Proton VPN vs. Mullvad

Price: which costs less?

Over two years, Proton costs less. VPN Plus is $3.49 a month on a 24 month plan, billed as $83.76 up front, and then renews at $83.88 a year. Month to month it is $9.99. Mullvad charges $5.56 a month (billed as €5), whether you buy one month, a year or more. That works out to about $134 over two years at the October 2026 conversion, and the price does not change at renewal.

Mullvad’s model is simpler. There is no intro rate, no sale and no renewal jump, and it takes 10% off crypto payments. Proton’s intro price is lower, but the plan renews automatically, so set a reminder before the term ends.

Proton is the only one of the two with a free plan. It has no data cap and no ads, but it covers one device, picks a server in one of 10 countries for you, runs at medium speed and does not support streaming or P2P. It is a fair way to try the apps before paying.

Refunds favor Proton: 30 days on the first purchase, against Mullvad’s 14 days. Neither refunds cash payments. Proton also excludes bank transfers and purchases made through an app store, so buy on the website if you might want your money back.

Privacy and anonymity

This is the reason most people compare these two. Mullvad asks for no email address, username or password. You get a random account number, you can pay in cash by mail or in cryptocurrency, and the company says it keeps no logs of traffic, DNS requests, connections, IP addresses or bandwidth. It keeps account expiry dates and some payment records, most deleted within 20 days.

Mullvad’s claims have been tested outside an audit. In April 2023, Swedish police arrived at its Gothenburg office with a search warrant to seize computers holding customer data. Mullvad says they left with nothing because no such data existed. Mullvad has also had its apps audited by Cure53 (2024), its web application by Assured Security Consultants (2025), and its new GotaTun WireGuard code by Assured in early 2026.

Proton VPN is run by Proton AG in Geneva, the company behind Proton Mail. Securitum has audited its no-logs policy five years in a row, most recently in 2026, and found no logging of browsing, DNS queries or user-identifiable connection data. You do sign up with a Proton account, and proposed changes to Swiss surveillance law have led Proton to move some infrastructure outside Switzerland. Its Secure Core option routes traffic through servers in privacy-friendly countries first.

Features: servers, protocols and torrenting

Proton has the bigger network by a wide margin: 20,799 servers in 149 countries, including 124 Secure Core servers. Mullvad listed 566 servers in 50 countries and 91 cities on October 12, 2026. If you need an exit point in a smaller country, Proton is far more likely to have it.

Mullvad now runs WireGuard only. It removed OpenVPN support from its apps and shut its OpenVPN servers on January 15, 2026, saying fewer than 7% of users still chose it. Proton supports WireGuard and OpenVPN, plus a Stealth protocol meant for networks that block VPN traffic.

For torrenting, Proton has an edge that matters to some people: port forwarding on paid plans, through its P2P servers, in the Windows and Linux apps. Port forwarding helps torrent clients connect to more peers. Mullvad dropped port forwarding on July 1, 2023, saying it was being abused to host harmful content. You can still torrent on Mullvad, but without forwarded ports.

Device limits favor Proton too: 10 on VPN Plus against Mullvad’s 5. Both cover Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iPhone.

Streaming and everyday use

Proton is the better choice if you want a VPN for streaming. Its paid plan includes streaming support, and its free plan specifically does not. Mullvad does not market streaming access at all. Its focus is privacy, and some streaming services block its addresses. We have not run our own streaming or speed tests on either, so we do not list which services each reaches today.

Both have weak spots in day-to-day use. Proton’s Trustpilot score was 2.2 out of 5 from about 1,000 reviews when we checked its review, with complaints about dropped connections, slow speeds on some networks and refund handling, while its App Store rating was 4.6. Mullvad’s apps are deliberately plain, with fewer settings and extras than Proton’s, which suits people who want a VPN that simply stays on.

Your best test is the refund window. Try Proton’s free plan first, or buy a month of Mullvad, and check the sites and apps you use on your own connection. If websites keep showing CAPTCHAs or blocking you on one, try the other. Both companies change their server lists often, so a location that is slow one week can improve the next.