Mullvad and ExpressVPN Lead the Pack in No-Logs VPNs

A raid by Swedish police confirmed the company’s claim: no logs were produced. Speed is respectable, with a 24% drop on the US network-slightly higher than 19% with Surfshark-but it remains competitive. Pricing is flat at €5 per month, roughly $6 depending on exchange rates.

Key features

• 5 devices
• 500+ servers
• Apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android
• Kill switch, split tunneling, double-hop, WireGuard obfuscation
• RAM-only servers (since 2022) and DAITA (Defense Against AI-guided traffic analysis) introduced last year

ExpressVPN was purchased by Kape Technologies for almost $1 billion. The leadership team has stabilized, and the service remains fast and feature-rich.

Membership options have expanded. The core plan supports 10 simultaneous connections. The new Advanced plan raises that to 12 connections and adds a password manager plus a 50% discount on an AirCove router. The Pro plan offers 14 connections.

Specifications

EventVPN is a free, ad-supported service from ExpressVPN. It shows a banner at the top of the app and plays a 30-second ad each time a user connects or disconnects. The speed is often slower, and the ad experience makes it less appealing than ProtonVPN or Windscribe.

IVPN offers anonymous logins with a random ID and accepts cryptocurrency. It provides weekly, one-year, two-year, and three-year plans, with the standard costing $2 per week. The Standard plan limits users to two devices; the Pro plan allows seven devices for $10 per month. Unlike Mullvad, IVPN does not use RAM-only servers. A security audit scheduled for 2025 has not yet been released.

PIA has a history of defending user privacy. In 2016, a criminal complaint linked the company to online threats, but PIA only revealed that the IP addresses were from the east coast of the United States. In speed tests, PIA suffered a 50% drop on the nearest US server, far worse than Windscribe’s 15.6% drop.

MysteriumVPN

Mysterium is a decentralized VPN that routes traffic through residential IPs. It is slow and lacks privacy materials such as third-party audits or transparency reports.

PrivadoVPN

PrivadoVPN offers a free plan with 10 GB of data per month and several full-speed servers. However, the free plan forces users through multiple redirects to pay for a subscription. Speeds are decent but not as good as ProtonVPN, Windscribe, or Surfshark.

VPNs to Avoid

Hola

Hola is free and relies on a peer-to-peer network. It also owns Bright Data (formerly Luminati), a data-collection company. In 2015, Hola sold access to its free-user network, which was used in a DDoS attack on 8chan. Hola logs IP addresses, pages visited, and timestamps.

X-VPN

X-VPN offers a proprietary protocol that is obfuscated within the app. The service is based in Hong Kong and has been linked to the Chinese government in a Tech Transparency Project report. It lacks split tunneling, has sub-par speeds, and its paid plans match top-tier pricing.

How We Test VPNs

Speed testing involved establishing a baseline on an unprotected connection, then running tests three times across US and UK servers at different times of day. The baseline drop was used to gauge consistency.

Security checks included DNS, WebRTC, and IP leak tests with Browser Leaks, and packet sniffing with Wireshark to confirm all traffic was encrypted.

Privacy verification relied on independent audits and transparency reports. Where a provider lacked a report, the test noted the absence.

Conclusion

If you need a strict no-logs VPN with anonymous payments, Mullvad is the clear choice. For users who want the fastest speeds and a robust feature set, ExpressVPN offers a compelling Advanced plan. Both services deliver strong privacy and performance, while other providers vary in speed, logging policies, and feature completeness.