7 Fastest VPN Services of 2021

VPN providers often claim to be the fastest in the business. But it is no secret that even the quickest VPN will negatively affect your speed. This is is a necessary effect of the way VPN encryption and routing works.

Yet, it is also true that some VPNs are faster than others. The question that immediately springs to mind then is “how fast”? To answer that question, we measured the speeds across the same 4 server locations for each provider (UK, US Germany, and Australia).  In addition, we also looked into features such as unblocking ability, security, and advanced features to figure which VPNs cover all bases.

List of the 7 Fastest VPN Service Providers of 2021

Here is a list of VPN speeds measured for different providers:

Note: All VPN testing was performed on a base Internet speed of 30 Mbps.

Fastest VPN Services in 2021: Detailed Rundown

Here the 7 fastest VPN service providers for 2021:

1. Surfshark – Super fast VPN Provider

Average download speed: 27.91 Mbps | Servers: 3200+ | Price: $2.49/mo

Surfshark proved to be the answer to the question “what is the fastest VPN?”. To test the provider’s performance, I conducted a series of speed tests and determined how it impacted user experience and internet connection. The reason why it deserves a place as one of the fastest VPNs is provided below:

The fact that the VPN is continuing to expand its network and now offers 3200+ servers in 65+ countries will translate into continued fast performance.

These fast speeds are also excellent when it comes to streaming. Surfshark can easily unblock streaming platforms like BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Plex, HBO GO, ESPN, and more. The streams work well even in higher quality due to the ability of Surfshark to maintain fast speeds.

For the same reason, Surfshark is a good choice for torrenting and gaming purposes. Although all providers reduce latency, Surfshark still maintains it to an acceptable level.

Furthermore, the VPN is equipped with powerful advanced features that go beyond basic VPN protection. These include a kill switch, MultiHop, CleanWeb, and more.

Overall, Surshark is a complete package that delivers lightning-fast speeds without compromising on other aspects of VPN functionality. To test all these features for free before buying, check out Surfshark’s free trial.

Read Surfshark review for further details.

2. ExpressVPN – Fastest for Streaming

Average download speed: 27.17 Mbps | Servers: 3,000+ | Price: $6.67/mo

ExpressVPN is one of the leading providers that have been operating in the industry for years. ExpressVPN’s US server speed is lower than both NordVPN or PureVPN. Nonetheless, it is still fast enough overall to make its way 2nd on the list. You can further dig into its speed in  ExpressVPN Speed Results.

Moreover, it is one of the best VPN for streaming Netflix and easily unblocks popular streaming platforms including Amazon Prime Video, Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer, HBO GO, ESPN, Stan, YouTube TV, and more.

The user interface is simple and effective, and connecting to a server takes only a few seconds. This isn’t surprising, considering the fact that ExpressVPN has over 3,000 servers in 94 countries.

All ExpressVPN servers support P2P torrenting. You can unblock torrent websites and commence fast P2P file-sharing. In addition, the VPN is compatible with Windows, macOS, Android, Android TV iOS, Linux, Chrome, Firefox, some routers and provides 5 simultaneous connections.

Overall, ExpressVPN is a powerful VPN that veritably lives up to its name, offering impressive speeds, countless payment methods including bitcoins and industry-leading features.

Read our ExpressVPN review for further details.

3. PureVPN – Value for Money

Average download speed: 26.01 Mbps | Servers: 6500+ | Price: $3.33/mo

PureVPN, the veteran Hong Kong based VPN provider, ranks 3rd among the quick VPN services. The provider ensures fast connection speed along with reliable connectivity every time.

The overall performance of PureVPN is remarkably consistent with an average of 26.01 Mbps. This is how the VPN speed comparison for different server locations looks:

In fact, its fast speed makes it an ideal choice as a VPN for streaming. It works flawlessly at high-quality video with HBO Go, Amazon Prime Video, Bein Sports, Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Netflix HBO GO, Voot, Hotstar, ESPN, and more. In addition, there are many p2p-optimized servers in its network of 6500+ servers in over 140 countries.

The only drawback is that it takes a bit long to successfully establish a connection with the desired server. But PureVPN offers some great features as part of its package such a split-tunneling, kill switch, and more. With strong AES-256 encryption, effectively protects users from any security threats on the web and strongly protects user privacy.

PureVPN is on top of the list of VPN on Firestick and on VPN on Kodi to boost the streaming experience. The provider offers 10 simultaneous connections and is compatible with most common devices including Windows, macOS, Android, Android TV iOS, Linux, Chrome, Firefox, routers, Amazon Fire TV, Chromebook, and more.

Read PureVPN review and this cheap VPN guide for an exclusive price offer by the provider.

4. NordVPN – Fast and Secure

Average download speed: 24.91 Mbps | Servers: 5500+ | Price: $3.71/mo

NordVPN is based in Panama and is one of the best VPN for speed. But exactly how fast is NordVPN? The speed results of the provider are also more than impressive, as you can see below.

It is quite popular among streaming fans as it works well with HBO Go, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, Showtime, Sling TV, ESPN, Bein Sports, and Netflix.

With servers spanning more than 5,400 in 59 countries, it is easily able to deliver quick connection speeds. Many of these servers are compatible with p2p, which is great for people that regularly download torrents. NordVPN offers a wide range of features such as CyberSec, DoubleVPN, Onion over VPN, kill switch, obfuscated server, and more.

Using these features, you can effectively keep yourself private on the web while experiencing super-fast speeds on your chosen server location. The VPN is compatible with most major platforms including Windows, macOS, Android, Android TV devices, Amazon Fire TV, Linux, Chrome, and Firefox.

Read the NordVPN review for more details.

5. Astrill VPN – Underrated but Super Fast

Average download speed: 24.76 Mbps | Servers: 335 | Price: $10.00/mo

Astrill is another reasonably fast VPN service based in Seychelles. It offers a lightweight app that is quite simple but bland, which is one area of improvement.

The provider has a small server network of 380+ servers in 50+ countries, but its speeds are outstanding across the whole range.

It also has great customer support and servers in numerous server locations. The providers should revamp its design to make it look more appealing and make a greater impact in the market.

The VPN supports streaming services such as Netflix, Sling TV, ESPN, Bein Sports, and more. With the fast servers, you can easily unblock Geo-restrictions on these services and obtain high-quality videos. For torrenting, Astrill offers multiple servers that support p2p.

It also offers innovative features such as Smart Mode that uses networking wizardry to reduce the chances of being spotted as a VPN user by the government. In addition, it also provides features such as port forwarding and a kill switch.

You can use Astrill apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android devices. For other devices such as routers, you can also perform a manual setup.

Read our Astrill review for details.

6. Ivacy – Best P2P Speeds

Average download speed: 18.71 Mbps | Servers: 3,000+ | Price: $1/mo

Ivacy is a Singapore-based VPN service. It is on the lower end of the spectrum in terms of the speeds it offers.

Nonetheless, it has strong security mechanisms such as DNS leak protection and AES-256 bit encryption. Its servers are located in more than 100 countries in the world with a total number of 3,000 such servers.

For streaming, Ivacy works well with channels and platforms such as Sky News, Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Netflix, HBO Go, Voot, Hotstar, and more.

Ivacy is also fast enough to allow quick downloads on torrenting, so you can use Ivacy to get better security for p2p activities without affecting your speeds too noticeably. The downside is that it often takes several attempts before you can connect to the server of your choice. Overall, Ivacy is a VPN that can get the job done.

The provider offers dedicated apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and Amazon Fire TV.

Read our Ivacy review for more details.

7. CyberGhost – Decent Speeds With Security

Average download speed: 17.10 Mbps | Servers: 6500+ | Price: $2.25/mo

CyberGhost is a Romanian VPN service with one a great looking user interface. It is one of the slower VPN providers in the market, albeit it offers a huge network consisting of 6500+ servers in 90 countries.

It does not vary much in speed when you move from one server to another and remains almost at the same moderate level of speed with unlimited bandwidth. The range of speed fluctuations spans from 14.8 Mbps (AUS) to 18.78 Mbps (USA)

Although CyberGhost doesn’t offer advanced features such as obfuscation, it covers the basics well functionalities such as kill switch and IP/DNS leak protection.

CyberGhost offers dedicated apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux, Chrome OS, and can also be manually set up with routers and Raspberry Pi.

Read our CyberGhost review for more information.

Fastest Free VPN Providers

Free VPN services are generally slower compared to some of the paid best VPN services for 2021.

This is understandable because no provider would be so generous as to allow full bandwidth to you without charging money for it. But given the choices we have available among free VPNs, here is a list of those that fare better in terms of speed and can be considered the fastest free VPNs:

1. Windscribe
2. Hide.Me
3. SurfEasy

For more information, read this article about free VPN services.

And if you’re looking for premium VPNs at cheaper rates, we have some amazing VPN deals and the best VPN Christmas deals 2021 for you!

How to Choose a Fast VPN?

At present, nearly all providers claim to offer blazing fast speed along with stable performance and reliable connection. But, in reality, such claims have proven to be bogus marketing techniques only.

Therefore, I have created a dedicated section below that highlights each and every factor of a VPN service that ensure high-speed connection at all times.

After reading the following factors, you will be able to select a true VPN service with ultimate fast speed:

• Server load: Since the same VPN service is used by a multitude of subscribers, a single server has many users at the same time. More traffic on a single server result in lower speeds. So, you should select a server with the lowest load. VPNs like NordVPN and IPVanish display existing load on a server, so you can decide which servers to avoid.
• Proximity: The closer the server is physically situated to your location, the faster will be the speeds you receive. Therefore, for the fastest speed, choose a server located nearest to you.
• VPN protocol: The speed of your VPN also depends on the protocol it is configured to apply. PPTP is the fastest protocol, but also the least secure. For the best balance of speed and security, we recommend using OpenVPN.
• Ping Rate: Ping rate is the time it takes for your connection to communicate with the desired server. The faster the response time between your PC and the server, the more responsive is your connection. Ping rate is measured in milliseconds (ms) and is critical for applications where timing is important. Therefore, you should select a VPN that offers the lowest ping rates.
• Download Speed: The service should offer good download speeds. It should enable you to pull data off the internet without compromising your speed. You can switch between protocols and servers to get quick download speeds from your VPN.
• Upload Speed: The upload speed shows how quickly you can send data to other users over the internet. You should select a VPN that offers swift data transfer without any interruptions.
• VPN Speed Test Results: Check this guide for detailed overview and results for top 15 VPNs

Why Does Speed Matter?

The primary function of a VPN is to make your internet connection more secure and enhance your privacy on the internet. But the cost of greater security is that it slows your speed. The slower speeds are more noticeable for some VPNs as compared to others.

This difference is more prominent when you perform bandwidth-intensive tasks such as torrenting, gaming, and streaming. However, the magic of fast VPNs is that they remain very close to your base connection speed even when you perform these activities. These VPNs will maintain your download speed, upload speed, as well as latency to allow a seamless streaming and gaming experience.

But there are only a few VPNs that constantly deliver fast speed, as shown in the table above and the details below:.

How Do We Test the VPN Speeds?

For conducting these tests, I used Ookla’s speed online tool. The tests were manually conducted on a Windows PC. The website tool used for measuring the speed is speedtest.net.

The Internet connection I used as a baseline was 30 Mbps. For each VPN, I performed tests on 4 different server locations: the UK, the US, Germany, and Australia. These locations were chosen since these are the major regions that host content viewed all over the world.

For measuring overall performance in terms of speed, I averaged the results across each of the four servers chosen. This approach allowed me to determine the extent to which a VPN’s speed varies with respect to changes in server, thus revealing a reasonably accurate picture.

Choosing the Fastest Server for Gaming

Hardcore online gamers frequently use VPN services to access gaming servers from other regions. VPNs also come in handy if you got your regular IP address banned, which happens often enough on competitive gaming platforms.

The performance of a VPN for gaming depends primarily on ping or latency. Ideally, you want a low ping to experience fluid and seamless online game-play.

As such, a VPN for gaming should have a wide number of servers distributed throughout the globe, so you can pick a server that isn’t too far from your physical location and obtain decent pings.

VPN Speed – Key Factors

There is a multitude of factors that affect the speed of VPN services. From the core technology infrastructure of the provider to the quality of equipment and type of network topology they use, these are all factors that play a key role in affecting your VPN speed.

It would take a lot of space to cover all these factors in this article, so I’m just going to describe the surface-level factors that can have a noticeable impact on your speed.

Base Internet connection speed: Your internet connection is the primary factor that determines your speed. A stable ISP connection with no faults in connection lines and sophisticated infrastructure ensures a good download/upload speed, and pings.

So, the very first thing you need to consider if you want a high-speed VPN connection is to get your Internet from a reliable ISP and choose a bandwidth package that suits your needs.

VPN server location: The server location you are connected to affects your latency as well as download and upload speeds. This is because when you connect to a remote VPN server, your data has to travel a longer route before reaching the destination than it normally would if you were connected to the web directly.

Although VPN providers with a well-designed server infrastructure can still maintain your speeds throughout the network, the distance to your desired server still plays a role. So, to get maximum speeds, you should select servers closer to your physical location and your data packets will have to travel less.

Security vs Speed: Adding security to a VPN connection inevitably results in a loss of speed. Using a stronger encryption algorithm, for example, means it takes longer to encrypt data traveling through the VPN and longer to decrypt it once it arrives at its destination.

Similarly, more secure VPN protocols tend to be slower than less secure ones. PPTP, despite being the oldest protocol, is still significantly faster than OpenVPN or L2TP/IPSec. However, it also has known security vulnerabilities.

You don’t necessarily need the strongest available security all the time when using a VPN, but there’s a line that shouldn’t be crossed in order to increase speed. Hence, we recommend against using PPTP and advise readers to opt for a protocol that uses SSL (OpenVPN) or IPSec encryption (L2TP, IKEv2).

Most VPN providers don’t give you the option, anyway, but don’t disable encryption altogether. Additionally, 128-bit AES is the minimum strength encryption necessary for a VPN to do its job and keep your data safe.

It’s effectively unbreakable and is slightly faster than 256-bit AES, which is also common. A handful of VPNs use Blowfish encryption, which tends to be slower than its AES counterpart. We recommend at least 448-bit Blowfish encryption if you go that route.

Moreover, how much of a speed boost you’ll get out of tweaking encryption and VPN protocols depends on your hardware. More powerful devices will be able to encrypt and decrypt data more quickly.

FAQs

Final Verdict

Surfshark came out on top as the best fast VPN on the basis of average download speed i.e. 27.91 Mbps.  Moreover, the provider has impressed us with almost perfect speeds on what would be considered a pretty slow internet connection in the modern-day. Thus, this shows how reliable this VPN is if speed is what you’re after.

As such, if you’re looking for a VPN specifically for purposes where speed is paramount, these providers should be your top choice without a shadow of a doubt.

See also:

• Best VPN for Netflix Guide