ExpressVPN vs IPVanish

Overall winner

ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN is the clear winner of this head-to-head with IPVanish VPN. IPVanish does have some advantages. For example, it’s cheaper, and it lets you connect more than five devices. However, if you care about privacy or unblocking geo-restricted content — two major reasons to use a VPN — there’s really no contest. ExpressVPN is better.

Remember, ExpressVPN has a 30-day money-back guarantee, and IPVanish VPN has a 7-day money-back guarantee. Give them a try, and see which work is right for you.

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Pricing

IPVanish is cheaper than ExpressVPN on every plan. 

IPVanish and ExpressVPN both offer discounts on their mid-term plans (which is a three-month plan for IPVanish, and a six-month plan for ExpressVPN).

But the one-year plan is where the price difference opens up — IPVanish is less than half the price of ExpressVPN if you pay for a year up-front.

This is a big commitment, but both brands offer a money-back guarantee period — so, as long as you remember to cancel within the refund period, there’s no risk involved.

Winner: IPVanish

IPVanish is much cheaper than ExpressVPN, especially on its long-term one-year plan.

Features

One great feature of IPVanish is that it lets you add up to 10 devices to your account. This is double the number offered by ExpressVPN. 

ExpressVPN comes with browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. These are really useful as they provide quick and easy access to your VPN connection when browsing the web. Unfortunately — and unusually for a VPN — IPVanish doesn’t provide any browser extensions at all.

ExpressVPN offers split tunneling for its desktop apps, and IPVanish offers it for its Android app. Split tunneling means you can allow certain apps to bypass your VPN connection. So, for example, you can stream video at high speed via your normal ISP connection while browsing the web privately via your VPN.

Both companies offer bonus features — ExpressVPN includes a built-in speed test, which is quite useful if you’re trying to find the best server for streaming or torrenting. IPVanish provides 250 GB cloud storage for its 1-year plan subscribers. This is a really good incentive to sign up for that plan.

Winner: Tie

There are big differences between the features these brands have to offer. However, it’s hard to say which feature set is “better.” ExpressVPN’s browser extensions are a real bonus for this brand. However, if you need to use the VPN on more than five devices, consider IPVanish.

Security

Both ExpressVPN and IPVanish provide access to the same broad range of VPN protocols. They both support AES 256-bit encryption for user data. This is a very high encryption standard and is pretty much universal among VPN services.

ExpressVPN encrypts its control channel to RSA-4096, whereas IPVanish uses RSA-2048. This doesn’t mean that IPVanish is insecure — no one has yet managed to crack RSA-2048. However, progress is gradually being made towards doing so, and it’s good that ExpressVPN has this added level of security for the future. 

Both VPN providers feature a “killswitch.” This provides protection against accidental data leaks by cutting your internet connection if your VPN drops out.

As far as we know, neither ExpressVPN or IPVanish has ever suffered a data breach. However, IPVanish did have a worrying privacy-related incident which we will discuss in the “Privacy” section below.

Winner: ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN wins our “Security” round. It has a slight edge over IPVanish due to its higher-grade control channel encryption.

Speed & servers

Many VPN providers claim that they are the fastest. The reason they can all make this claim is because, in certain places, at certain times, and under certain circumstances, they could provide the fastest download speed. But there are too many variables to really gauge which VPN provider is the fastest overall.

A more meaningful measure is to look at the number of server locations each VPN service has. ExpressVPN is the clear winner in this respect.

Not only does ExpressVPN have servers in far more countries than IPVanish, it also has more than double the total number of servers. This means it can provide a more reliable and, most likely, faster service to a greater number of people.

Winner: ExpressVPN

ExpressVPN has more servers in more locations, and is therefore likely to be faster and more reliable than IPVanish for the average user.

Privacy

Privacy is different from security. We know these VPN providers can keep your data safe as it flows through their servers. So far, neither has fallen victim to hackers. But, for a number of reasons, some VPN providers intentionally store and share private user data.

Both ExpressVPN and IPVanish claim to have a no-logs policy, meaning that they don’t store information about their users’ IP addresses or their online activity. 

ExpressVPN does log certain aggregate data about server connections for maintenance purposes. The company states that this data could not be used to identify individual users, and this claim is plausible.

As for IPVanish, there is a good reason to be concerned about this company’s privacy practices. In 2016, IPVanish handed over the personal information of one of its users to the US Department of Homeland Security.

This incident exposed the company’s logging policy as being apparently untrustworthy. But in defense of IPVanish, the company was under different ownership at the time. The company’s new owners have distanced themselves from the incident and vow not to keep any logs.

However, it’s also important to note that, unlike ExpressVPN, IPVanish does not accept anonymous payment methods such as Bitcoin or other cryptocurrencies. This could, in theory, make it easier for authorities to trace an individual user’s identity.

Winner: ExpressVPN

You should not use a VPN to engage in any illegal activity. However, you still have a right to privacy, and ExpressVPN has a much better track record of keeping its users’ data private.

Content unblocking

Want to use your VPN to view censored or geo-restricted content? Connect to a server located in a country of your choosing, and you should be able to see the web and watch streaming services just as people in that country.

Unfortunately, it’s not quite that simple. Netflix and other online services spend a lot of time and money trying to block VPN users from streaming content outside of their region. And some VPN providers are better at getting around these blocks than others.

ExpressVPN is easily one of the best VPN providers when it comes to unblocking online content. Users can access all major streaming services in regions all over the world. IPVanish simply doesn’t compare. It struggles to unblock even relatively “easy” platforms like Hulu.

Winner: ExpressVPN

If you want to watch restricted online content, don’t bother with IPVanish VPN — ExpressVPN is the best on the market.