Gamers ask for latency and we refuse to invent it. We cannot measure your route to a game server, so this guide weights what we can publish honestly.
The honest limit first: we do not measure ping, and we do not publish throughput figures we cannot reproduce. A VPN that claims to lower your latency is making a claim about your network that nobody can make from ours.
What we can weigh is the speed component — how little a tunnel costs in the model we publish — plus privacy, because a game account with a payment method attached is worth stealing, and value, because a subscription you keep beats one you churn.
Ordered by how well each one fits this task, not by our overall ranking — every score here is the score on that provider's review.
Our highest speed score at 9.6 and our highest streaming score at 9.4 — at the highest price.
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Speed 9.6, the highest we publish, and the gaming use case is one of the four this provider is marked as best for.
Six independent no-logs audits, a RAM-only fleet, and the highest overall score in our comparison.
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Speed 9.4 inside the best overall score here, with 10 simultaneous devices for the rest of the household.
Genuinely unlimited devices, and a two-year price below NordVPN, ExpressVPN or CyberGhost.
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Speed 8.8, unlimited devices and the lowest two-year total of these three at 59 USD — the sensible pick for a shared gaming PC.
Speed carries 45% for this guide, the highest share of any. Streaming gets 20%, privacy 15%, and ease of use and value 10% each. Those weights are shown below and are the only thing that differs from our overall ranking.
| Criterion | Weight | How it is scored |
|---|---|---|
| Speed | 45 % | An architectural estimate, not our own benchmark. Protocol support and whether WireGuard is available; RAM-only versus disk infrastructure; server density and proximity to major cities; dedicated streaming and gaming capacity; stability reported in published independent reviews. |
| Streaming | 20 % | How consistently the provider restores geo-blocked catalogues across major streaming services, whether it maintains dedicated servers for them, and how often the answer changes. Providers that do not attempt this score low by design, which we state rather than penalise silently. |
| Privacy | 15 % | Jurisdiction and data-retention law; membership of the 5/9/14-Eyes alliances; independent audits of the no-logs claim with a named firm and date; whether servers are RAM-only, which makes retention structurally impossible; documented cases of legal compulsion; how much identifying information signup collects. |
| Ease of use | 10 % | How quickly a non-technical person can install, connect and trust the app; whether servers are labelled by purpose; platform coverage including smart TVs and routers; and whether support is reachable and useful. |
| Value | 10 % | The effective monthly cost of the longest term offered, weighted against what the subscription actually delivers — device count, features and network size. Providers whose renewal price roughly doubles score lower, because the real cost of a VPN is the second year, not the first. |
The full table with the same published scores. Sort it here, or open the main comparison with filters.
| # | VPN | Our score | From /month | Devices | Jurisdiction | Audits | Free tier | Guarantee |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1 | ExternalNordVPNBest overall | 9.3 | $3.09 | 10 | Panama Outside | 6x Deloitte | No | 30 days |
| #2 | ExternalSurfsharkBest value | 9.1 | $2.49 | Unlimited | Netherlands 9 Eyes | 2x Deloitte | No | 30 days |
| #3 | ExternalExpressVPNBest for speed | 9.0 | $4.96 | 8 | British Virgin Islands Outside | 6x KPMG | No | 30 days |
| #4 | ExternalProton VPNBest privacy | 8.9 | $3.68 | 10 | Switzerland Outside | 5x Securitum (no-logs) | Yes | 30 days |
| #5 | ExternalCyberGhostBest for beginners | 8.9 | $2.69 | 7 | Romania Outside | 3x Deloitte | No | 45 days |
| #6 | ExternalPrivate Internet AccessBest for power users | 8.5 | $1.64 | Unlimited | United States 5 Eyes | 3x Deloitte | No | 30 days |
| #7 | ExternalWindscribeBest free tier | 8.4 | $2.25 | Unlimited | Canada 5 Eyes | 2x Leviathan Security Group | Yes | 30 days |
| #8 | AdAdGuard VPNBuilt-in ad blocking | 8.4 | $2.99 | 10 | Cyprus Outside | None found | Yes | 30 days |
| #9 | ExternalTunnelBearBest simple apps | 8.1 | $3.67 | 5 | Canada 5 Eyes | 9x Cure53 | Yes | 30 days |
| #10 | ExternalIVPNBest transparency | 7.9 | $4.12 | 2 | Gibraltar Outside | 7x Cure53 | No | 30 days |
| #11 | ExternalMullvadBest anonymity | 7.5 | $5.00 | 5 | Sweden 14 Eyes | 6x Cure53 | No | 30 days |
No provider matches those filters. Try widening them.
Stability matters more than a good number on one evening. A tunnel that holds through a long session, on a server you can find again tomorrow, is worth more than a route that was fast once and has since been moved.
Device limits decide the household. A router, a PC and a console can be three of the simultaneous connections a plan allows, and unlimited plans remove the arithmetic entirely — the table below shows each provider's limit.
Not automatically. A VPN changes the route your traffic takes, which can help or hurt; we do not publish ping numbers because we cannot reproduce yours. What we do publish is how much throughput the tunnel costs in our speed component, and that is the honest part.
Using a VPN is not against the rules of most games, but some restrict or block connections that look like datacentre traffic, and a few punish accounts for it. Check the rules of the game you play before you connect.
Every provider here offers a modern protocol — WireGuard, or a proprietary equivalent — and that is the sensible default for latency and battery. OpenVPN remains the fallback when a network blocks the newer one, and both are listed on every review page.
Twelve guides, one per task. Pick the job you actually have.
All eleven providers, with the same published scores this guide is built on — no separate list, no inflated numbers.
