TunnelBear vs. NordVPN

We’re not competitive people, but stacking up VPNs to see which one is superior is always fun for us, and in this review, we’re comparing TunnelBear to NordVPN. In terms of brand recognition, NordVPN certainly comes out on top, but we like to go into our testing periods with a clean slate, not assuming superiority based on popularity and seniority alone. After all, TunnelBear has definitely been on the rise lately by letting people test out their VPN services for free. So, we’re excited to dig into this newer company’s offerings and see how they try to stand out against industry giants like NordVPN. With as little bias as possible, here’s which VPN is better, and for who specifically.

What TunnelBear and NordVPN Have In Common

When you look at the TunnelBear and NordVPN websites, you’d think they have nothing in common. TunnelBear looks like a fun and easy-to-use app, while NordVPN looks like the professional option for IT specialists. In reality though, both VPNs cover most of the basics we expect when reviewing the best VPNs. Whichever VPN you end up going with, you can expect the following features.

• Kill switch: Both VPNs shut down our web browsers if they failed, which kept our browsing secret even to our ISP, or Internet Service Provider.

• Torrenting: When Netflix was insufficient for our entertainment needs, we simply torrented our favorite non-copyrighted shows and movies with either VPN protecting our activity.

  Pro Tip: Learn more about how to use a VPN for torrenting.

• AES-256: Both VPNs hid our web activity using AES-256, the encryption method that both the military and the U.S government favor (hint: it’s extremely secure).
• Browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox: Both VPNs have browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox, the most used browser and the third most used browser as of August 2020.1
• Support for Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and Linux: These are the main devices that we expect VPNs to have apps for, and TunnelBear and NordVPN hit the mark.

If you want to go deep into either VPN on an individual basis, read our reviews, our TunnelBear review and our NordVPN review. But, if you want more of a general overview of both VPNs compared, keep reading this page.

What TunnelBear and NordVPN Have That’s Different

Even though both companies cover most of the basics, there are a few stark differences we need to point out. These differences can make a big difference if your goal of using a VPN is to maintain your digital security. There are also a few differences that just come down to convenience. So, here are the main differences between TunnelBear and NordVPN:

• Privacy jurisdiction: When it comes to surveillance, we prefer VPNs based in countries that are non-members to Five Eyes, Nine Eyes and 14 Eyes, an alliance that legalizes governments getting customer data from companies. While NordVPN is based in Panama, a non-member country, TunnelBear is based in Canada, a member. That means that, under certain circumstances, they could be forced to hand the feds our data, which is obviously not ideal for a service meant to encrypt our data. In this round, NordVPN is clearly preferable to TunnelBear, particularly for those concerned about privacy.

• Data logged: When it came to their privacy policies, NordVPN logged more customer data than TunnelBear, including device identifiers and models, the timestamps of our last sessions, and anonymous information about in-app events. However, neither company kept our web traffic or the IP addresses of the devices we connected on, and since NordVPN will never be compelled to give the government user data, we were okay with them keeping a bit more information than absolutely necessary. And since TunnelBear could be forced to give the government our information, we were pleased that there wasn’t much to give them.

• Split tunneling: Although both apps used to struggle with split tunneling, they’ve both recently released split tunneling features for their VPNs. TunnelBear released their split tunneling application called SplitBear in the summer of 2023 and it works with Windows, MacOS, Android, and iOS. Unfortunately, NordVPN’s split tunneling feature only works on Windows and Android.
• Netflix: On the other hand, NordVPN let us watch Netflix while connected to their server, unlike TunnelBear, which was blocked. Score one for NordVPN!
• Multi-hop: Another way NordVPN beat TunnelBear is through multi-hop. Instead of encrypting our data through only one server, it encrypted our data through multiple, which made it that much harder to trace us online.
• IP addresses: Each time we connected to TunnelBear, we got a fresh new IP address, while we got the same one every time with NordVPN, although it was shared with other users. For people that want their own, dedicated IP address, NordVPN sells it for an additional $70 a year, which you can read more about on our page on NordVPN’s costs.

• Speeds: Internet speed is a tricky subject. If you’re an Internet-user of any kind, it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that most people don’t get Internet speeds as high as originally advertised.3 So, we urge you to take our speed test results lightly, as speed is affected by a ton of different factors, but in our tests, TunnelBear was lightyears faster than NordVPN, whether we tested it on our Mac or Windows computer. With TunnelBear, we barely saw speeds slow down, making it one of the faster VPNs we’ve tested.

• Number of servers: Okay, so TunnelBear won’t actually tell us the number of servers they had for privacy reasons, but it’s safe to assume that NordVPN has more, with over 5,200 total servers in 62 countries. That’s 40 more countries than TunnelBear, meaning that more people around the world will have easier access to NordVPN.
• Pricing: Right off the bat, we should mention that TunnelBear does offer a free VPN, which is why we placed it on the list of 2024’s best free VPNs. That being said, when we tried out the free version, our monthly data usage was capped at 2 GB, which wasn’t enough for our browsing needs, personally. Still, on a monthly basis, TunnelBear is about three times as cheap as NordVPN, $3.33 compared to $11.95 monthly. Even if we signed up for two years with NordVPN, TunnelBear would still be cheaper by $0.38, which adds up to $9.12. Plus, since we’re scared of commitment, this is much better for us, anyway.

• Simultaneous connections per subscription: NordVPN snubbed TunnelBear when it came to the number of devices we could connect at a time, but only by one, six compared to five. That being said, connecting six devices was a little challenging with NordVPN, as we had to use two different servers for three devices each, plus different protocols for each device. To be honest, it was a bit of a hassle, even for VPN experts like us.
• Devices per subscription: Some VPNs allow for unlimited connections, but sadly, this wasn’t the case for NordVPN or TunnelBear. Instead, both VPNs capped the total number of devices we could connect to their services, NordVPN at six and TunnelBear at five.
• Support for Proxy, routers, and NAS: NordVPN was the only VPN of the two that worked with routers, proxy servers and NAS, or network-attached storage.
• Browser extension for Opera: On the other hand, TunnelBear has a browser extension for Opera, ideal for the 300 million people that use Opera as their web browser.4

The Final Verdict

There’s no doubt in our minds that whether you go with NordVPN or TunnelBear, you’ll have solid protection online, but this is a comparison, so we have to pick a winner. Overall, we’ll go with NordVPN for a few key reasons: one, they’re based in a non-member country to Five Eyes, unlike TunnelBear; two, they have more servers in more locations, making them available to a great number of people; three, we could watch Netflix, which was huge for us couch potatoes and four, our traffic was encrypted multiple times.

Although TunnelBear is cheaper with a stricter logging policy and split tunneling available on the Android app, we disliked that it’s based in a Five Eyes member country, lacks Netflix access and doesn’t have multi-hop. However, for those more concerned with budget over privacy, TunnelBear may be a better option. To learn more about their pricing, read our TunnelBear pricing page and dive into your options.

Still unsure? We’ll break it down as simply as we can.

That’s it from us. Hopefully, that helped you make your ultimate decision. Remember to be secure!