Mullvad vs Proton VPN (2026): Flat Price vs Free Tier

Mullvad and Proton VPN are the two providers that privacy-focused readers ask us about most. On verified data, they are built on opposite ideas. Mullvad sells one service at one price to an account that is only a number. Proton VPN sells:

• a free tier
• a discounted two-year plan
• twelve streaming claims
• a bundle with Proton’s other services

Proton VPN has the higher of our two scores, shown above. Most of the gap comes from scoring dimensions where Mullvad does not compete at all. The table above is built from both providers’ data records. The sections below explain what the rows mean and where the score difference comes from.

Pricing today

Mullvad charges a flat €5 a month, VAT included, for every term it sells. That covers one month, one year for €60 or one decade for €600. On 31 October 2026 its pricing page stated that €5 equals $5.60. That is why the table shows $5.60 a month and $67.20 a year. The dollar figure moves with the exchange rate, but the euro price does not.

Longer terms get no discount. The pricing page says Mullvad never holds sales or holiday discounts, so the renewal price is the price you paid. Paying with Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash or Monero takes 10 percent off. Mullvad also accepts:

• cash sent by post
• bank wire
• cards and PayPal
• Swish and several European bank-transfer methods

There is no free tier and no trial.

We loaded Proton VPN’s pricing page the same day. VPN Plus cost:

• $9.99 for one month
• $4.49 a month on the one-year plan, or $53.88
• $3.49 a month on the two-year plan, or $83.76

Both discounted terms renew at $83.88 a year. That works out to $6.99 a month after the first term. Proton Unlimited is the bundle with Proton’s other services. It costs $12.99 monthly, $9.99 a month on a yearly plan or $7.99 a month on a two-year plan. The yearly plan bills $119.88 and the two-year plan $191.76. Unlimited renews at $119.88 a year.

The free tier is real but limited. You get one device, servers in ten randomly selected countries and medium speed. It has no streaming, NetShield, Secure Core or split tunneling.

Over three years the discount wins. Buying Proton VPN Plus for two years and renewing once costs $167.64. The same 36 months of Mullvad cost $201.60 at today’s exchange rate, or €180. Month to month the order reverses: $5.60 against $9.99.

Proton accepts cards, PayPal and app-store billing. It also accepts Proton credits bought with cash, bank transfer or Bitcoin. So both providers allow an anonymous payment. Only Mullvad lets you skip the email address as well.

Privacy and audits

Mullvad VPN AB is based in Gothenburg, Sweden, a 14 Eyes member and an EU state. The 14 Eyes is a group of countries that share intelligence. Mullvad’s two co-founders own it through Amagicom AB, and it has no outside investors.

Proton AG is based in Geneva, Switzerland, outside the intelligence-sharing alliances. Its main owner is the non-profit Proton Foundation. In our methodology, the jurisdiction row favors Proton. That is one of two reasons Mullvad’s privacy row in the table is lower, despite its reputation.

The other reason is how each company proves its no-logs claim. Mullvad has published fifteen external audits since 2018. The auditors were Cure53, Assured, Atredis Partners, Radically Open Security, X41 D-Sec, NCC Group and Leviathan Security Group. They covered:

• the apps on every platform
• the VPN infrastructure, four times
• its DNS servers
• its account and payment services
• its web app
• its GotaTun WireGuard implementation

Only one of them explicitly set out to find logging of customer data: the Assured server audit concluded in May 2022. It found none.

Our scoring weights the age of the newest audit with a no-logs scope. So Mullvad’s 2022 date counts for less than Proton’s yearly audits. Securitum has examined Proton VPN’s infrastructure for logging every year since 2022. The fifth report was announced on 16 June 2026. It found no evidence that the examined servers log browsing activity, DNS queries or user-identifiable connection metadata.

The two also handle data differently. A Mullvad account is a random number. Its policy was last updated on 10 July 2025. It says the only account activity checked is the number of simultaneous connections, held in memory. Transaction IDs are deleted after 20 days, and support emails are erased after 70.

Proton VPN’s policy, dated 30 July 2025, also covers the free service. It keeps no VPN session data, but you do need to register.

Mullvad runs every server from RAM, so nothing is kept on a hard drive. It uses no virtual locations. Proton deliberately does not use RAM-only servers and relies on full-disk encryption instead. Full-disk encryption scrambles everything stored on a server’s drive. Proton’s Smart Routing provides virtual locations for more than 100 countries. A virtual location appears to be in one country while the server sits in another.

The incident records differ in kind. Mullvad has a single entry. On 18 April 2023, Swedish police searched its Gothenburg office. They held a warrant to seize computers with customer data. They left without taking anything, because no such data existed. We record it as low severity.

Proton has three entries, and all of them involve Proton Mail rather than the VPN:

• In January 2019, a Swiss court sent a request that Proton could not fulfill, because it held no IP data.
• In September 2021, a binding Swiss order forced Proton to log and disclose a climate activist’s IP address.
• In May 2024, published court documents showed that Proton had given Spanish police the recovery email of an account, via Swiss authorities.

Proton’s position is that Swiss law cannot compel a VPN to log, unlike an email service. No VPN disclosure is documented. But our methodology deducts points for medium-severity incidents within five years, so the 2024 case costs Proton points.

Proton publishes a transparency report, which lists the legal requests it received. Mullvad publishes neither a transparency report nor a warrant canary. A warrant canary is a public notice that a company removes if it receives a secret order.

Security and protocols

Mullvad is now a WireGuard-only service. OpenVPN was removed from the desktop app in version 2025.14 and from every server on 15 January 2026. The tunnel uses ChaCha20-Poly1305, Curve25519 and BLAKE2s.

Quantum-resistant encryption is designed to withstand future quantum computers. Mullvad offers an optional quantum-resistant pre-shared key on all supported platforms. It uses Classic McEliece 460896 plus ML-KEM-1024. Mullvad also has DAITA, a defense against AI-guided traffic analysis.

A kill switch blocks your internet if the VPN connection drops. Mullvad’s kill switch is built into the app and enabled by default, and it cannot be disabled. Its other features:

• Obfuscation, which disguises VPN traffic so it is harder to block, comes as UDP-over-TCP, Shadowsocks and QUIC.
• Multihop is a WireGuard setting.
• Split tunneling, which lets chosen apps skip the VPN, works on Windows, Linux, macOS and Android, but not iOS.
• IPv6 can be enabled in the advanced settings.

Port forwarding was switched off on 29 May 2023, and there are no dedicated IPs. Mullvad’s public DNS-over-HTTPS and DNS-over-TLS service is scheduled to be discontinued on 2 November 2026. This does not affect the app’s own blockers for ads, trackers and malware.

Proton VPN offers WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2 in the Apple apps and Stealth. Stealth is its own WireGuard-over-TLS protocol for obfuscation. The kill switch exists on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android.

Proton’s split tunneling covers Windows, macOS, the Linux GUI, Android, Android TV and the browser extension. On macOS it is experimental and only excludes apps.

Secure Core routes traffic through Proton-owned servers in Switzerland, Iceland and Sweden before the exit server. NetShield blocks ads, trackers and malware at the DNS level. Proton VPN also supports port forwarding, which Mullvad dropped. Port forwarding lets other devices reach a program on your computer, which some torrent apps need.

IPv6 is the newer format for internet addresses. Proton routes it through the tunnel on Windows, Linux, Android and the extension. It disables IPv6 on macOS and iOS. About 80 percent of its servers support IPv6.

Post-quantum encryption is Proton’s gap. It is listed as future work on Proton’s 2026 roadmap, while Mullvad ships it today.

Streaming claims

Mullvad makes no streaming claim on any official page and offers no smart DNS. Smart DNS is a streaming setting for devices that cannot run a VPN app. So the table shows “None documented”, and Mullvad scores zero in the streaming dimension.

Proton VPN’s streaming guide lists twelve services for paid plans: Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, HBO Max, Peacock, Paramount+, Crunchyroll, YouTube TV, DAZN and ESPN+. The free tier is excluded.

We have not yet tested streaming access for either provider, so these are the provider’s documented claims. Proton’s 30-day refund is the practical test window. Mullvad’s 14-day refund applies only if you paid by card or another method that is not cash or cryptocurrency.

Apps and devices

Mullvad publishes apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android, with five devices at the same time. That is the whole list. There is no Android TV, Apple TV or Fire TV app and no router app. WireGuard configuration files and guides cover OpenWrt, pfSense, Asus Merlin and DD-WRT routers. Its Firefox extension is a leak-check and SOCKS5 proxy helper rather than a VPN. All app source code is public, and the Android build is reproducible. That means anyone can check that the app matches its published code.

Proton VPN covers Windows, macOS, Linux, Chromebook, iOS, Android, Android TV, Apple TV and Fire TV. It adds extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Edge, and the Chrome build also runs on Brave and Opera. It allows ten devices on paid plans and one on the free tier. It publishes the source of every app as well. The device limit and the TV apps are the main reasons Proton wins the apps row.

Support and refunds

Mullvad offers email support and a help center. For people who want them, it also offers a PGP key, which encrypts your email, and an onion service, an address reached through the Tor network. There is no live chat. That is why its support row scores at the bottom of the table.

Proton VPN runs 24/7 live chat for paid plans. An AI assistant answers first and then hands you to a person. Free users get ticket support.

The refund rules differ:

• Mullvad gives 14 days, excluding cash and cryptocurrency payments. Apple or the reseller handles App Store and voucher refunds.
• Proton gives 30 days, excluding bank-transfer and cash payments. Apple handles App Store refunds.

We have not yet measured response times for either.

Alternatives

If you want Proton’s feature set with a longer audit history and a cheaper first term, read Mullvad vs NordVPN and NordVPN vs Proton VPN.

If port forwarding matters, Private Internet Access offers it with open-source apps and unlimited devices.

If you want a free tier with more generous limits, Proton VPN vs Windscribe covers the other free plan we track. Proton VPN vs Surfshark covers the cheapest unlimited-device option.

Our best VPN for privacy page ranks the whole field on privacy alone. The comparison hub lists every pair.

Which should you buy?

Buy Mullvad if, for you, the point of a VPN is to hand over as little as possible:

• no email
• cash or Monero
• an app whose kill switch cannot be turned off
• source code for everything
• a price that will not jump after a promotional term

In return, you accept five devices, no TV apps, no streaming support, no port forwarding and email-only support. Mullvad also costs more than Proton over any term longer than a year.

Buy Proton VPN if you want a service that also works as a household’s general-purpose VPN. It offers ten devices, Apple TV and Fire TV apps, documented streaming support, port forwarding, Secure Core and live chat. It also has a free tier to try before you pay.

Proton VPN has three drawbacks. The two-year price renews at $83.88 a year. The servers are not RAM-only. Its record also includes two Proton Mail legal orders, even though neither concerned the VPN.

Proton VPN scores higher mainly for three reasons:

• Mullvad scores zero for streaming.
• It gets the lowest possible support mark for having no live chat.
• It has fewer platforms and devices.

Mullvad also loses privacy points for its Swedish jurisdiction and for a no-logs audit from 2022. Those are real differences. But if you never stream, never need chat and value the account-number model, they may not matter to you.

How we compared them

Every row in the table comes from the two providers’ data records. We checked them against their official pricing, feature, server, policy and audit pages on 31 October 2026. Scores come from our published methodology, with speed left out until our lab measures it. Neither provider’s affiliate status affects a verdict. Mullvad pays us nothing, and Proton has a partner program. Both are ranked on the same data. Read the full Mullvad review and Proton VPN review for the detail behind each row. The Mullvad pricing page and Proton VPN pricing page show every plan and its price history.