On a phone the app is the product. This guide weights the interface hardest, because a VPN you cannot operate one-handed is a VPN you will switch off.
A phone VPN spends its life toggled: on at the airport, off at home, on again in a café. Any provider can look good in a screenshot; what matters is whether the switch is where your thumb expects it and whether it remembers what you wanted.
The other half is what the tunnel protects. On mobile the traffic includes banking apps and messaging you would not open on hotel wifi, so privacy still carries real weight — as does the price of a plan you may only use occasionally.
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.
The most approachable apps of the eleven, a free tier, and the most annual audits of any provider we list.
30-day money-back guarantee
Ease of use 9.5 with a free tier and nine published audits — the gentlest way to start on a phone.
Our highest speed score at 9.6 and our highest streaming score at 9.4 — at the highest price.
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Ease of use 9.5 and speed 9.6: the highest speed score here, for a phone that also has to keep a call alive.
Swiss jurisdiction, open-source apps and a transparency report with real numbers in it.
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Privacy 9.7 with a free tier and open-source apps, if you would rather read the code than take the promise.
Ease of use carries 40% for this guide, privacy 25%, value 20%, speed 10% and streaming 5%. Two of the three picks also publish a free tier, which matters when you are testing whether you want this at all.
| Criterion | Weight | How it is scored |
|---|---|---|
| Ease of use | 40 % | 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. |
| Privacy | 25 % | 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. |
| Value | 20 % | 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. |
| Speed | 10 % | 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 | 5 % | 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. |
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.
Look for an app you can operate without reading: one connect button, a clear state, and no requirement to understand protocols before the first connection. Everything advanced should be optional, not a gate.
Then check what the plan costs over the term you actually buy, how many devices it covers, and whether there is a free tier to try first. Those three facts sit next to every price in the table below.
On your own mobile connection, usually not. On hotel, airport or café wifi, yes — that is the case a tunnel is built for. It also hides your address from the sites you visit, which some people want on principle.
An always-on tunnel costs some power, as any background connection does. We do not publish battery figures because we cannot reproduce them across devices; what we do publish is the speed cost of the tunnel itself.
Depends on the plan: device limits run from 2 to unlimited in this table, and every limit is printed in the comparison below. Three providers here do not count at all.
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.
