NordVPN and ExpressVPN are both top - flight of steps VPN services with strong report for fastness , video recording cyclosis and security . Neither is a budget service , but which should you choose for your VPN needs ?
NordVPN and ExpressVPN regularly come along in ourbest VPNsguide . get ’s see how they compare when they go header - to - head .
Pricing and availability
NordVPN costs £ 8.79 per month , £ 43.08 for the first twelvemonth ’s subscription with renewals at £ 73.08 per twelvemonth , or £ 69.36 for two age ’ subscription , with subsequent renewal at the annual pace .
ExpressVPN be £ 10.24 per month , £ 47.40 for a 6 month subscription , or £ 78.96 per twelvemonth .
NordVPN is clearly the cheaper of the two .
Performance
test on an ultra - high - speed fibre connexion at a London data centre , both ExpressVPN and NordVPN are blisteringly quick , posting speeds of well over 200Mbit / s ( 25MB / s ) , well fast enough for 4 M TV or game streaming . They mostly outstrip the group average , with the exception of ExpressVPN ’s Netherlands trial result .
However , it ’s obvious that NordVPN was the fast of the two in our late tests , and it usually is in our historical results . Bear in mind that our test speeds lay out an upper doorstep of performance – while a VPN can sometimes ameliorate connection speeds to distant countries , you ca n’t exceed the stop number of your connection to your ISP .
Security and transparency
We readjust the clock on a firm ’s security system reputation when it undergoes major changes in ownership or direction . That ’s recently been the case with both NordVPN , which mix with fellow Tesonet tech incubator alum Surfshark , and ExpressVPN , which was bough by Kape Technologies , which has been acquiring a act of big names in the consumer VPN market in recent years .
Both ship’s company are keeping their autonomous operations , branding and VPN infrastructure for now . They keep back their strong no - lumber policies , which entail that they predict to keep on no record of a drug user ’s identity or activities when link up to their service .
Both ExpressVPN and NordVPN ’s servers draw on RAMdisks – this means that they never write to the hard thrust and are in result altogether reinstalled to memory every time they ’re reboot . Should a server be confiscate , it ’s fully wiped as presently as it ’s turned off , as a result .
Transparency is important and that ’s why you want to bed if your VPN supplier has been forced to give over data to law enforcement or otherwise been compromised . Warrant canaries – documents which change or vanish if a companionship is impel to hand over data to law enforcement – are most popularly used in the US , where gagging orders are oftentimes used to prevent troupe from openly say they ’ve been subject to a compromise information seizure .
transparence documents , also pop elsewhere , may cater more particular about the number or nature of the cases involve . you could see NordVPN ’s warrant canary-yellow statement by scrolling to the bottom of itsSecurity Effortspage . ExpressVPN does not maintain a transparentness text file or guarantee canary at this time .
It ’s crucial to bear in head that , with the exception of what we learn from third - party audits , effectual cases , and reports of government seizures , we have only the Holy Writ of the VPN provider that it ’s doing as it claims . A identification number of VPN services have been entrance rest about their logging policy . ExpressVPN ’s latestaudit of its seclusion and host securitywas carry out by PriceWaterhouseCoopers in April 2022 . A March 2022audit , had security business firm F - Secure examine its Windows guest ’s surety .
ExpressVPN and NordVPN have longstanding reputations among their user and go to efforts to prove their security measures credentials . This is n’t a casting - smoothing iron guarantee , but the chances of your on-line action remaining individual are a lot better than if you opt for a VPN service at random .
A NordVPN endpoint host at a third - party datum nerve centre was compromised in 2018 . The company initially palm this ill , and did n’t inform exploiter of the attack . However , it has made good on its subsequent pledge to both roll out raise protection amount and improve its public communications . ExpressVPN is formally headquartered in the British Virgin Islands , but its parent troupe is based on the UK . NordVPN has recently relocated from Panama to the Netherlands . Privacy - friendly jurisdictions such as BVI and Panama are reguarded as important by those seeking to avoid scrutiny by intelligence service , but it remains unclear how much practical difference of opinion this makes if a VPN supplier prevent no enter the first lieu . Whether the provider is allow to continue keeping no log is the issue to watch .
Specifications
NordVPN and ExpressVPN both have not only canonical feature that we ’d gestate of any VPN provider , such as a kill substitution to disconnect your meshing connectedness if you devolve off the VPN , but also more mundanity option such as split tunneling to route some dealings via your ISP if require , obfuscation to serve mask the fact that you ’re using a VPN and the aforementioned RAMdisk servers .
ExpressVPN has endpoints in 94 countries , NordVPN in 59 , so ExpressVPN is of potentially greater use to practical earth - trotters .
ExpresVPN earmark you to connect up to five devices to its table service at once , and provides clients for Windows , macOS , the Linux command line , Android , iOS , as well as the Kindle Fire and FireTV , and Chrome , Firefox and Safari browsers . It also provide manual connexion instructions for other devices . It supports the OpenVPN , L2TP / IPsec and its own Lightway VPN protocols .
NordVPN allows up to six coincident connecter , with consecrate guest for Windows , macOS , the Linux program line strain , Android and iOS , as well as manual connection instructions , plus Chrome and Firefox extensions . It underpin the OpenVPN , IKEv2 / IPSec , SSTP and WireGuard protocols .
Verdict
NordVPN is cheaper , quicker and well at telecasting than ExpressVPN . They ’re both excellent , but for most users , NordVPN is the way to go . ExpressVPN is still deserving a expression , however , peculiarly if you need a wide range of terminus location to come out at .
