Best VPN services for security

For a dependable virtual private network (VPN), prices range from around $15 a month to closer to $20 a month in Australian dollars. Unfortunately, the trend is towards charging in US dollars, so keep an eye out for conversion fees. Premium VPNs are better than free VPNs, and you can safely expect thousands of servers, military-grade encryption, and at least five simultaneous connections per account.

NordVPN is our pick as the best overall VPN because it ticks all of the main boxes. It’s a reasonably priced VPN that boasts military-grade encryption to ensure your connection is both secure and private. NordVPN has a strict no-log policy, is based in a country with privacy-friendly laws, and is open to third-party security audits.

Whether you’re using NordVPN as a device app or computer software, it has a user-friendly interface that’s easy for first-time VPN users. Confident VPN users can tap into specialty servers for additional protection, while more advanced features like antimalware, a kill switch, and split tunnelling are a few clicks away.

For more advanced users, NordVPN has some great depth. Connecting to servers is automated, straightforward, or you can dive into individual servers on a per-country basis. Plus, dig beneath the hood for antimalware, split tunnelling (which allows you to turn the VPN on or off for certain sites), and kill-switch features.

Despite being the VPN standard, NordVPN still offers competitive pricing compared to its closest peers. If you’re not sure that you want to commit, NordVPN’s monthly pricing is second only to ProtonVPN for our top picks, and there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee if you want to trial it.

While the numbers for NordVPN’s countries and locations aren’t as high as others, the main popular international locations are covered, and there are heaps of servers in Australia. NordVPN is quick to connect and has top-tier encryption, and it didn’t mess with the other online apps we use every day during testing.

For first-time VPN users, NordVPN is incredibly easy to use, but we also appreciate that the service continues to evolve for more advanced users. Inbuilt antimalware is in beta form, adding an extra layer of online protection, plus there’s a configurable kill switch, split tunnelling, and other advanced features if you feel confident enough to tweak your VPN experience.

To learn more, read our full NordVPN review.

Beyond this, ProtonVPN matches the other picks on this page for data and channel encryption, while also maintaining a no-log policy that’s auditable. The user interface may take some getting used to, particularly on computers, but we appreciate the at-a-glance metrics and like how easy it is to activate advanced features.

ProtonVPN is so peerless on this page as a budget-friendly pick that it’s the only VPN service to offer a free trial. While understandably limited in some respects, the free version of ProtonVPN maintains its strict no-log policy and doesn’t have any data limits (unlike other free VPNs).

Even if you pay US $9.95 a month for ProtonVPN Plus, it’s still the cheapest regular monthly pricing you’ll find on this page, and comes with even better features, including just under 3,000 servers in 67 countries. Admittedly, those numbers aren’t as big as some of ProtonVPN’s peers, but the VPN provider does have servers where it counts.

More impressive is the 10 simultaneous connections that come with ProtonVPN Plus, which means you can viably protect most or all of the compatible devices in your home. Despite the cheap month-to-month pricing, ProtonVPN doesn’t compromise on all-important encryption nor on privacy, which translates to a service that’s auditable and keeps zero logs of your internet activities.

To learn more, read our full ProtonVPN review.

Both services are incredibly easy to use, but ExpressVPN has the edge in this regard, thanks in part to the guided installation process and extensive library of video guides for additional configuration on the ExpressVPN website.

Whether you’re in Australia or travelling abroad, ExpressVPN gives you lots of options despite a lowish overall server count. ExpressVPN’s 3,000+ servers are found in 94 countries around the globe, separated into 160 locations, which is great for a VPN you can confidently travel with.

To make it more accessible, ExpressVPN recommends smart locations and remembers your recent connection locations. Outside of this, the intimidating scroll of the full list of server locations is tamed by categorisation into Asia Pacific, Americas, Europe, or Middle East and Africa. Alternatively, you can manually search for a specific supported country or city.

From installation through to diving into advanced features, we like how ExpressVPN holds your hand, making it the best pick for first-time VPN users. That shouldn’t turn off advanced users, though, because ExpressVPN still has straightforward tweaks for its inbuilt kill switch and split-tunnelling features.

To learn more, read our full ExpressVPN review.

You can star your favourite servers for easy reference, or dig into dedicated options for streaming, gaming, and torrenting. More advanced features are a few clicks or taps away from enabling, while configurable smart rules let you personalise and automate your CyberGhost VPN experience.

CyberGhost’s versatility wins start with pricing which, admittedly, deters you from opting for the basic monthly option. If you’re willing to buy in for a year or two, CyberGhost VPN has great ongoing monthly value and a generous 45-day money-back guarantee in lieu of a trial.

The biggest versatility plus, though, is the 9,500+ servers which, given the solid-but-not-extreme country and location counts for these servers, means better chances of uninterrupted uptime and better ways for CyberGhost to spread its users for better speeds. It also translates to servers that are optimised for gaming, torrenting, and streaming, plus you can pay extra for a dedicated IP address.

Importantly, CyberGhost’s focus on server count hasn’t made it lax in other key areas. Seven simultaneous connections is still enough to cover the compatible devices for a single user (likely with a few spares), while CyberGhost VPN still boasts AES 256-bit and 4096-bit encryption. The VPN software also has an effective kill switch and prevents IP/DNS leaks, plus there are additional tweaks you can make beneath the hood or with configurable privacy triggers via the VPN’s ‘Smart Rules’ feature.

To learn more, read our full CyberGhost VPN review.

If that sounds like your jam, we’d recommend ignoring the admittedly decent monthly pricing and opting for either annual or biennial pricing, both of which offer killer value compared to Surfshark’s VPN peers. We also like that Surfshark VPN boasts some great advanced features.

Certain VPN providers force you to manage installations on a fixed number of devices, while most others cap the number of simultaneous connections from a single account. Surfshark VPN lets you dodge all of this device management via unlimited simultaneous connections.

If Surfshark VPN supports the device in your home—and it supports a decent range of gadgets—you can and should absolutely install it on that device. Without having to worry about simultaneous connections, you’re free to take advantage of military-grade data encryption (though channel encryption isn’t as flash as its peers) in an easy-to-use VPN app that works without tweaking.

For those who do want to tweak, though, Surfshark VPN has multi-hop servers, plus the option to enable CleanWeb (ad, tracker, malware blocking) and a kill switch if Surfshark drops its connection. That’s just the shortlist of advanced features, too. If you really like Surfshark, you can bundle the VPN with antivirus, search, and breach alerts in the reasonably priced Surfshark One package.

To learn more, read our full Surfshark VPN review.

Whether you’re a first-time VPN user or a more advanced practitioner, it’s hard to go past the inherent value of NordVPN. Still, for a close competitor that has much the same offering, albeit with more countries and locations to choose from, ExpressVPN is worth a look.

Given how key VPN features tend to be the same where it matters, most notably for privacy and security, you can save money by opting for a cheap VPN with plenty of simultaneous connections in ProtonVPN. If you’d rather not worry about simultaneous connections, Surfshark removes the limit entirely. Alternatively, for versatility you don’t mind investing in, consider the massive server count and extended features of CyberGhost VPN.

To make the cut on this page, the best VPNs have to have high levels of data and channel encryption, to ensure your connection is private and secure. To boost privacy, we also favour VPNs that have strict no-log policies and those open to third-party audits.

Price is important but not the be-all and end-all, though we do like it when a VPN provider has a reasonable money-back trial or, even better, an actual free version of the software. The numbers for servers, countries, locations and devices all matter here: the bigger the number, the greater the versatility.

User-friendliness is also an important consideration because we appreciate that not every VPN user is necessarily tech-savvy, which is why easier-to-use VPNs are our preference. That said, we also love a VPN that offers advanced features—split tunnelling, kill switches, and even antimalware—for users who want more than just the basics.