ExpressVPN vs Proton VPN (2026): Price, Privacy, Features

ExpressVPN is cheaper than Proton VPN for the first term, but it renews higher. On 31 October 2026, ExpressVPN cost $2.99 a month against $3.49 for Proton VPN. At renewal, ExpressVPN costs $99.95 a year against $83.88.

Proton VPN adds a free tier, open-source apps, port forwarding and a $9.99 monthly plan. ExpressVPN has post-quantum protection switched on by default, split tunneling on iOS and a smart DNS service. Its kill switch also behaves the same on every platform.

The two also take different approaches to server design and to ownership. The table above comes from both providers’ data records. The sections below explain what the rows mean.

Pricing today

ExpressVPN’s order page shows one term, “2 Years + 4 Months”. You pay for all 28 months up front. On 31 October 2026 the prices were:

• Basic: $2.99 a month, or $83.72, renewing at $99.95 a year
• Advanced: $4.49 a month, or $125.72, renewing at $119.95 a year
• Express Pro: $7.49 a month, or $209.72, renewing at $199.95 a year

The tiers differ in how many devices they allow, 10, 12 and 14. They also differ in the extras bundled into Advanced and Pro: the ExpressKeys password manager, Identity Defender in the US and an eSIM. Pro also includes a dedicated IP, which is an address only you use.

ExpressVPN’s support page was updated on 30 October 2026. It says monthly and 12-month plans exist for every tier. Their prices appear only at checkout. That is why the table shows “not published” for the monthly plan.

Proton VPN’s pricing page the same day showed three prices for VPN Plus:

• $3.49 a month on the two-year plan, or $83.76 up front, labeled 65% off
• $4.49 a month on the one-year plan, or $53.88, labeled 55% off
• $9.99 month to month

Both discounted terms renew at $83.88 a year, and the page states this next to the price. The Proton Unlimited bundle adds Proton’s other services. It costs $7.99 a month for two years, or $191.76, renewing at $119.88 a year. On a one-year plan it costs $9.99 a month, or $119.88. Month to month, it costs $12.99.

The free plan has no data cap. It allows one device, picks a server for you from 10 countries and runs at medium speed. It excludes streaming, NetShield, Secure Core and split tunneling.

The two long plans cost almost the same up front: $83.72 against $83.76. ExpressVPN gives you four more months. Renewal is what separates them. Buy once and renew once, and ExpressVPN costs $183.67 for 40 months. Proton VPN costs $167.64 for 36 months. At renewal, ExpressVPN works out at $8.33 a month against Proton VPN’s $6.99.

They take different payment methods. ExpressVPN takes cards, PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay. It removed cryptocurrency, including BitPay, in August 2026. Proton takes cards, PayPal and Proton credits bought with cash, bank transfer or Bitcoin.

Both offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, with different conditions:

• ExpressVPN limits it to first-time users. It excludes anyone who has had a refund before and anyone who bought through the App Store or Google Play. It handles requests through live chat.
• Proton cannot refund bank-transfer or cash payments. It sends App Store buyers to Apple’s refund process. It says card refunds take five to ten business days.

ExpressVPN offers a free trial only in its iOS and Android apps, for 3 days. Proton’s free plan is its trial. Every plan is listed on the ExpressVPN pricing page and the Proton VPN pricing page.

Privacy and audits

ExpressVPN is operated by Express Technologies Ltd. in the British Virgin Islands. Since 2021 it has belonged to Kape Technologies, which also owns CyberGhost and Private Internet Access. Proton VPN is run by Proton AG in Geneva. Proton AG is a Swiss company primarily owned by the non-profit Proton Foundation. It has no parent company and no venture-capital investors.

Both jurisdictions sit outside the 5, 9 and 14 Eyes alliances, which are groups of countries that share intelligence. Both companies publish transparency reports rather than warrant canaries. A transparency report lists the requests for user data a company has received. A warrant canary is a notice a company takes down if it receives a secret government order.

ExpressVPN runs every server in RAM under its TrustedServer design. A RAM-only server keeps its data in memory, so a restart wipes it. PwC audited TrustedServer in 2019, and Cure53 in 2022. Proton VPN deliberately does not use RAM-only servers. Its servers use LUKS full-disk encryption with AES-256, and the keys are kept off the machine. Its July 2024 blog post argues that RAM-only protection applies only while a server is powered off.

ExpressVPN’s privacy policy was updated on 2 October 2026. It says ExpressVPN never collects activity or connection logs. It keeps only aggregated statistics:

• which apps were activated
• whether a connection succeeded on a given day
• the location chosen
• total data transferred

Proton’s policy is dated 30 July 2025. It says Proton keeps no VPN session data and does not log traffic, on the free plan too.

On no-logs audits, ExpressVPN has KPMG engagements from September 2022, December 2023 and June 2025, plus the 2019 PwC audit. Proton VPN has had Securitum examine its server infrastructure every year since 2022. The fifth report was published in June 2026. It found no evidence that Proton VPN logs browsing activity, DNS queries, destinations or user-identifiable connection metadata.

ExpressVPN’s technical audit record is long. Our data lists 18 entries. Its own Trust Center counts 28, including non-VPN products. The record includes:

• Lightway audits by Cure53 in 2021, 2022 and 2024, and by Praetorian in 2024
• Cure53 and F-Secure audits of the apps in 2022
• a Nettitude test of the Windows app in 2024
• two audits each of the browser extension and the Aircove router

Proton’s open-source page says it contracted independent researcher Ruben Santamarta to audit its apps. The page was updated in December 2025 with links to the latest reports. Open-source code is public, so anyone can check it. Every Proton VPN app is open source, with code on GitHub. ExpressVPN open-sources only its browser extension and the Lightway core.

Both have incident records. ExpressVPN has four entries:

• January 2017: a server seizure in Turkey yielded no data.
• 2021: a disclosure about its CIO’s earlier work on a UAE surveillance program.
• February 2024: a Windows split-tunneling bug sent some DNS requests outside the tunnel. CNET’s Attila Tomaschek found it. ExpressVPN fixed it, and Nettitude verified the fix.
• 2025: a Windows bug let remote desktop (RDP) traffic bypass the tunnel. It was reported on 25 April 2025 and fixed five days later.

ExpressVPN’s transparency report states that no request has resulted in disclosure of user data.

Proton has three entries. One concerns Proton VPN, and two are Proton Mail cases:

• January 2019: a Swiss-approved request for Proton VPN data. Proton could not fulfill it, because it holds no customer IP information.
• September 2021: a Swiss order forced Proton to log and disclose a climate activist’s IP address.
• May 2024: a recovery email address was handed to Spanish police via Swiss authorities. It helped identify a Catalan activist.

Proton’s transparency report lists 59 legal orders concerning the VPN in 2025, and none of them produced data. It also says Swiss law does not oblige the VPN to keep activity logs.

Security and protocols

A protocol is the method a VPN uses to build its encrypted connection. ExpressVPN’s default protocol is Lightway. It is written in Rust and has an open-source core. Since January 2025 it has used a hybrid post-quantum ML-KEM key exchange by default. Post-quantum encryption is designed to resist attacks by future quantum computers. WireGuard, OpenVPN and IKEv2 are also available.

Proton VPN offers WireGuard, OpenVPN and IKEv2, plus Stealth. Stealth wraps WireGuard in TLS to get through networks that block VPNs. Proton VPN has no post-quantum option yet. It is listed as future work on Proton’s 2026 roadmap.

A kill switch blocks your internet if the VPN connection drops. ExpressVPN’s Network Lock kill switch is on by default on Windows, macOS, Linux and Android. It is always on for iOS. It blocks IPv4, IPv6 and DNS traffic outside the tunnel. Proton’s kill switch is documented on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android.

Split tunneling lets you choose which apps or websites use the VPN and which do not. On Apple devices, ExpressVPN does better. It offers split tunneling on:

• Windows, for apps and websites
• macOS
• Linux, for apps, IPs and subnets
• Android, per app
• iOS, as IPv4 address exclusions

Proton VPN has it on Windows, Linux, Android, Android TV and the browser extension. It also has an experimental app-exclusion mode on macOS. It has no split tunneling on iOS.

Obfuscation hides the fact that you are using a VPN. It is automatic on every ExpressVPN server. Proton provides it through Stealth.

Only Proton has multi-hop, which sends your traffic through more than one server. Its Secure Core feature routes traffic first through servers Proton owns in Switzerland, Iceland and Sweden. ExpressVPN documents no multi-hop feature.

ExpressVPN sells a dedicated IP add-on, which is included with Express Pro. Proton offers dedicated servers only on its business plans. Port forwarding opens a port so that other computers can connect to yours. Proton offers it. ExpressVPN has it only on its router app and Aircove, outside the tunnel.

They also handle IPv6, the newer type of internet address, differently. ExpressVPN’s apps block it rather than send it through the VPN. Proton tunnels IPv6 on Windows, Linux, Android and the extension. It disables IPv6 with leak protection on macOS and iOS. It supports IPv6 on about 80 percent of servers. Our IPv6 leak test shows which behavior you are getting.

Both block ads and trackers. ExpressVPN calls this Advanced Protection, and Proton calls it NetShield. Both run their own DNS resolvers.

Streaming claims

ExpressVPN’s support guide and dedicated pages claim support for twelve services. They are Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, Prime Video, HBO Max, YouTube TV, DAZN, Paramount+, ESPN+, Crunchyroll and Peacock.

Proton VPN’s streaming guide lists the same twelve services for paid plans, with regions:

• Netflix in 26 countries
• Prime Video and Disney+ in 22 each
• HBO Max in 21
• Paramount+ in 16
• DAZN in 8
• the rest in their home markets

The free plan excludes streaming.

A smart DNS service changes the location that streaming services see, on devices that cannot run a VPN app. ExpressVPN includes one, called MediaStreamer, for Samsung TVs, Roku, Chromecast and consoles. Proton offers no smart DNS, so those devices need a router.

We have not tested streaming access for either provider. Treat both lists as claims, and use the 30-day refund as your test window. See the ExpressVPN Netflix guide and our Netflix VPN picks.

Apps and devices

Both publish apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Android TV, Apple TV and Fire TV. Both have extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Edge, and router setups. ExpressVPN’s extension also runs in Brave. Proton’s Chrome extension runs in Brave and Opera.

ExpressVPN sells its own Aircove router with the VPN built in. Proton adds a Chromebook app. ExpressVPN allows 10 connections on Basic, 12 on Advanced and 14 on Express Pro. Proton VPN allows 10 on paid plans and one on the free plan.

ExpressVPN publishes no server count, but lists 113 countries and 214 locations. Proton’s live counters showed 21,722 servers in 149 countries and 197 locations. Both use virtual locations, which give you an address in one country from a server in another. Neither figure says anything about speed, which our lab has not yet tested.

Support and refunds

Both offer 24/7 live chat, email and a help center. Proton’s live chat is for paid plans only. It begins with an AI assistant before a human takes over. Free users get ticket support. We have not yet measured response times for either.

Refunds are 30 days on both sides, with the conditions above. Our ExpressVPN cancellation guide covers the steps for ending an ExpressVPN plan.

Which should you buy?

Buy ExpressVPN if you want the more complete app. You get:

• split tunneling on an iPhone
• post-quantum protection without waiting
• obfuscation without choosing special servers
• smart DNS for a TV
• RAM-only servers, with a technical audit list that runs to 18 entries in our data

Its drawbacks are the higher renewal, card-only payment, no multi-hop and no port forwarding. It also has four incidents on its record, all disclosed and resolved.

Buy Proton VPN if you want to pay less after year one, or want a free plan or a cheap monthly plan. It also suits you if you need port forwarding or IPv6, want open-source apps, or want to pay in cash or Bitcoin. Its drawbacks are the missing post-quantum option, no split tunneling on iOS, no smart DNS and no consumer dedicated IP.

Alternatives

NordVPN adds Meshnet and a dedicated IP, with a $139.08 renewal. See ExpressVPN vs NordVPN and NordVPN vs Proton VPN.

Surfshark costs less than both, at $2.49 a month for 27 months, and allows unlimited devices. It does not state its renewal price. See ExpressVPN vs Surfshark and Proton VPN vs Surfshark.

Mullvad charges a flat €5 a month and needs no email account. See Mullvad vs Proton VPN.

CyberGhost shares ExpressVPN’s owner. It costs $2.19 a month and renews at the same price. See CyberGhost vs ExpressVPN.

Windscribe is the other free-tier option. See Proton VPN vs Windscribe. Every provider we track is on the comparison hub.

How we compared them

Every row in the table comes from the two providers’ data records. We checked them against their official order, pricing, feature, server, policy, audit and transparency pages on 31 October 2026. The sources are listed below. Scores follow our published methodology, with speed left out until our lab measures it. The figures shown above change whenever the data does.

Read the full ExpressVPN review and Proton VPN review for the detail behind each line. The ExpressVPN deals and Proton VPN deals pages show today’s verified prices.