Hotspot Shield vs. NordVPN – Testing Two Innovative VPNs

Most VPNs we test offer OpenVPN, WireGuard, or both to encrypt internet traffic. However, NordVPN and Hotspot Shield weren’t satisfied with these encryption protocols and decided to create their own. NordVPN called their protocol NordLynx, which is a variation of WireGuard. Meanwhile, Hotspot Shield built Hydra Catapult, which is based on OpenVPN. So how do these proprietary creations give their VPNs the edge over one another?

We bought subscriptions for Hotspot Shield and NordVPN and put them through four rounds of testing to see if there’s a difference. Performance-wise, both VPNs were easy to use and barely decreased our internet speeds. But NordVPN ultimately won the contest with its larger server network, extra security features, and ability to let us access geo-restricted websites. Let’s break down each round to see how they performed.

>> Read More: Comparing VPN Providers in 2024

Round 1: Hydra vs. NordLynx

A VPN protocol is a set of networking rules and instructions for how a VPN encrypts and routes your traffic. In short, it dictates how fast and secure your VPN connection can be. So, how good were Hotspot Shield and NordVPN’s proprietary protocols?

Let’s start with a quick overview of Hydra and NordLynx:

• Hydra: Hotspot Shield developed Hydra based on OpenVPN, which is our gold-standard open-source VPN protocol. We’ve known OpenVPN for its security, but it has speed and latency issues over long distances. That prompted Hotspot Shield to apply performance upgrades without sacrificing security, creating Catapult Hydra.
• NordLynx: Similarly, NordLynx is a tweaked version of WireGuard, which is a well-developed open-source protocol. WireGuard is best known for its speed advantage over OpenVPN. Building on that, NordVPN applied additional security features to create NordLynx.

Encryption

While the VPN protocol doesn’t encrypt your connection itself, it tells the VPN how to encrypt your browsing history. Our current gold standard is the 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).

Hydra supports 256-bit AES, but defaults to the slightly weaker yet faster 128-bit AES. NordLynx — and WireGuard as a whole — doesn’t support AES at all. It uses ChaCha20 instead.

We know that’s a lot of jargon, so let’s get to the bottom line. The fact that Hotspot Shield supports our recommended VPN encryption makes it better than NordVPN, but it’s a marginal win. We trust 256-bit AES more because it has been around longer. But ChaCha20 is also secure and trustworthy, as evidenced by the fact that it’s also being used by tech giants like Google.1

In any case, both VPN’s encryption effectively changed our real IP address and kept it from leaking through known VPN vulnerabilities. We tested our VPN connection three times for each option, and both got perfect scores.

Speed

Hydra is based on the decently fast OpenVPN, but given a speed boost by Hotspot Shield; NordLynx is built on the already fast WireGuard, with its security improved further by NordVPN. But which is actually faster between them?

The answer, as we found out in our VPN speed experiment, depends on how far away you are from the VPN server.

NordVPN was faster than Hotspot Shield when we connected to the closest servers to us, both of which were in California. To compare them, we connected each VPN to the nearest server and averaged the result of three speed tests. We then measured the percentage difference between the averaged results and our network’s speed when not connected to a VPN. Our average speed loss with NordVPN was lower compared to that of Hotspot Shield — meaning, NordVPN was faster.

On the other hand, Hotspot Shield was faster when we connected to a more distant server. We repeated the same test above but connected to Australia — more than 8,000 miles away from where we live. This time around, Hotspot Shield’s speed loss was lower than that of NordVPN.

Website and Content Unblocking

The VPN protocol also affects how well a VPN gets around restrictions — from websites blocked on a local network (e.g. school or office) to geo-restricted content from streaming platforms.

To compare Hotspot Shield and NordVPN here, we blocked Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram on our office network and tried to access those sites using each VPN. We also tried to access Netflix Japan by connecting to a Japan VPN server, Hulu by getting a U.S. IP address, and BBC iPlayer by getting a U.K. IP address. We successfully accessed all those websites using each VPN, but some of them required multiple tries.

NordVPN proved better at unblocking restricted sites and content, which surprised even us. In our experience, OpenVPN usually outmatches WireGuard in this area because it has a built-in obfuscation feature; this routes traffic in a way that it’s not obvious you’re using a VPN. That’s great for the purpose of unblocking; it means whatever NordVPN did to tweak WireGuard’s security and privacy clearly worked.

When it comes to servers, NordVPN gives us better options there as well. It has more than 6,700 servers and it lets us choose from 111 locations. That’s the largest location selection from any VPN we’ve tested. In comparison, Hotspot Shield has over 3,000 servers. But we only saw 85 locations available.

Round 2: Hotspot Shield vs. NordVPN Features

While the VPN protocol greatly affects performance, it’s also crucial to look at the features when choosing a VPN. For this, we compared how Hotspot Shield and NordVPN executed three important VPN features — kill switch, split tunneling, and multihop. Here’s a quick overview of which VPN won for which feature:

Kill Switch

A VPN kill switch is an absolute must-have. It stops your internet connection when your VPN suddenly disconnects, which is a normal thing to happen to any VPN. The kill switch keeps you from not realizing your VPN has disconnected and continuing to use the internet unprotected.

With NordVPN, the kill switch operated differently depending on the device. On Windows, iOS, and macOS, the kill switch activates only when the VPN disconnects due to an error (e.g. sudden server outage). On Android, it activates whenever the VPN disconnects, even if you turned off the VPN on purpose. We much preferred the kill switch on Windows, iOS, and macOS than NordVPN’s kill switch for Android.

With Hotspot Shield, the kill switch works the same way whatever the device you’re using. It activates only when the VPN disconnects accidentally, not when you turn it off manually.

Winner: Hotspot Shield

Split Tunneling

Split tunneling is a must-have for multitaskers. It lets you configure your VPN to route most traffic through the VPN tunnel — except for traffic from apps or websites you choose. That way, you can use those apps without a VPN while keeping most apps encrypted.

Hotspot Shield and NordVPN both have split tunneling, but Hotspot Shield is slightly more advanced. It lets you exclude traffic from both apps and websites, whereas NordVPN’s split tunneling can only exclude apps. If you want to use split tunneling on a specific website, for example, you’ll have to use split tunneling on the entire browser with NordVPN. That means you can’t have one website running through the VPN and another website running outside the VPN at the same time — unless you’re willing to use two different browsers.

Winner: Hotspot Shield

Multihop

The last feature is called multihop, and it lets you connect to multiple servers in a series. It works like this:

1. The VPN encrypts your outgoing traffic and routes it through the first server.
2. The server encrypts the traffic again and routes it through a second server in a different location.
3. The second server decrypts the encrypted traffic and forwards it to the intended destination.

The main advantages of multihopping are the extra encryption and server tunneling. The extra encryption keeps your data from being intercepted, while the extra tunneling gives you extra anonymity. Each time traffic passes through a server, the source IP address is hidden and changed. If someone tries to follow its trail to find out your IP address, they’ll only end up going around in circles.

That extra privacy and security is why we recommend multihopping to users who are prone to close monitoring — those living in countries with low internet freedom, investigative journalists working on exposés, whistleblowers, and activists, just to name a few examples. We don’t recommend using multihop to everyone, though; it tends to slow down your internet connection severely.

Between Hotspot Shield and NordVPN, only the latter offers multihopping. NordVPN offers pre-set multihop server pairs, but, as expected, using those servers greatly slowed down our VPN speed. On one occasion, our download and upload speeds dropped by almost 80 percent. Still, NordVPN wins this round since Hotspot Shield doesn’t offer multihop.

Round 3: Hotspot Shield vs. NordVPN Privacy

According to our research on VPN usage, more than 40 percent of our respondents use VPNs for general privacy. That confirms our assumption that privacy is a crucial factor.

Both Hotspot Shield and NordVPN have a “no-logs” privacy policy. That means they are committed to not logging usage information that could compromise a user’s privacy, including:

• The source IP addresses of customers connecting to their servers
• Websites and services those customers visit while connected
• Timestamps of user activity

That’s great and all, but there’s a reason that NordVPN made our list of the best “no-logs” VPNs and Hotspot Shield didn’t. You see, not all VPN companies follow their privacy policies. And for us users, there’s really no way to know about that for sure without having access to the VPN’s internal framework.

NordVPN and a few other top VPNs have found a way to prove their trustworthiness through third-party audits. They invite cybersecurity experts from reputable firms to audit and check their servers, privacy policy, internal policies, app security, and more.

NordVPN itself has gone through numerous privacy audits since 2018, including by firms like PricewaterhouseCoopers from Switzerland and Deloitte from Romania. On the other hand, Hotspot Shield has yet to submit itself to a privacy audit to this day. However, the Hydra protocol has been audited for security and speed. The winner for this round is clearly NordVPN.

Round 4: Hotspot Shield vs. NordVPN Price

This is perhaps one of the most crucial factors for most VPN shoppers — the cost of a VPN.

There are two things to consider when comparing the cost of Hotspot Shield and NordVPN. First is the fact that Hotspot Shield offers a free VPN whereas NordVPN does not. Hotspot Shield is actually one of the best free VPNs of 2024. Its free VPN gave us these features:

• Unlimited bandwidth and data
• All security features, including kill switch, DNS leak protection, and anti-phishing protection
• Speeds close to Hotspot Shield Premium’s speed
• One-device limit

The second thing to consider is the actual cost of the premium VPN, and, surprisingly, NordVPN was cheaper. NordVPN’s monthly pricing ranges from $12.99 to $17.99, but the one-year plan ranged from only $68.85 to $142.35 ($4.59 to $9.49 per month if we count the three free months). There’s also an option to buy a two-year subscription, which is even cheaper.

Compared to that, Hotspot Shield’s month-to-month pricing is cheaper than NordVPN’s Basic plan; however, the average monthly cost of the one-year subscription surpasses even the Complete Plan. Hotspot Shield also doesn’t offer subscriptions longer than one year.

The Final Verdict: Hotspot Shield or NordVPN?

It was a hard-fought battle between two innovative VPNs, but ultimately our pick goes to NordVPN. Here are some of our top reasons:

• It has more servers and server locations.
• It’s cheaper but offers more features (e.g. multihop).
• It’s better at unblocking network-blocked and geo-restricted websites.
• It has been audited by reputable third-party firms.
• It has better overall latency and great speeds when connected to a server close by.
• It offers the OpenVPN protocol in addition to the WireGuard-based NordLynx.

That said, Hotspot Shield was by no means a bad option. It gave NordVPN a run for its money in terms of speed. It also had slightly better split tunneling and kill switch features.

In the end, though, it’s all about which VPN works best for your specific usage. We encourage you to see our Hotspot Shield review and our NordVPN review for a closer look at how they work. Both are great. NordVPN is better, in our opinion. But only you can tell which VPN is the best for you.