Why VPN Speed Matters
Often, you can learn quite a bit about a VPN based on the speed test results. Of course, if you are only browsing the web, you may not think speed matters. It also depends on what you do online. VPN speed matters because the faster your VPN connection, the less likely you will experience buffering or other performance issues. A fast VPN connection also means that you can browse the web without worrying about your data usage. Your speed matters if you are a veteran cord cutter, a casual media streamer, a gamer, have intelligent appliances, like to travel, or do other things.
A few things can impact your VPN speed, including the server location, protocol, encryption method, and more. The good news is that there are ways to improve your VPN speed. For example, you can connect to a server closer to your location, switch to a different protocol, switch to a less busy VPN server, or even choose a provider with faster servers.
Busy VPN servers have slower speeds. Some providers will let you know how busy a server is by showing how full it is. Another way to tell is by the ping rate on the server. The lower the ping rate, the less busy the server is.
Finding a suitable encryption protocol can be tricky. If your VPN does not use next-generation protocols, you could be vulnerable. Even if your provider does, there are differences in speed. The next-generation protocols are IKEv2, OpenVPN, and WireGuard in various forms. WireGuard is the newest protocol, and you can tell it because of the speeds. It still protects you with solid encryption, but the developers built it from scratch. It has a low overhead because it has many fewer lines of code. Luckily, many well-known providers offer WireGuard as an option.
We kept things mostly the same across the board to make things fair for our speed tests. Here are the points we tried to keep the same for our test. We got several surprises when performing these tests, and we’ll talk about them in the sections.
- Testing location – Since we are trying to get an accurate gauge, you must use the same testing server. In this case, we selected a server in New York, New York (also called New York City) that goes by the name Windstream.
- Provider server location – Because all providers have New York City as an option, we chose servers there for our test. If the servers are really in the city, the servers are likely near each other.
- Protocol – We mostly used the WireGuard protocol or its variants. There is one exception, though. Surprisingly, HMA is the only VPN on our list that does not support WireGuard. We used OpenVPN for their test, and you can tell a noticeable difference in speed.
- Encryption levels – Some providers allow you to choose encryption levels. We made sure we performed all tests using 256-bit encryption. That’s the industry standard. While you could technically use 128-bit in some cases for some protocols, that is less secure than its 256-bit cousin.
Now, it’s time to see how your VPN and our providers measure up based on the mentioned factors. For this test, we used Speedtest.net. As you see in this image, we started with a consistent speed of 932.52 Mbps when we tested our connection to the Windstream server in New York City. We realize that your rate may not be as high, but the more significant numbers can illustrate the differences better. Let’s jump in!
ExpressVPN
If you are not aware, ExpressVPN is one of the top providers in the community. When we’ve performed other tests for this site, it usually is near the top as far as performance goes. We are not surprised to see it generate a speed of 711.40 Mbps. That is a slight difference, but you likely won’t notice it. That’s perfect if you’re a streamer, gamer, or just want to watch a cat video on Youtube. We used ExpressVPN’s proprietary Lightway protocol, and it is a version of WireGuard. The little bit of speed you sacrifice for solid encryption is negligible, so ExpressVPN gets high marks from us for having high-speed servers.
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NordVPN
NordVPN also has a proprietary version of the WireGuard protocol they call NordLynx. According to the company, it’s WireGuard with a few tweaks added. As you can see here, it does well with a speed of 639.86 Mbps. While it may not be as fast as some, it still has plenty of power and speed to enjoy what you want to. NordVPN does well on this speed test.
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PIA
Private Internet Access (PIA) is a veteran service and a favorite to many. However, the service does not perform well in some locations. That’s obvious if you look at this image. Even though 170.59 is still OK for most purposes, it shows a massive speed drop of more than 81%. If your speeds are not as high as ours, that can pose a problem quickly. You’ll be able to tell the difference in rates. Again, you may have luck in other locations, but the numbers in NYC speak for themselves.
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CyberGhost
Surprisingly, CyberGhost excelled at this speed test. As you can see, we got a blistering 754.32 Mbps. Additionally, using this VPN lowered our ping rate slightly, from 45ms to 43ms. In the earlier years of VPN usage, you could expect one to add some milliseconds (ms) to your ping rate. These days, however, many keep them at the same rate, as you can see in these tests. Since we are using WireGuard, you get the best possible protection. These numbers make CyberGhost a good choice.
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IPVanish
As fast as CyberGhost was on our speed test, IPVanish was just a tiny bit faster. It reached speeds of 766.68 Mbps, as you see here. We used WireGuard for this one as well, and you can see it also lowered our ping by 2ms. IPVanish’s network is highly stable, so they are another excellent choice to use when it comes to speed.
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Surfshark
Though NordVPN merged with Surfshark, both companies use the same servers. SurfShark is approximately 20 Mbps slower, but it drops the ping rate to 42ms. That’s why we are not surprised to see parity between the two products. The differences are minor, but both work well.
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PrivadoVPN
PrivadoVPN is still a newcomer in the community, but they are doing decently. In this test, we connected and got a speed of 414.41 Mbps. While that speed is not excellent, it puts the service in the middle of the pack. That means it will work well and should provide you with decent speeds.
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StrongVPN
StrongVPN may be one of IPVanish’s companies, but they apparently use different VPN servers. Whereas we got 766 Mbps out of the IPVanish client, StrongVPN’s speed was less than half. You can see our rate was 318.23 Mbps. That number means it is on the upper end of the low providers and represents a 65%+ drop in speed. It did, however, lower the ping by 5ms. Choosing this one may be ok, depending on what you plan on doing with it.
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HMA
As massive as HMA is, we were surprised to learn they don’t offer the WireGuard protocol. For this test, then, we used the OpenVPN protocol. Of course, that is still a next-generation encryption method. Experts have considered that one to be the gold standard for several years. However, that protocol is older. That means it has quite a bit of encryption overhead. We’re not sure whether our test results were because of a slow server or this slow protocol. However, you can see that it gave us a speed of 168.18 Mbps. Though that is close to the same rate as PIA, an 84%+ speed loss does not make HMA a good option.
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PureVPN
PureVPN is an example of the old style of VPNs. The service added 14ms to our ping time and gave us only a 409.62 Mbps speed with the WireGuard protocol. Additionally, switching to that one informed us that not all of the features of PureVPN were available for the protocol. We have previously seen features not available in the client with PureVPN. The speed puts it firmly in the middle of the pack, so it may be ok, depending on what you do.
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AtlasVPN
AtlasVPN’s performance in our speed test was a little better than the middle of the pack scores. However, you can tell it is not a top provider. If it was a bit faster, it could compete with providers like Surfshark and NordVPN. It is not there yet, though. On a positive note, it did not raise our ping rate, and 543.46 Mbps is a respectable speed. It doesn’t have some of the choices or options of the other services, but you shouldn’t have any issues streaming when using this one.
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Ivacy
Ivacy is the second-worst speed performer in our group. When you go to the company’s website, they tout themselves as having the best speeds. We did not find that to be the case. At a speed rate of 111.74 Mbps, while using the WireGuard protocol, we have an 88% speed loss. Perhaps it’s the server we chose, but if that much of a speed loss is consistent, Ivacy is not a good solution for gaming or streaming in HD. That’s especially true if you have speeds of 300 Mbps or fewer.
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TorGuard
TorGuard is well known for its privacy and security. It’s also one of the favorites in some circles. With this test, we got a VPN speed of 450.17 Mbps. That puts this one just north of the middle of the pack. TorGuard also seems to keep the ping rate neutral (no change). Those speeds are decent enough to do many things online without worrying about buffering. We’d suggest checking the other tests we have done in different posts for a fuller picture.
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CactusVPN
We’ll start with the good point of CactusVPN first when it comes to speed. If your speed is any lower than 1 Gbps, you won’t have a good time with this one. It only increases your ping time by 4ms. That said, the speed when using the WireGuard protocol is abysmal. With a speed of only 66.06 Mbps, this VPN has a staggering speed loss of 93%. Though this performance may not be consistent with other servers CactusVPN offers, you might want to think hard about this one.
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Bottom Line
As we anticipated, we got a variety of speeds from 66.06 Mbps to as high as 766.68 Mbps. Although some VPNs can pass streaming access tests, that doesn’t matter if you don’t have the speed to watch your favorites. In many cases, VPN speeds are a determining factor for providers. The options with the best speed to our New York testing server were IPVanish, CyberGhost, and ExpressVPN. The three worst speeds with HMA, Ivacy, and CactusVPN in last place. If your VPN didn’t perform well, or you’re making first-time decisions, the results are clear.
