NordVPN vs. VyprVPN

When you’re looking at VPNs and comparing companies, it can feel impossible to tell what the actual differences are between providers. It seems like every company has the “most private” or “most secure” VPN on the market. But, they can’t all be the best. We try to break through the marketing lingo by personally testing VPNs and comparing them head-to-head. Today, we’re sharing what we found when we tested NordVPN, and then tested VyprVPN.

While NordVPN is one of the most recognizable VPNs in the industry, VyprVPN flies a bit beneath the radar. However, it’s owned by Golden Frog, meaning it’s one of the major players driving the VPN industry. Will NordVPN retain its status as the best VPN, or will VyprVPN surpass it? Keep reading to find out.

Key Similarities

Most high-quality VPNs meet what we consider requirements for private internet connections. This includes the country the company is based out of, how much data it keeps on its customers, and kill switches. But, NordVPN and VyprVPN both go beyond these basics and have a lot in common, such as:

• Based in countries without data sharing requirements: While NordVPN is based in Panama and VyprVPN is based in Switzerland, both of these countries aren’t members of the Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, or 14 Eyes alliances. That means that they can never be forced, legally, to hand governments customers’ data. For a VPN, that’s huge.
• Logging policies: Both VPNs also have strict logging policies, not logging anything about our online activity such as the websites we visited or our IP addresses. While NordVPN kept a bit more information than VyprVPN, both VPNs are extremely solid in terms of their privacy policies.

• Kill switches: As we’ve come to expect from the best VPNs, both NordVPN and VyprVPN had kill switches that shut down all of our web activity if they got disconnected.

• Torrenting access: Both VPNs allowed for torrenting, so we could enjoy all that non-copyrighted material that’s not on one of our many streaming subscriptions.
• Encryption methods: If VPNs were a sandwich, then encryption methods would be the meat. Encryption means turning our website data and IP addresses into inscrutable code by routing them through a tunnel. Both providers encrypt data using AES-256. It’s the same encryption protocol as the U.S. government uses to secure classified documents.1
• Works with Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and routers: Aside from working with the most commonly used operating systems, both VPNs also worked with our routers. That allowed us to get around each VPN’s device limitations, which was a maximum of ten devices with NordVPN and a maximum of five with VyprVPN. Rather, when we connected these VPNs to our routers, they covered all of the devices on the router’s network with only one device used in our limit. Booya!
• 30-day money-back guarantee: While neither NordVPN nor VyprVPN had a free VPN subscription available, both gave us 30 days to return our subscriptions for a full refund. We didn’t end up cashing in on this offer, but it’s a nice safety net for the rest of you all.
• iOS app ratings: Both VPNs had iOS apps with 4.7 overall ratings on the Apple App store, and we didn’t have an issue connecting to nearby servers on our iPhones.
• Customer support: In terms of customer support, NordVPN and VyprVPN are similarly lacking (hey, we never said these were all positives!). Neither had a phone line, which is unfortunately pretty common with VPNs. Instead, we had an online help center, online forms, and live chats.

Key Differences

Once you dig a bit deeper beyond the basics of NordVPN and VyprVPN, you start to find some pretty significant differences. But, these companies having differences is a good thing. It means you can pick a provider based on your unique needs. Before we get into which provider you should choose for which use cases, here are the key differences that separate NordVPN and VyprVPN:

• The number of servers: NordVPN has over 6,800 servers, while VyprVPN has a little over 700. Clearly, NordVPN is the more established VPN worldwide (and it’s also one of the best VPNs for Germany with over 240 servers in Berlin and Frankfurt alone).

• Server locations: Just like NordVPN has more servers than VyprVPN, they also have more server locations. NordVPN offers connections through servers in 111 countries while VyprVPN offers servers in about 70 countries. Of course, we recommend checking out each VPN’s list of locations to see which one is better for you, depending on where you live and where you plan on going.
• Split tunneling: Split tunneling means getting to route some of our traffic to the VPN and some directly to the public Wi-Fi network to save on bandwidth. It also comes in handy when some sites block VPN connections and you can’t get through. While both providers offer split tunneling, they allow it on different devices. VyprVPN has split tunneling on their Mac and Android apps while NordVPN offers it on their Windows, Android, and Android TV apps.
• Netflix: On the other hand, while all of NordVPN’s over 6,800 servers support Netflix, only VyprVPN’s servers in Canada, the U.K, the U.S and Germany support Netflix. It still didn’t make our list of the best VPNs for Canada though because of its limited server infrastructure. If you want to connect to another country’s server, you’ll be blocked from Netflix with your VyprVPN IP address.

• VPN protocol: Here’s where we much prefer NordVPN’s approach. The VPN protocol dictates how data gets transmitted from your device to the VPN server. NordVPN gave us a choice between OpenVPN, NordLynx (a modified version of WireGuard), and IKEv2/IPsec. VyprVPN only offers WireGuard. While WireGuard is great, you’ll do better having several options for different VPN activities. We know, for instance, that OpenVPN is better for unblocking geo-restricted websites and encrypting data.
• Multi-hop: Speaking of encryption, while NordVPN encrypted our data multiple times through a few different servers, a process called multi-hop, VyprVPN only encrypted our data once. So overall, NordVPN is more secure than VyprVPN, although they did log a bit more data. We only recommend using multi-hop when you need an ultra-secure connection since it takes a toll on your internet speeds. This makes sense considering your data gets routed through two servers instead of one.

• Speeds: We test out all of our VPNs on our Macbook Pro and our Windows Acer Aspire 5 to see how it works for Mac and Windows-users. On our Mac, NordVPN caused less lag and less of a decrease in our download speeds, although Vypr took the edge when it came to upload speeds. But VyprVPN won by a hair on our Windows 10, as NordVPN had a ton of latency on Windows. Overall, we’re confident in saying that NordVPN is a better VPN for macOS, and although VyprVPN offered slightly faster speeds on our Windows laptop, we still think it’s the best VPN for Windows thanks to its comprehensive set of features.

• Number of devices per subscription: If you own a lot of devices or plan to share an account with a family member, you’ll appreciate the 10-device limit of all NordVPN subscriptions. That’s twice as many devices as we got when we bought a VyprVPN plan. In case you don’t want to do the math, a VyprVPN subscription supports up to five devices.
• Number of simultaneous connections: The same was true of the number of devices we could connect to the VPNs simultaneously; ten for Nord and five for Vypr.

• Compatibility with Linux, proxy, NAS, smart TVs, Anonabox, Blackphone, and QNAP: Although there was some overlap between NordVPN and VyprVPN in terms of device compatibility, there were also some differences when it came to niche devices like Linux and Anonabox.

• Browser extensions: In the same vein, NordVPN had browser extensions for Chrome, Microsoft Edge and Firefox while VyprVPN had apps only. If you’re using the web via a browser only, you might prefer using an extension rather than an app to save on bandwidth.
• Android app ratings: When it comes to their Android app, NordVPN got higher ratings than VyprVPN, 4.6 compared to 4.4. However, with software updates, these ratings are bound to change, so be sure to check out the most recent reviews for the most up-to-date information. Personally, we found both apps to be perfectly functional on Android, but NordVPN wins by a hair.

• Pricing: Finally, there’s the bottom line, which we’ve conveniently placed at the bottom. This is where things get a bit confusing. While NordVPN is cheaper if you sign up on an annual basis, VyprVPN is cheaper if you sign up for a monthly or two-year plan.

Conclusion

So, which VPN do we recommend overall? NordVPN certainly had more features when it came to streaming access, and their gigantic network of servers pushed them over the edge. However, depending on what you’re looking for, VyprVPN could be better for your needs.

To learn more about either VPN, read our NordVPN review or our VyprVPN review, or compare NordVPN to another top choice in NordVPN vs. ExpressVPN. We tested out each VPN for over six months each, so you should be able to find all of the detailed information that you’re looking for.