CyberGhost vs PureVPN

Overall winner

CyberGhost

CyberGhost emerges as the clear winner of its head-to-head with PureVPN. CyberGhost offers a great value three-year plan, an unblemished privacy record, and top-of-the-range unblocking capabilities. However, remember that PureVPN is still an excellent product — one of the best VPN providers on the market. PureVPN is also cheaper than CyberGhost.

If you want to try either — or both — of these excellent VPN services, you can do so without risk as both companies have a no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee period.

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Pricing

Both cost and flexibility are important factors when assessing a VPN provider’s pricing.

Comparing pricing between CyberGhost VPN and PureVPN is actually a little complicated.

Across its monthly plan, one-year plan, and two-year plan, PureVPN is cheaper. However, CyberGhost VPN also offers a three-year plan, which PureVPN does not. CyberGhost’s three-year plan works out cheaper than any of PureVPN’s plans on a monthly basis.

While these longer plans might seem like a long-term commitment and a large up-front cost, remember that both brands offer a money-back guarantee across all plans. It’s worth noting that CyberGhost VPN’s 45-day money-back guarantee is nearly 50 percent longer than PureVPN’s, which stands at 31 days.

Also, CyberGhost VPN allows seven simultaneous connections per subscription — two more than ExpressVPN. If you need to use your VPN across more than five devices, then CyberGhost VPN will work out a lot cheaper.

Winner: Tie

Both these VPN services are great value — and while PureVPN is cheaper across most plans, CyberGhost VPN offers an amazing discount on its three-year plan.

Features

CyberGhost VPN allows up to seven simultaneous connections, allowing you to access the VPN on seven different devices on one account. PureVPN only offers up to five simultaneous connections.

CyberGhost VPN and PureVPN offer native desktop and mobile apps. These apps work perfectly on every platform. Both companies offer browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox. Mac users should note that neither brand offers a Safari extension.

PureVPN offers “split tunneling” across platforms, whereas CyberGhost VPN only offers it on Android. Split tunneling enables you to separate your network traffic so that some apps route data through the VPN while others bypass it. This allows, for example, torrenting via your VPN while browsing the web via your normal ISP.

Both CyberGhost VPN and PureVPN provide free anti-malware and ad-blocker products. These applications are a nice bonus — and, in both cases, they work better than many of the free antivirus software products available online.

Winner: CyberGhost

CyberGhost VPN wins this round, due to the generous number of simultaneous connections it allows. However, if you’re interested in split tunneling, and you don’t have seven devices on which you need to install a VPN, consider PureVPN instead.

Security

Both VPNs let you connect via several different VPN protocols, which offer different levels of speed, reliability, and security. PureVPN offers a greater number of options, including PPTP and SSTP. However, these particular protocols are somewhat outdated and are not recommended. Both brands use industry-standard 256-bit encryption.

CyberGhost VPN encrypts its “control channel” a higher standard than PureVPN. The control channel protects certain authentication and connection data. There’s nothing wrong with PureVPN’s RSA-2048 algorithm, but some people believe that CyberGhost VPN’s RSA-4096 algorithm is literally uncrackable.

Both companies provide a “killswitch,” which cuts your internet connection if your VPN drops out, preventing you from accidentally exposing your online activity to your ISP. CyberGhost VPN’s killswitch is always on, which provides an extra layer of protection against accidental data leaks.

PureVPN did suffer a worrying incident in March 2018, when IP address data stored on the company’s servers was compromised. As far as we know, CyberGhost VPN has never suffered a data breach.

Winner: CyberGhost

CyberGhost VPN beats PureVPN in terms of security due to its higher control channel encryption level and flawless data protection record.

Speed & servers

Both companies provide a very fast VPN connection. But whose is the fastest? Well, that’s a tricky question. Many different factors determine the speed of a VPN connection, including your location, the VPN server’s location, and the host website or resource’s location.

CyberGhost VPN and PureVPN are two of the fastest VPN providers on the market. It’s very hard to say which is fastest on a given day, in a given place.

PureVPN lets users connect to servers across more than 140 countries — over 60 percent more countries than CyberGhost VPN. However, CyberGhost VPN has over 6100 servers. This is a lot of servers, which could mean a faster and more reliable connection — particularly if you live in a country such as the United States, which contains a lot of CyberGhost’s servers.

Winner: CyberGhost

Both of these VPN services provide fast speeds and a wide range of virtual locations. However, mostly due to its extremely large number of servers, CyberGhost VPN wins this round.

Privacy

VPN users expect total privacy — both from their ISP and from state interference. But using a VPN means putting a lot of trust in the VPN provider, which could — in theory — view all the network traffic passing through its servers.

Neither CyberGhost VPN nor PureVPN maintains activity or connection logs. This means that they don’t store data about individual users’ online activity, IP address, or location when using the VPN.

Officially, PureVPN has a total “no logs” policy. However, in 2017, PureVPN allegedly handed over logs to the FBI that were then used as evidence in a cyberstalking trial. This brought PureVPN’s Privacy Policy into doubt at the time.

CyberGhost VPN has an optional diagnostics reporting feature which lets its tech team diagnose connectivity issues. It’s hard to see how this could reveal any individual user behavior, but it is important to opt-out of this process if you’re concerned.

Both companies require an email address at signup, but you can pay via Bitcoin if you wish to maintain anonymity. PureVPN also accepts a wide range of “altcoins.”.

CyberGhost VPN is based in Romania. Despite being within the EU, Romania has stood firm against the EU’s data retention laws. There is an ongoing tension between Romania and the EU on this issue, and it is possible that Romanian VPN providers will be forced to retain user data in the future.

PureVPN is based in Hong Kong. This is also a privacy-respecting jurisdiction. However, it would be wise to consider the growing influence of China, which could have a detrimental impact on online privacy in Hong Kong.

Winner: CyberGhost

Both companies offer a highly private VPN service. However, the 2017 “cyberstalking” case damaged PureVPN’s privacy reputation, and so the winner of this round is CyberGhost VPN.

Content unblocking

VPNs let you redirect your network traffic via a server in another country. This “tricks” websites and online services into believing you are physically located in that country. This can be helpful for accessing online content that is unavailable in your actual location.

Trying to access streaming services via VPN can be a little “hit and miss,” because companies such as Netflix try to block commonly-used IP addresses. The best VPN providers have a lot of servers and can usually offer their users reasonably reliable access.

CyberGhost VPN and PureVPN both have very good unblocking capabilities. But CyberGhost VPN is exceptional in this area. It consistently unblocks a wide range of content in many different regions. PureVPN cannot reliably access certain stubborn platforms such as BBC iPlayer. 

Winner: CyberGhost

CyberGhost VPN wins this round — it’s easily one of the best content-unblocking VPNs on the market.