engagement on the no-logs claim of NordVPN in late 2018, as of a single date, 1 November 2018, and found no sign the claim was untrue. The engagement was commissioned by NordVPN, and this account rests on NordVPN and on one outlet, ProPrivacy, which saw a summary of the report through a list of journalists chosen by NordVPN.
In late 2018, we ordered an industry-first independent assurance engagement to verify our no-logs claim – a cornerstone of our privacy mission.The audit can only refer to our service and server configurations as of November 1st 2018.The US National Vulnerability Database lists six CVEs for NordVPN client software: three published in 2018 (CVE-2018-9105 on macOS, CVE-2018-10170 and CVE-2018-3952 on Windows) and three published in 2026 as records for old client versions (CVE-2018-25368, CVE-2019-25572 and CVE-2020-36992). The 2026 records were added retroactively and are not new discoveries. A count of CVEs is an inventory, not a score.
NordVPN 6.12.7.0 for Windows suffers from a SYSTEM privilege escalation vulnerability through the "nordvpn-service" service.The vulnerability described in their report no longer exists on our systems.Cure53 reviewed the infrastructure of NordVPN in 2022, including the patched WireGuard kernel module that NordVPN uses for its NordLynx protocol, and found no issues in that module. The report names a Wireguard kernel module and does not use the name NordLynx; the link to NordLynx is made by NordVPN.
Developed by NordVPN on the WireGuard framework, NordLynx offers a high-speed, secure VPN connectionthe provided patch files for the Radius server and Wireguard kernel module were assessed for potential memory corruptions or authentication-related flaws. Positively, no associated issues were identified here.NordVPN says it operates under the jurisdiction of Panama, where its operating companies are incorporated, and that its parent, Nord Security, is based in the Netherlands. A complaint in a US lawsuit, which is an unproven allegation, gives Amsterdam as the principal place of business of one of the two Panamanian companies. In February 2022 Nord Security and Surfshark agreed to merge, saying they would continue as autonomous companies on separate infrastructure.
NordVPN is based and operates under the jurisdiction of Panama, meanwhile Nord Security, parent company of NordVPN is based in Europe, in the Netherlands.Defendant Nordvpn S.A. is a Panamanian corporation incorporated under the laws of Panama.8 Nordvpn S.A.’s principal place of business is in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.9 [8 and 9 are the complaint's footnote markers]Surfshark is joining forces with Nord Security, which marks the finalization of a merger agreement.Independent speed results and expert reviews for every major VPN.
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