Proton VPN vs Surfshark (2026): Price, Privacy, Devices

Surfshark costs less than Proton VPN for the first term, and it allows unlimited devices. On the long plans on 5 November 2026, Surfshark cost $2.49 a month against $3.49 for Proton VPN. Proton VPN prints its renewal price of $83.88 a year. It also offers a free tier with no data cap, open-sources every app and adds port forwarding and Secure Core multi-hop.

They are different kinds of company too. Surfshark B.V. is a Dutch subsidiary of Nord Security. Proton AG is a Swiss firm mainly owned by a non-profit foundation. The table above comes from our data records for both providers. The sections below explain what the rows mean and which gaps will matter to you.

Pricing today

Proton VPN’s pricing page on 5 November 2026 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, and renews at $119.88 a year. The one-year Unlimited plan costs $9.99 a month, or $119.88, and the monthly plan costs $12.99.

The free plan needs no card. It allows one device and picks a server for you from 10 countries. They are the Netherlands, Japan, Romania, Poland, Norway, Switzerland, Singapore, Mexico, Canada and the United States. It runs at medium speed. It excludes streaming, P2P file sharing, NetShield, Secure Core and split tunneling. But it has no data cap, and the same no-logs policy covers it.

Surfshark’s pricing page the same day showed its Starter and One tiers at the same price. Both cost $2.49 a month for 27 months, or $67.23 up front, which includes 3 extra months. A “Black Friday deal” badge sat on the One card only. One+ cost $3.99 a month, or $107.73. The 1-year Starter plan runs 15 months, with 3 extra months, for $44.85, or $2.99 a month. The monthly Starter plan costs $18.95. The pricing page shows those two prices only when it loads in a browser, so we read them from the plan data built into the page.

Surfshark does not state its renewal price. The page says you will be charged “the applicable renewal price”, billed once a year after the first term. No official page gives the figure.

Surfshark is $16.53 cheaper for the first term and includes three more months. After that, Proton VPN costs a known $83.88 a year, which is $6.99 a month. Surfshark costs an unknown amount. Month to month, Proton VPN’s $9.99 compares with Surfshark’s $18.95 and NordVPN’s $14.99. ExpressVPN shows its monthly price only at checkout.

Both can be bought without a card. Proton accepts Proton credits bought with cash, bank transfer or Bitcoin. Surfshark accepts cryptocurrency, though not from phones or tablets.

Both offer a 30-day money-back guarantee. Proton cannot refund bank-transfer or cash payments, and it sends App Store buyers to Apple’s refund process. Surfshark refunds the first purchase only, once per service. It excludes prepaid and gift-card payments, Alternative ID and the anonymous dedicated IP add-on. Surfshark’s seven-day trial on its 12- and 24-month plans allows three devices and then converts to a paid plan. Proton’s free plan is its trial. Every plan is listed on our Proton VPN pricing page and Surfshark pricing page.

Privacy and audits

Proton VPN is run by Proton AG in Geneva. It is a Swiss company mainly owned by the non-profit Proton Foundation, with no parent company and no venture-capital investors. Switzerland sits outside the 5, 9 and 14 Eyes alliances, which are groups of countries that share intelligence.

Surfshark B.V. operates from Amsterdam, inside the 9 Eyes alliance. In 2022 it merged with Nord Security, the owner of NordVPN, under one holding company. In its own words, it operates independently. Both publish transparency reports, which list the government requests they receive. Neither keeps a warrant canary, which is a public statement that a company has not received a secret government order.

The two companies chose different server designs. Surfshark runs every server in RAM only, so data sits in memory instead of on a disk. Proton VPN does not. Its servers use LUKS full-disk encryption with AES-256, and the keys are kept off the machine. Full-disk encryption scrambles everything stored on the server’s disk. Proton’s July 2024 blog post argues that RAM-only protection applies only while a server is powered off. Its reason is that memory on a running machine is as exposed as a disk.

The logging policies describe similar collections. Proton’s policy, dated 30 July 2025, says it keeps no VPN session data and does not log traffic. It says the free service is covered too. Surfshark’s policy, updated 12 October 2026, lists account data, billing data and aggregated diagnostics. The billing data is a partial card number, the card’s expiry date and the payer’s country. Connection details held on a server are deleted within 15 minutes of the session ending.

Securitum has checked Proton VPN’s server infrastructure for logs every year since 2022. The fifth report was published in June 2026. It found no evidence that the examined infrastructure logs browsing activity, DNS queries, destinations or connection metadata that could identify a user.

Surfshark has Deloitte no-logs assurance reports dated 25 January 2023 and 16 June 2025. Customers can read them in their account. Surfshark also has SecuRing penetration tests of its apps in 2025 and its infrastructure in December 2025. A penetration test is an attempt by hired experts to break into a system. Cure53 has audited Surfshark’s browser extensions in 2018, its server configuration in 2021 and its Dausos protocol in March 2026.

Proton’s open-source page says it hired independent researcher Ruben Santamarta to audit its apps. The page was updated in December 2025 with links to the latest reports. Every Proton VPN app is open source, with the code on GitHub. No Surfshark app is.

Surfshark has no documented incidents. Its transparency report for July to September 2026 lists 23 government inquiries. It lists zero warrants, zero national security letters and zero gag orders.

Proton has three. In January 2019, a Swiss court approved a foreign request for Proton VPN data. Proton could not provide it, because it holds no customer IP information. Its transparency report lists 59 legal orders concerning Proton VPN in 2025, and none of them produced data.

The other two concern Proton Mail, not the VPN. In September 2021, a Swiss order forced Proton to log and disclose a climate activist’s IP address. In May 2024, a recovery email address handed to Spanish police via Swiss authorities helped identify a Catalan activist. Proton says Swiss law does not oblige the VPN to keep activity logs, unlike email.

Security and protocols

A protocol is the set of rules a VPN uses to build its encrypted connection. Proton VPN offers WireGuard, OpenVPN and IKEv2, plus Stealth. Stealth wraps WireGuard in TLS to get through networks that block VPNs. Proton’s 2026 roadmap lists post-quantum encryption as future work. Post-quantum encryption is designed to resist attacks from future quantum computers.

Surfshark offers WireGuard, OpenVPN and IKEv2, plus Dausos, its own AEGIS-256X2 protocol. When we checked, Dausos was available only in the macOS app. Post-quantum protection is on by default for WireGuard and Dausos. Cure53 audited Dausos in February and March 2026. It found no critical or high issues in the protocol itself.

A kill switch blocks your internet if the VPN connection drops. Both have one on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS. Surfshark’s has soft and strict modes.

Split tunneling lets you choose which apps or sites skip the VPN. Support differs by platform:

• Proton VPN has it on Windows, Linux, Android, Android TV and the browser extension. It also has an experimental app-exclusion mode on macOS, but nothing on iOS.
• Surfshark’s Bypasser covers Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, but not Linux. On Windows it works with apps, websites and IP addresses. On Android it has a reverse mode.

Multi-hop sends your traffic through more than one server. Both offer it, built differently. Proton’s Secure Core first routes traffic through servers Proton owns in Switzerland, Iceland and Sweden. Surfshark’s Dynamic MultiHop chains two of its own servers. Both block ads and trackers, with NetShield at Proton and CleanWeb at Surfshark. Both run their own DNS resolvers.

Surfshark sells a dedicated IP add-on in 20 locations. A dedicated IP is an address that only you use. Surfshark also adds Rotating IP and Everlink. Proton VPN offers dedicated servers only on its business plans.

Port forwarding lets other devices reach yours through the VPN. Proton VPN supports it. Surfshark says in a 9 September 2026 blog post that it does not.

IPv6 is the newer type of internet address. Proton VPN also handles it:

• It 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 its servers.

Surfshark’s security page says its apps block IPv6 leaks. But its help center recommends disabling IPv6 on the device. Check either with our IPv6 leak test.

Streaming claims

Proton VPN’s streaming guide lists 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
• BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Peacock, Crunchyroll, YouTube TV and ESPN+ in their home markets

The free plan excludes streaming. Surfshark’s streaming page lists Netflix, Prime Video, Disney+, BBC iPlayer, HBO Max, Hulu and Crunchyroll, with a note that results may vary.

Smart DNS helps a TV without a VPN app reach streaming services. Neither offers it. Proton never has, and Surfshark discontinued its SmartDNS service on 2 February 2026. So Samsung Tizen and LG webOS televisions need a router setup with either.

We have not tested streaming on either provider. Both lists are documented claims, and the 30-day refund is your test window. Our Surfshark Netflix guide and Netflix VPN picks track what we know.

Apps and devices

Both publish apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Android TV, Apple TV and Fire TV. Both offer extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Edge, and router setups. Proton’s Chrome extension also runs in Brave and Opera. Proton adds a Chromebook app, and Surfshark’s Fire TV app covers Vega OS.

The biggest difference is the device limit. Proton VPN allows 10 simultaneous connections on paid plans and one on the free plan. Surfshark allows unlimited connections on every plan.

Proton’s network is larger on paper. On 5 November 2026, its live counters showed 21,882 servers in 149 countries and 197 locations. Surfshark has 4,500-plus servers in 100 countries and 130-plus locations. Both use virtual locations, which are servers that appear to be in one country but sit in another. Neither figure says anything about speed, which we have not yet tested in our lab.

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 exclusions above. Our Surfshark cancellation guide covers the steps for ending a Surfshark plan.

Which should you buy?

Buy Surfshark if any of these apply:

• You need more than ten devices.
• You want split tunneling on an iPhone.
• You want post-quantum protection switched on today.
• You want the lower first-term price of the two.

Its clean incident record and Deloitte reports give solid assurance.

Buy Proton VPN if any of these apply:

• You want a renewal price you can read before you pay.
• You want a free plan to fall back on.
• You want open-source apps, port forwarding or IPv6.
• You already use Proton Mail.

Each has gaps. Proton lacks a post-quantum option, a consumer dedicated IP and split tunneling on iOS. Surfshark does not state its renewal price, has lost its SmartDNS service and sits in a 9 Eyes country.

Alternatives

• NordVPN shares Surfshark’s owner, adds Meshnet and smart DNS, and prints a $139.08 renewal. See NordVPN vs Proton VPN and NordVPN vs Surfshark.
• ExpressVPN has post-quantum protection by default and split tunneling on every desktop and mobile platform. See ExpressVPN vs Proton VPN and ExpressVPN vs Surfshark.
• Mullvad is the stricter privacy choice, with no email account and a flat €5 a month. See Mullvad vs Proton VPN.
• Private Internet Access has port forwarding, open-source apps and unlimited devices. See Private Internet Access vs Surfshark.
• Windscribe is another 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 our data records for the two providers. We verified them against the official pricing, feature, server, policy, audit and transparency pages on 31 October 2026. We checked the prices and server counts again on 5 November 2026. The sources are listed below. Scores follow our published methodology. Speed is left out until our lab measures it. The figures shown above change whenever the data does. For the detail behind each line, read the full Proton VPN review and Surfshark review. For today’s verified prices, see the Proton VPN deals and Surfshark deals pages.