NordVPN vs IPVanish – Which is the Best In Australia (2023)?

Overall Winner: NordVPN

NordVPN and IPVanish are both renowned VPN services in Australia. Both offer pretty competitive features. While NordVPN offers 5500 servers, IPVanish offers 1,600+ servers & 69 servers in Australia. NordVPN is also slightly faster than IPVanish and cheaper as well. Overall, when putting NordVPN vs. IPVanish head to head, NordVPN proved to be the better choice in Australia.

NordVPN vs IPVanish: Head to Head

NordVPN is the winner!

NordVPN proved to be the better choice over IPVanish on the basis of the following points:

• Speed: 24.91 Mbps on a 100 Mbps connection
• Server Network: 5,500+ servers in 59+ countries & 190 servers in Australia
• Logging: Clear no-logs policy
• Netflix: Supported

A Quick Comparison of NordVPN and IPVanish in Australia

Here’s a quick summary of the key features of NordVPN and IPVanish in Australia. Also, you can see the VPN comparison of 60+ providers in terms of features, performance, and pricing.

Detailed Comparison of NordVPN vs. IPVanish in Australia

Following is a detailed comparison of NordVPN and IPVanish in Australia.

1. Pricing Plans

IPVanish costs less than NordVPN in Australia, and it follows a 30-day refund-period policy, which is pretty standard nowadays. Concerning payment options, it is disappointing that IPVanish doesn’t accept cryptocurrencies. NordVPN doesn’t accept PayPal, but cryptocurrencies are accepted. 

Result: IPVanish is more affordable than NordVPN in Australia but doesn’t accept crypto payments. NordVPN accepts crypto, but it is slightly expensive. This round is a tie.

It is very important that the provider you decide to go with has a clear refund policy. Some providers, such as TunnelBear, offer refunds on a case-by-case basis, and you wouldn’t want to be stuck with them. It is possible that your refund request may get disapproved by TunnelBear if you decide not to continue with the subscription. Therefore, always make sure to check the refund policy yourself before committing to any VPN provider. Although the TunnelBear refund policy may seem dodgy, it is still one of the best VPN providers in the industry and can go toe-to-toe with top-tier VPN providers. Recently, we compared it with NordVPN to see how it performs in NordVPN vs TunnelBear comparison.

2. Logging Policy

NordVPN has a better logging policy and the advantage of a safer jurisdiction compared to IPVanish in Australia. The factor of jurisdiction that a VPN is under has increased ever since Snowden disclosed the spying exploits of the Five, Nine, and Fourteen Eyes. NordVPN’s logs policy has also been audited by a third-party firm and found to be totally legit in Australia.

Jurisdiction is very important when you are deciding on a VPN for yourself. You don’t want to purchase a VPN provider like IPVanish and PIA, which are operating from the US, and risk your online privacy and data. Speaking of PIA, even though it is a competitive VPN provider on many levels with ExpressVPN, it is not a favorite due to its jurisdiction. Check out how it performs against top-tier VPN in ExpressVPN vs PIA

IPVanish – It does not store traffic logs, but the company’s overall policy is a little vague. Because IPVanish is based in the US, there are some concerns as to the ability of this VPN to keep its users secure from privacy scandals, especially since it assisted Homeland Security with a user’s logs. For details on its privacy policy and security, you can check out ExpressVPN and IPVanish comparison.

Result: NordVPN is the safer choice as far as privacy and logging policy is concerned in Australia.

3. Servers in Countries

NordVPN – It offers 5,200+ servers in 60+ countries & 190 servers in Australia, whereas IPVanish has a network of 1,600+ servers in 75+ countries & 69 servers in Australia. It offers VPN servers even in Mexico and that’s how it is also the best VPN for Mexico for Australian users.

Regarding the server spread, both providers cover almost the same amount of regions worldwide. However, NordVPN’s total number of servers is significantly larger than IPVanish’s.

IPVanish – It isn’t that big of a problem because the provider still covers most of the regions that most VPN users would normally connect to. However, if we just consider the number of servers, NordVPN is better.

Result: NordVPN offers more servers than IPVanish. NordVPN offers approximately 3,900 more servers than IPVanish.

Coverage in China

IPVanish doesn’t work in China. It even has a proper article published on its website about it. NordVPN, on the other hand, works with China quite flawlessly. As per my testing, NordVPN’s obfuscated servers can bypass the Great Firewall.

Result: NordVPN works in China, whereas IPVanish doesn’t.

4. NordVPN VS IPVanish Speed Results

NordVPN – It is slightly faster than IPVanish on average in Australia. The speeds for both providers on a 100 Mbps connection on four different server locations. NordVPN’s average download speed is 83.82 Mbps as compared to IPVanish which managed to reach 75.12 Mbps.

IPVanish – It is one of the few providers that delivers consistently good speeds along with NordVPN in Australia, which takes a prominent place in this list of fastest VPNs.

Result: Both providers are equally fast, therefore, this round is a tie.

Why is NordVPN slightly faster than IPVanish in Australia?

The reasons why NordVPN might be faster than IPVanish in Australia are:

1. NordVPN’s server network is larger than IPVanish. With more servers and bandwidth, NordVPN is faster.
2. NordVPN also offers the Wireguard protocol which IPVanish doesn’t. Wireguard is a fast protocol that gives NordVPN a significant performance advantage in other speed tests, as you can see in the NordVPN vs VyprVPN and NordVPN vs Surfshark comparisons.
3. NordVPN comes with an ad-blocker feature, which blocks ads and allows you to browse at fast speeds.\

Check out NordVPN’s speed test guide to know more about its connection speeds

5. Security Features

IPVanish and NordVPN use AES-256 encryption which is one of the strongest encryption technology in existence. For authentication, NordVPN uses stronger RSA keys (RSA-4096) as compared to IPVanish (RSA-2048). Nonetheless, RSA-2048 is still ridiculously strong and virtually unbreakable in practice.

As an insurance policy against accidental identity leaks, both providers offer killswitch in their apps which instantly cuts your internet connection in case of a VPN connection drop.

Result: Both providers offer impressively strong security and cloaking features. The VPN protocols that NordVPN supports include only OpenVPN and IKEv2, whereas IPVanish includes these two protocols in addition to L2TP and PPTP.

6. App Usability and Interface

NordVPN – The home menu consists of a list of server locations to choose from as well as a world map showing all the available server locations that you can directly connect to. Users in Australia can also configure some settings such as VPN protocols by clicking the Settings tab.

IPVanish – It has an appealing desktop app that allows users to select a server from a country, city, and the specific server itself. This is a nice feature that gives a good amount of control to the user in Australia. Users can simply choose a server country if they’re not interested in picking any specific server within a given location. It also has a settings tab.

Both providers offer great mobile apps. NordVPN retains most of the functionality of the desktop app in its mobile version. The home screen allows you to do most of the interaction, which makes it very simple to use.

Similarly, IPVanish has a simple-to-use mobile app with most of the features on its desktop version intact. However, you can only use the OpenVPN protocol with IPVanish on mobile in Australia.

Result: NordVPN and IPVanish both offer appealing and usable mobile and desktop-friendly apps.

7. Compatibility

NordVPN – NordVPN is equipped with a killswitch and a wide range of advanced features including Onion over VPN, DoubleVPN, CyberSec, and obfuscated servers. IPVanish lacks features similar to these but does offer split-tunneling on its Android app.
The good thing is that NordVPN’s CyberSec feature is available for mac operating system as well as for other operating systems including windows.

IPVanish – It supports 10 multi-logins whereas NordVPN supports 6. As such, if you’re looking for privacy protection on multiple devices, IPVanish might be the better option.

In terms of compatibility, NordVPN fares better in Australia. For instance, it offers a command line-based installer that IPVanish lacks. Both providers have dedicated apps for the Amazon Fire TV (2nd generation).

Result: Both providers offer great features and compatibility but NordVPN has an edge over IPVanish.As such, while both providers deliver a good range of functions, NordVPN’s advanced features trump IPVanish’s.

8. Unblocking Strength

NordVPN – It is one of the best services for removing geo-restrictions on popular streaming services in Australia. It works well for unblocking multiple libraries of Netflix and also works with Hulu, BBC iPlayer, and Amazon Prime Video. All of these services have some of the strongest geo-restriction mechanisms in place, so it speaks volumes about the strength of NordVPN.

IPVanish – It has deteriorated over the years regarding unblocking streaming services. The service used to work well with BBC iPlayer, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video; however, it does not anymore. It does work well with Netflix US, though. It works quite well with most regional sports streaming channels like bEIN Sports, ESPN, etc.

Result: NordVPN has more power when it comes to unblocking VoD streaming services like Netflix in Australia. Considering that, NordVPN is the winner in this round.

9. Customer Support

Most VPN providers in the industry, only claim to offer 24/7 live chat customer support, but in reality, no such thing is available for the users. This was the case in TorGuard VPN vs NordVPN comparison, where TorGuard only claimed to offer live chat support, as users were redirected to contact through email. Therefore, let’s check customer support of both NordVPN and IPVanish in Australia in detail.

We tested the response time of both providers by asking a question. NordVPN responded to our question through live chat within 30 seconds (we actually measured this with Google’s stopwatch):

Doing the same for IPVanish, the response time a minute longer (1.5 minutes).

But to be fair, the customer queue was also longer for IPVanish, whereas when I approached NordVPN, the queue length was only 1 compared to IPVanish’s 5.

The response time is a highly variable measure and it is a function of time of day, queue length, etc. As such, just because the recorded response time of a provider is a few seconds longer than the other, it doesn’t mean that their customer support is inferior.

Other than live chat, both of the VPNs provide support through tutorials, emails, and live chats, making it a comprehensive support provider.

Result: NordVPN and IPVanish offer live chat support 24/7 for answering general, billing, as well as technical queries in Australia.

10. Torrenting Support

NordVPN – NordVPN is more secure and reliable for torrenting in Australia than IPVanish in Australia. Since NordVPN is beyond the reach of DMCA notices and has no obligation to retain logs of user activity, it is quite safe to use this VPN for P2P activities in Australia.

IPVanish – It is capable of good speeds and its support for protocols like SOCKS5, obfuscation, and kill switch make it a good choice for torrenting in Australia. Unfortunately, the jurisdiction doesn’t work in its favour and can be a deal-breaker.

Result: If you’re looking for ultra foolproof security for torrenting, IPVanish may not be the best choice in spite of its other strengths. Therefore, NordVPN is the better choice for downloading torrents.

Disclaimer: We do not encourage either condone the use of torrenting to illegally acquire copyrighted material.

You can also check our most popular VPNs for torrenting in Australia guide.

Final Verdict: NordVPN is the winner in Australia!

The winner in this comparison is NordVPN in Australia, which has bested IPVanish owing to faster speeds, larger servers, stronger privacy, unblocking strength, and more!

IPVanish is a very capable service in its own right and actually excels in some aspects wherein NordVPN lacks. For instance, it offers 10 simultaneous connections and supports split-tunneling on Android. Unfortunately, its major weakness lies in its slightly vague logging policy and lack of support for popular streaming services in Australia.

It bears mention that this comparison shouldn’t be used to judge IPVanish in a bad light. IPVanish is a very good VPN service on its own and stands tall among its competitors for its excellent overall performance, range of features, and speed.

But in a head-to-head comparison of raw power and sheer ability, NordVPN is the better choice as compared to IPVanish in Australia.

You can see the IPVanish review along with the NordVPN review to find out more about each of these VPNs.

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