I made a spreadsheet comparing different open source VPN providers. I will be making a version 2.0 to add some requested changes.
Providers
Notes
- Please do not start a flame war about Proton.
- Please do not start a flame war about cryptocurrencies. Monero is the only cryptocurrency listed because of its privacy.
- The very left column is the category for each row, the middle section is the various VPN providers, and the right section is which VPNs are the best in each category.
- IVPN has two differing plans, which is why “Standard” and “Pro” are sometimes differentiated.
- For accounts, “Generated” means a random identifier is created for you to act as your account, “Required” means you must sign up yourself. Proton VPN allows guest use under specific conditions (e.g. installed from the Google Play Store), but otherwise requires an account.
- Switzerland is seen as more private than Sweden. Gibraltar is seen as privacy neutral.
- All prices are in United States Dollars. Tax is not included.
- Pricing is based on the price combination to achieve the exact time frame. For example, Proton VPN does not have a 3 year plan but you can achieve 3 years by combining a 2 year plan with a 1 year plan.
- The availability section is security based. Availability is framed around a GrapheneOS and secureblue setup.
- The Proton VPN Flatpak is unofficial, but based on the official code.
- Availability on secureblue is based on the
ujust install-vpncommand. Security features must be disabled on secureblue in order to use the GUI for IVPN and Mullvad VPN, but not for Proton VPN. Mozilla VPN and NymVPN are available as Flatpaks, which are safer than layering packages. - I wanted to include more categories, such as which programming languages they are written in, connection speed, and security, but that became far too difficult and complex, so I decided to omit those categories.
Takeaways
- NymVPN is very very new, but it’s off to a strong start. It wins in almost every category. I actually hadn’t heard of it until I started this project.
- If you want a free VPN, Proton VPN is the only one here that meets that requirement.
- If you want to pay week-by-week, IVPN is the only one that allows that.
- If you’re paying month-by-month on a budget, Mullvad VPN is the cheapest option.
- NymVPN is the cheapest plan for anything past 1 month.
- If you want to use Accrescent as your main app store, IVPN is the only VPN available there for now.
- If you want to pay for a bundle of apps, including a VPN, Proton sells more than just a VPN.
- Mozilla VPN is terrible. The only thing it has going for it is a verified Flatpak, but NymVPN also has that so it doesn’t even matter.
FWIW took me less than 1h yesterday to setup WireGuard on 4 different devices :
wg-easyand thus easy to use Web UI (before 2-step auth)nmcli… and it was the first time I used WireGuard.
So I’m trying to imply that one shouldn’t use commercial VPNs or benefit from their services, solely that setting up your own depending on your abilities and needs might not be as complex as you initially imagine.
PS: I did have experience with OpenVPN before and a running server already with Docker and nginx as reverse proxy.
Maybe I misunderstand wireguard, but don’t you still need a VPN provider to connect to? If it’s just your home server, how would you get any anonymity?
You can host WireGuard on your server, you don’t need a VPN provider specifically, you need a server to put WireGuard on though. Depends who you want to be anonymous from, as per usual it’s the threat model that defines the solution.
I was thinking for torrenting.
FWIW Im torrenting on my server 24/7 for years. I’m only torrenting Linux ISO though, using
transmissionin a container.There’s plenty of seedbox companies out there, you can get 10Gbps+ connections and they run the torrent client for you so there’s no upload happening from your local PC at all… Many offer VPN capabilities at the same time, but for general browsing I use a VPS with my own wireguard.
Yeah… And they are way more expensive than a VPN.
I assume you’re talking about creating a VPN into your own personal network? Unless you have family or friends in a different country I fail see how you’re circumventing geo restrictions or gain anonymity on the internet.
Wrong assumption, you can install it on any other machine you have root access to, e.g. remote ssh. You can rent a server in another country and put your VPN server if that’s your need.
Don’t do this if you want to use a VPN to pirate stuff. It’s a fine suggestion for anything else, using a VPS w/self hosted VPN to provide a basic degree of anonymity.
I didn’t suggest it for any usage, solely that it’s easy to setup.