The best VPNs in 2026, tested from Singapore

I run infrastructure for a living, mobile proxy networks, SIM-backed residential IPs, the kind of stuff people use for account testing and geo-verification. VPNs sit next to that world but solve a different problem: they protect what you send over a network you don’t control, not who you appear to be to a website. I get asked “which VPN” constantly, usually by people who’ve read three marketing pages and still can’t tell you why Mullvad and NordVPN aren’t interchangeable.

This list is for anyone picking a VPN for the normal reasons, hotel wifi, torrenting without your ISP throttling you, streaming a library that isn’t available where you live, or just not wanting your mobile carrier logging every domain you hit. It’s not written for people evading a state-level adversary. If that’s your threat model, a consumer VPN is the wrong tool and I’ll say why further down.

I tested each of these from Singapore over four weeks in July and August 2026, on a mix of home fibre and a mobile hotspot, across Windows, iOS, and one Linux box running WireGuard configs directly. Speeds, connection drops, and kill switch behaviour are all from that testing. Pricing and audit claims are pulled from each vendor’s own published pages, which I’ve linked where relevant.

how I picked

independently audited no-logs claims, not just a page that says “we don’t log” with no third party ever having checked
WireGuard as the default protocol, or a WireGuard-based implementation like NordLynx or Lightway, with OpenVPN kept only as a fallback
a kill switch that actually holds when the connection drops mid-session, tested by yanking the hotspot mid-transfer, not just read off a settings toggle
jurisdiction, and more specifically how the company has behaved when it’s actually been served a legal request, not just where the HQ is listed
pricing checked against a 3-5 device household or small team, since the single-laptop use case is the easy case every vendor already optimizes for
real throughput on Singapore or nearby regional servers, because that’s where most of my traffic naturally routes and where a lot of vendors quietly underprovision

the picks

Mullvad

Mullvad is the one I keep coming back to for my own use, mostly because of what happened in April 2023. Swedish police raided Mullvad’s offices trying to get customer data tied to an investigation. Mullvad’s own account of the incident is that they had nothing to hand over, because they don’t collect account activity logs and don’t even ask for an email address at signup, you get a randomly generated account number instead. You can pay by cash mailed to their Gothenburg office if you want to.

The tradeoff is that Mullvad doesn’t chase feature bloat. No built-in ad blocker with a brand name, no “smart” server selection AI, just a fast WireGuard implementation and a feature called DAITA that pads and shapes traffic to resist correlation attacks. The WireGuard protocol itself is the thing doing most of the heavy lifting here, and Mullvad was one of the earliest commercial VPNs to adopt it natively rather than bolting it on.

flat pricing, no multi-year discount games, no upsell emails
anonymous account numbers instead of email signup, cash and Monero accepted
consistently near the top of my Singapore speed tests, averaging just under my ISP’s rated ceiling on WireGuard
no free tier and no live chat support, you’re mostly on your own with the docs
app UI is plain to the point of feeling unfinished if you’re used to NordVPN’s dashboard

Pricing: 5 EUR/month flat, roughly $5.99, same price whether you pay for one month or twelve. Full review: /reviews/mullvad-vpn

Proton VPN

Proton VPN is the one I point people to when they ask “what’s the free option that isn’t garbage.” The free tier gives one device, unlimited data, and access to servers in three countries, no daily cap, no forced logout after 30 days like some competitors run. That’s rare. Most “free” VPNs cap you at 500MB-2GB a month specifically so the free tier can’t actually be used.

Proton is Swiss-based, same company behind Proton Mail, and their no-logs policy has been through an independent audit rather than just a blog post claiming it. Their Secure Core feature routes your traffic through hardened servers in Switzerland, Iceland, or Sweden before it exits, which is meant to blunt the effectiveness of an adversary who compromises an exit node. I tested it against a regular single-hop connection and the latency hit is real, roughly 40-60ms added on my connections to US servers, so I’d only turn it on for something that actually needs it.

genuinely usable free tier, not a bait-and-switch trial
Secure Core multi-hop routing for anyone who wants defense in depth
Swiss jurisdiction outside EU and US data-sharing frameworks, and a published audit backing the no-logs claim
Secure Core adds noticeable latency, don’t leave it on for streaming or gaming
paid tier pricing is not the cheapest in this list at full month-to-month rate

Pricing: free tier available. Plus plan around $9.99/month month-to-month, closer to $4.99/month on the two-year plan. Full review: /reviews/protonvpn

NordVPN

NordVPN is the one most non-technical friends already have installed, largely because of how much marketing budget it throws at YouTube sponsorships. That doesn’t make it bad. NordLynx, their WireGuard implementation, is fast, and their no-logs policy has gone through repeated audits by outside firms including Deloitte. Panama-based jurisdiction means no mandatory data retention laws forcing their hand.

Where Nord earns its keep for me specifically is Meshnet, which lets you build a private peer-to-peer network between your own devices over WireGuard without exposing them to the open internet. I use something similar for reaching test devices remotely and Nord’s version is genuinely one of the easier implementations I’ve used, no separate VPS or relay server needed.

NordLynx is fast and stable, held connections through three deliberate wifi drops during testing without leaking traffic
Meshnet for private device-to-device networking is a real feature, not filler
repeated third-party audits of the no-logs policy, most recently by Deloitte
month-to-month pricing is aggressive, the good rate only shows up on 2-year commitments
Threat Protection’s ad and tracker blocking occasionally breaks login flows on sites that rely on third-party scripts

Pricing: $12.99/month month-to-month, roughly $3.09-3.99/month on discounted 2-year plans. Full review: /reviews/nordvpn

ExpressVPN

I’ll say the thing people don’t like saying about ExpressVPN. It’s owned by Kape Technologies, the same holding company that owns Private Internet Access and CyberGhost. Kape was formerly named Crossrider, a company with a documented adware history before it rebranded and started acquiring VPN brands starting in 2017. Three “competing” VPNs under one parent, one of which used to distribute adware, is the kind of conflict of interest that gets glossed over because the ExpressVPN app itself is genuinely well built.

And it is well built. Lightway, their custom protocol, is open source and independently audited, and TrustedServer, their RAM-only server architecture, means a server seizure can’t pull historical data off disk because nothing persists past reboot. It’s also the most expensive option on this list by a wide margin, and I don’t think the app experience justifies the gap over Mullvad or Proton for most people.

Lightway is fast and the RAM-only TrustedServer setup is a real security improvement over disk-based servers
widest server country coverage of anything I tested, useful if you need obscure geographic exit points
app is the most polished of the seven, easiest to hand to a non-technical relative
most expensive month-to-month price in this list, and even the annual rate isn’t cheap
Kape Technologies ownership overlaps with two other VPN brands, worth knowing before you assume independence

Pricing: $12.95/month month-to-month, roughly $6.67/month on the annual plan.

Surfshark

Surfshark is the answer when someone asks “what covers my whole household without per-device fees.” Unlimited simultaneous connections, one subscription. It’s now under the same corporate umbrella as Nord Security after the two merged in 2022, which shows in some shared backend infrastructure, but the apps and pricing remain separate and Surfshark stays noticeably cheaper.

CleanWeb, their built-in ad and tracker blocker, is decent but not a replacement for uBlock Origin if you’re serious about it. MultiHop routing works the way you’d expect, hairpinning your traffic through a second country before exit. I didn’t find a compelling reason to run it daily versus Mullvad’s DAITA, but it’s there.

unlimited devices on one account, genuinely useful for a family or small team
cheapest long-term pricing of any audited option in this list
MultiHop and a built-in static IP add-on for anyone who needs a stable exit address
CleanWeb ad blocking is fine but not a serious replacement for a browser extension
shares some backend with Nord Security post-merger, worth knowing if brand independence matters to you

Pricing: $12.95/month month-to-month, roughly $2.19-2.49/month on 2-year plans.

IVPN

IVPN doesn’t advertise. No affiliate program, no YouTube sponsorships, which is part of why it’s less known than it should be. Gibraltar-based, no email required at signup, and they publish a running transparency page instead of a single “trust us” statement. It’s the closest thing to Mullvad’s philosophy with a slightly different feature set.

What I actually use IVPN for is their Multi-Hop, which lets you pick both entry and exit countries manually rather than routing through a fixed pair. Combined with the fact that they cap the number of active subscriptions they’ll sell to keep server load down, it’s a smaller, more deliberately run operation than anything else on this list.

no email required, account creation genuinely anonymous
manual Multi-Hop with selectable entry and exit countries
runs a published, dated transparency report rather than a static claim
smaller server network than Nord, Express, or Surfshark, noticeable if you need obscure exit locations
no free tier, and the app is more utilitarian than pretty

Pricing: Standard plan around $6/month, cheaper on annual commitments.

Private Internet Access

PIA is the veteran here. It’s the VPN that actually proved its no-logs claim in court, back in 2016, when a Florida case subpoenaed PIA for user data related to a bomb threat and PIA had nothing to produce. That’s a stronger proof point than any audit, because it was tested under adversarial conditions with real legal stakes rather than a firm PIA paid to review its own systems.

Like ExpressVPN, PIA is now owned by Kape Technologies, so the same ownership caveat applies. What PIA still does better than its sibling brands is open source everything, apps, and a genuinely configurable client if you want to tune encryption ciphers or port forwarding yourself. It’s also consistently the cheapest audited option when you catch one of their long-term promotional deals.

proven in an actual legal case, not just a paper audit
fully open source apps across every platform
deep configurability for anyone who wants to tune their own setup
same Kape Technologies ownership overlap as ExpressVPN and CyberGhost
default server list can feel cluttered compared to Mullvad’s minimal approach

Pricing: $11.99/month month-to-month, often discounted to $2.03-2.19/month on their long-term promotional plans.

comparison table

VPN	Price	Primary strength	Primary weakness
Mullvad	$5.99/mo flat	anonymous accounts, proven under a real police raid	no free tier, bare-bones app
Proton VPN	free / ~$4.99-9.99/mo	genuinely usable free tier, audited no-logs	Secure Core adds real latency
NordVPN	~$3.09-12.99/mo	fast NordLynx, Meshnet, repeated audits	best pricing locked behind 2-year plans
ExpressVPN	~$6.67-12.95/mo	RAM-only TrustedServer, widest coverage	most expensive, Kape ownership
Surfshark	~$2.19-12.95/mo	unlimited devices on one plan	shares backend with Nord post-merger
IVPN	~$6/mo+	no email required, manual Multi-Hop	smaller server network
Private Internet Access	~$2.03-11.99/mo	proven no-logs in an actual court case	Kape ownership, same as ExpressVPN

how to choose

Start with what you’re actually protecting against, not the feature list. If it’s ISP throttling, hotel wifi snooping, or unblocking a streaming library, any audited option on this list works and you should just pick based on price and app polish. If you’re doing something where a legal request landing on the VPN provider’s desk is a real scenario, jurisdiction and track record under pressure matter more than any speed benchmark, which is why Mullvad’s 2023 raid and PIA’s 2016 court case carry more weight with me than a paid audit report.

Ownership matters more than most reviews admit. ExpressVPN, PIA, and CyberGhost all roll up to Kape Technologies, a company with an adware past before it rebranded. That doesn’t mean the current products are compromised, I found nothing in testing to suggest they log or leak anything they shouldn’t, but “three independent competitors” isn’t accurate when one board sets policy for all three. Nord Security and Surfshark similarly merged in 2022. Know who actually owns the app before you assume you’re diversifying.

If you’re layering a VPN with browser fingerprint management for multi-accounting or ad verification work, which is closer to my day job, a VPN alone doesn’t solve that problem. It changes your IP, not your canvas fingerprint, timezone consistency, or font list. That’s a separate tooling category, and I’ve covered the antidetect browser side of it over on antidetectreview.org if that’s actually what you’re trying to do.

One important caveat: VPN legality and what you’re allowed to do with one varies by country, and in a handful of jurisdictions VPN use itself is restricted or requires a licensed provider. This isn’t legal advice, check your local regulations before assuming a VPN is unrestricted where you live. The NIST guide to IPsec VPNs is a decent primer on what a VPN protocol actually does and doesn’t guarantee, and the EFF’s VPN overview is worth reading if you want the threat-model version of this article instead of the buyer’s guide version.

verdict / top pick

I run Mullvad on my own devices day to day. The flat pricing, the anonymous account number, and the fact that it held up when Swedish police actually came looking, that’s a stronger signal than any marketing page. But I won’t pretend it’s the right pick for everyone. If you want a genuinely free tier to try before paying, or you need Secure Core-style multi-hop without configuring it manually, Proton VPN is the safer recommendation for most people reading this, and it’s the one I point non-technical friends toward first.

Skip the temptation to default to whichever brand has the biggest YouTube ad budget. Check who owns it, check whether the no-logs claim has actually been tested by anyone other than the vendor, and pick based on that before you look at the discount banner.

More on the tools I actually use day to day is on the blog.

Written by Xavier Fok

disclosure: this article may contain affiliate links. if you buy through them we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. verdicts are independent of payouts. last reviewed by Xavier Fok on 2026-08-19.