hide.me Review (2026): Free Plan, Audit and Renewal Checked

hide.me is a Malaysian VPN with two things most of its rivals lack. The first is a free plan with no data cap that needs no account or card. The second is a long plan that renews at the price you paid, not a multiple of it. On 5 November 2026 its 30-month plan cost $69.99, or $2.33 a month, under an offer that started in early November. Its pricing page states that every plan “always renews with the same price and duration”.

Against that, the audit record is thin. There is one published no-logs audit, from 2024, plus a 2015 certification with no public report. The apps are closed source, apart from the Linux command-line client. There is no dedicated IP and no post-quantum key exchange. The network is a fraction of the size of NordVPN’s. Every number on this page carries its date and source, and its score is shown above.

Privacy and logging

hide.me is owned and operated by eVenture Limited. The company is registered in Malaysia under company number LL09685, with its registered office at Financial Park Labuan. The terms of service were last updated on 25 August 2026. The privacy policy has been in force since 10 January 2023. Malaysian law governs both. The service launched in 2012, and no parent company is named on any official page.

Malaysia is outside the 5, 9 and 14 Eyes intelligence alliances. These are groups of countries that share surveillance data. hide.me’s no-logs page says local law does not oblige it to store user logs. NordVPN makes the same structural argument for Panama, and the same caveat applies. A jurisdiction without a data retention law only helps if the provider actually keeps nothing.

hide.me says it keeps very little. Its privacy policy states that it logs no VPN sessions, browsing behavior or websites visited. It keeps no connection logs or timestamps that could match an incoming IP address to an outgoing one. It also keeps nothing that would record how long a session lasted. A temporary troubleshooting log holds a randomly generated username and an internal, non-public IP address. That log is erased every few hours.

Monthly traffic volume is counted as a total for billing and quality of service. The paid plan asks only for an email address at sign-up, and you can remove it from a paid account. All account data is deleted when the account is terminated. The free plan asks for nothing at all.

The main evidence for the policy is one audit. Securitum, a European security firm, audited hide.me’s no-log policy between 19 March and 6 June 2024. It issued its report on 7 June 2024. The work covered threat modeling and a review of the VPN configuration files. It also covered a snapshot of the production VPN container image, the deployment process and interviews with the team.

Securitum confirmed that the no-logs policy is applied and found no issues on the VPN container. The report describes the product as it stood on 15 March 2024. NordVPN and Surfshark keep their Deloitte reports behind a customer login. hide.me publishes the full PDF for anyone to read.

Before that, hide.me says Leon Juranic of DefenseCode certified it as a no-log service in 2015. Official pages give only the year and link no report. So our data record carries 1 January 2015 as a stand-in date, and we treat the certification as a claim rather than evidence.

The no-logs page says hide.me undergoes “regular audits”. But it has a single published report in ten years, with nothing between 2015 and 2024. That is not a regular schedule by the standard of Proton VPN or NordVPN. Securitum has audited Proton VPN every year since 2022, and NordVPN has had six engagements since 2018.

hide.me publishes a transparency report, and the 2025 edition is a PDF on its site. A transparency report shows how many requests for user data a provider received and how it answered them. There is no warrant canary. A warrant canary is a statement a provider updates regularly to show it has not received a secret government order. Our record lists no security incidents, seizures or court cases for hide.me.

Having no incidents is good news in itself. But it also means the policy has never faced a real-world test like the one Mullvad passed. Swedish police left Mullvad’s office empty-handed in April 2023.

If you want to limit what the company can learn about you, you can pay in cryptocurrency. hide.me accepts Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, Polygon, Solana, Tether, TrueUSD and USD Coin. According to the privacy policy, Coinpayments processes these payments. hide.me also accepts cards, PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay, SEPA, SOFORT and bank transfer. It is accredited under the VPN Trust Initiative, and its blog says the accreditation was renewed through 2026.

Security features

hide.me supports more tunneling protocols than any provider we track: six, against four at NordVPN. A protocol is the method a VPN uses to build its encrypted tunnel. hide.me’s six are WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, SoftEther, SSTP and its own Bolt. Bolt is a TLS 1.3 TCP transport, available in the Windows app on the Premium plan.

OpenVPN, IKEv2, SoftEther and SSTP use AES-256 encryption. WireGuard uses ChaCha20-Poly1305. Bolt runs over TLS 1.3 with AES-GCM or ChaCha20-Poly1305. SSTP reached the iOS, macOS and tvOS apps in March 2026.

Obfuscation disguises VPN traffic so that firewalls find it harder to detect and block. There is no obfuscation toggle of the kind NordVPN or Surfshark offer. Instead, hide.me’s protocols page says SoftEther and SSTP tunnel over HTTPS to get through firewalls and ISP throttling. Bolt does the same over TLS 1.3 on Windows. Multihop is offered for regions where the network is blocked.

We record this as obfuscation, because the traffic is designed to look like ordinary HTTPS. But we have not tested it on a restrictive network. Until we do, treat the VPN for China question as open.

A kill switch blocks your internet if the VPN connection drops. In the Windows and macOS apps, hide.me’s kill switch is firewall-based and on by default. Windows also uses a custom network driver. On mobile, the kill switch works as an always-on VPN connection. StealthGuard goes further by binding selected apps, or the whole connection, to the VPN. Those apps then cannot reach the internet when the tunnel is down.

Split tunneling lets you choose which apps use the VPN and which do not. hide.me offers it in normal and inverse modes on Windows, macOS and Android. That is more platforms than NordVPN, which does not offer it on macOS. It does not cover iOS or Linux.

hide.me has two features that are rare at this price. The first is dynamic port forwarding through UPnP and NAT-PMP, built into the desktop apps. Port forwarding lets other devices connect to yours through the VPN. It matters for seeding torrents and for anyone hosting a service behind the VPN. NordVPN, Surfshark and ExpressVPN do not offer it on standard servers.

The second is full IPv6 support. Every server tunnels IPv6 in dual-stack mode rather than blocking or ignoring it. NordVPN does not do this and says “we do not support IPv6 yet”. Surfshark does not either, and it recommends disabling IPv6 on the device. Run our IPv6 leak test after connecting to confirm both addresses go through the tunnel on your setup.

DNS requests go to hide.me’s own servers, with leak protection in the Windows app. DNS is the system that turns website names into addresses. SmartGuard adds DNS-level filtering of ads, trackers and malware, with parental controls. It works on Windows, macOS, Android and iOS, and it is Premium only.

There is no personal dedicated IP, no Smart DNS and no post-quantum key exchange. A dedicated IP is an address that only you use. Premium includes a pool of “fixed IP” servers shared among users, which is not the same thing. Post-quantum key exchange protects a connection against future quantum computers. hide.me acknowledges this gap. An October 2026 blog post says WireGuard’s default configuration is not post-quantum secure. It also says hide.me’s per-connection pre-shared key is delivered over a classically protected channel. Surfshark, NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Windscribe and IVPN all offer some form of post-quantum protection today.

The network is 2,600-plus servers in 57 countries. The pricing page advertises “92+ locations”. But when we counted the network page on 31 October 2026, it listed 82 city locations, and that is the number in our record. The network page describes the servers as “hand-picked, security-hardened and self-maintained”. It does not say three things that NordVPN and Surfshark document:

• whether hide.me owns the servers
• whether they run only in memory (RAM), which wipes them at every restart
• whether any locations are virtual, meaning the server sits in a different country from the one shown.

hide.me has also never published an audit of its apps or infrastructure, only of its logging policy. Our security score gives credit for a technical audit within the last three years. The comparison table shows these fields side by side for every provider.

Apps and usability

hide.me has apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV and Apple TV. It has browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Edge. Setup guides cover GL.iNet, Asus, MikroTik and FRITZ!Box routers, plus the Vilfo router for per-device split tunneling. It also lists builds for Volla OS, Freifon, Ubuntu Touch, LineageOS and GrapheneOS. No other provider we track matches that list. A Premium plan covers 10 simultaneous connections, and the free plan allows one.

Only the Linux command-line client is described as open source. It is based on WireGuard and published on GitHub. Open-source code is public, so anyone can read and check it. Every other app is closed. With no app audit on record, you are trusting hide.me’s own development process. If that matters to you, look at Proton VPN, Mullvad or IVPN, whose apps are all open source.

There is no Smart DNS product, which is the usual fallback for devices that cannot run a VPN app. So a games console, for example, needs a router setup instead.

The free apps are the same Windows, macOS, Android and iOS clients as the paid ones, plus a free Chrome extension. In them, the streaming-optimized servers, Multihop, Bolt and SmartGuard are switched off. We have not yet published our own usability testing or screenshots. Those will come with the lab described on our how we test page. The feature matrix above reflects what hide.me documents on its official pages as of 31 October 2026.

Support

Support is available 24/7 by live chat, ticket and email. There is also a knowledge base and a community forum. hide.me’s free-VPN page says free users get the same 24/7 technical support as paying customers. Not every provider does this: Proton VPN’s live chat is for paid plans only.

We have not yet measured response times, so the support score reflects availability rather than quality. The refund article adds one procedural rule. You must request a refund in writing by email within the first 30 days. So do not rely on a chat conversation alone if you want your money back.

Plans, the free tier and the renewal guarantee

hide.me sells one Premium tier in three terms. We verified them on its pricing page on 5 November 2026:

• Monthly: $11.99, billed monthly.
• 16 months: 12 months plus 4 extra months, billed $54.99 every 16 months. That works out to $3.44 a month.
• 30 months: 24 months plus 6 extra months, billed $69.99 every 30 months. That works out to $2.33 a month.

These terms come from an offer that started between 2 and 4 November. The site banner reads “Get 30 months for $2.33/mo!”, and the checkout links apply a coupon, so there is no code to type. On 2 November, with no offer running, the same prices bought 13 and 26 months. Until a Halloween campaign ended, between 1 and 2 November, they bought 14 and 28 months.

Plans of 3, 6 and 36 months exist through checkout links. But the pricing page does not show their prices, and the checkout is rendered with JavaScript, so we do not list them. Amounts are in US dollars, and VAT may apply.

The renewal terms are the most unusual thing about hide.me’s pricing. The page carries a “Pricing Guarantee: Your plan always renews with the same price and duration”. The 30-month card adds “Same price, always.” In practice, the 30-month plan renews at $69.99 for another 30 months. Compare that with NordVPN, whose 27-month Basic plan costs $94.23 and renews at $139.08 a year. ExpressVPN’s 28-month plan costs $83.72 and renews at $99.95 a year.

Among the discounters, only Private Internet Access makes the same promise. Its 40-month plan renews at the same $81.20 every three years. CyberGhost renews at the same $61.32, but for 12 months rather than 28.

hide.me’s terms of service list different billing cycles: 30, 180, 365, 730 and 1,095 days. These do not match the 16- and 30-month cycles on the pricing page, and we could not reconcile the two documents. Check the order confirmation for the cycle you are actually on. According to the pricing-page FAQ, existing customers can extend at a promotional price by logging in during checkout.

Our hide.me pricing page tracks every reading. The Black Friday tracker shows it next to the other campaigns.

The money-back guarantee is 30 days on a first order only. The refund article was last modified on 24 March 2026. It sets four conditions:

• you notify hide.me in writing by email within 30 days
• you have not had a refund before
• you have not breached the terms
• the order is your first.

Renewals do not qualify. Refunds can take up to 10 days to arrive. Purchases through Google Play or the Apple App Store follow those stores’ rules instead.

The free plan is the reason many people arrive at hide.me. It is free for life rather than a trial. It needs no registration, email or card, and it shows no ads. hide.me says it never caps data on free accounts. The limits are real, though:

• Speeds are not unlimited. The free page says only Premium users get unrestricted speed.
• You choose from 8 server locations rather than 82.
• One device can connect at a time.
• The streaming-optimized servers, Multihop, Bolt and SmartGuard are Premium only.

The free plan does not auto-renew into anything. We have not yet tested how fast the free servers actually are. Until the lab runs, “not unlimited” is all we can say. Among the other free tiers we track, Proton VPN’s free plan has no data cap but no streaming. Windscribe and PrivadoVPN give 10 GB a month. hide.me is the only one that asks for no account at all.

Who it is for and who should skip it

hide.me suits four kinds of buyer:

• People who want a free VPN with no data cap and no account, and can live with 8 locations and one device.
• Torrent users who need port forwarding, which NordVPN, Surfshark and ExpressVPN do not offer. See our torrenting picks.
• Anyone who has been burned by a renewal that triples the price. Here they can pay $69.99 every 30 months for as long as they stay.
• People on dual-stack or IPv6 networks who want IPv6 tunneled rather than disabled.

Skip it if:

• you need a dedicated IP, because there is none
• you only run open-source clients, since the Linux CLI is the only exception
• you want an app or infrastructure audit on record
• you want the audit schedule that Proton VPN and NordVPN maintain.

Its monthly price of $11.99 is mid-market. If you pay month to month, Proton VPN at $9.99 and Mullvad at $5.60 are cheaper. iOS users who need split tunneling should also look elsewhere, as should Apple TV owners who want a Smart DNS fallback. If you will use the VPN on a heavily censored network, wait for our test results rather than rely on the HTTPS-tunneling claim. If you are choosing mainly on privacy, our privacy picks weigh these factors across every provider.

Alternatives

Proton VPN has the free tier to compare against hide.me’s. It also has no data cap, and it offers one device, servers in 10 countries and no streaming. Its advantages are open-source apps, a Swiss company primarily owned by the non-profit Proton Foundation, and a Securitum no-logs audit every year. The paid Plus plan is $3.49 a month on a 24-month term, or $83.76, and renews at $83.88 a year. It has 21,882 servers in 149 countries and port forwarding. See our Proton VPN review.

Windscribe gives free users 10 GB a month with a confirmed email. It has port forwarding and a warrant canary. The yearly Pro plan costs $5.75 a month, or $69, and renews at the same price. But it offers only a 7-day refund, and it has two server seizures and a dismissed criminal case on record. See our Windscribe review.

Surfshark costs $2.49 a month on its 27-month Black Friday plan, or $67.23 in total. It allows unlimited devices and has two Deloitte no-logs reports, from 2023 and 2025. But it has no port forwarding, it dropped Smart DNS in February 2026, and it does not state its renewal price. See our Surfshark review.

PrivadoVPN undercuts hide.me at $1.11 a month for 27 months, with a 10 GB free tier. But it has no audit of any kind, no transparency report and no live chat. See our PrivadoVPN review. The comparison hub lays all of these out field by field. Every provider we track is listed on the reviews hub.

How we verified this review

Every price, plan term, renewal statement, server count and feature on this page was read from hide.me’s official pages on 31 October 2026. We used the pricing page, the free-VPN page, the network page, the protocols and apps pages, the privacy policy, the legal page and the money-back guarantee article. hide.me returned an error to our automated fetcher. So we loaded the pages with a plain request and read the saved HTML.

Audit details come from the Securitum report that hide.me publishes. The 2015 certification is recorded as a claim, because no report is linked. We have not run speed or streaming tests. That is why speed is left out of the score and every streaming entry above is marked as the provider’s claim. The data record behind this page is public. Our methodology explains how each part of the score works.