Proton VPN Review

Community-sourced VPN review based on real Reddit & Twitter discussions

Visit Proton VPN
Community Verdict
Recommended

Proton VPN has a solid reputation as a privacy-focused VPN, and a lot of people like it because it feels trustworthy and reliable day to day. The free plan gets praised a lot as one of the better “act...

71%
positive
1,012
reviews
Best for: People who want a good free VPN that doesn’t feel sketchy Privacy-focused users who like the Proton ecosystem Folks who want optional anonymous payments Everyday users who want a reliable VPN for general browsing
71% Positive Reviews
493 recommend, 203 warn
High Data Quality
1012 reviews from 836 people
Best For
People who want a good free VPN that doesn’t feel sketchy, Privacy-focused users who like the Proton ecosystem, Folks who want optional anonymous payments
Approval Rate
71% positive
493 recommend · 203 warn
Reviews
1,012
411 Reddit · 552 Twitter
Unique Reviewers
836
Data Quality
High

What the Community Says

Community Rating 7.5/10

Proton VPN has a solid reputation as a privacy-focused VPN, and a lot of people like it because it feels trustworthy and reliable day to day. The free plan gets praised a lot as one of the better “actually usable” free options, and the paid plan is often mentioned as a good pick if you care about things like no-logs, audits, and even anonymous payment options. It also comes up often alongside other privacy tools (like Proton Mail), which makes it appealing if you want everything under one roof.

The biggest complaint is speed: some people switch over from other VPNs and find Proton noticeably slower, especially depending on the server. A few also don’t love how certain torrenting setups work, since things like port forwarding can be a bit annoying to manage if the port changes when you reconnect. And while many trust Proton more than typical “affiliate-list” VPNs, there’s still a slice of people who are skeptical or just prefer competitors like Mullvad.

Strengths

  • Strong privacy reputation
  • Best-in-class free tier
  • No-logs and audit-focused image
  • Anonymous payment options
  • Good reliability overall

Weaknesses

  • Can be slower than competitors
  • Port forwarding can be annoying for torrenting setups
  • Auto-connect behavior can be frustrating
  • Not everyone trusts it as much as top privacy rivals
Best for: People who want a good free VPN that doesn’t feel sketchy Privacy-focused users who like the Proton ecosystem Folks who want optional anonymous payments Everyday users who want a reliable VPN for general browsing
Not ideal for: People who need consistently top speeds for gaming or heavy downloads Torrent users who want a set-it-and-forget-it port forwarding setup Anyone who’s extremely picky and would rather stick with Mullvad-style simplicity

Summary generated 1 week ago from 1012 community mentions

Reviews about "Fast Speeds"

10 reviews

"@shanrocksnwa Proton free VPN is good and fast"

@gingerlegs747 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"@firasmodad Use Proton free VPN. Always works for me. Connect to the Netherlands or any EU for fast internet"

@mtpcrunner 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"@ProtonVPN That sneak private tracker looking at this post like 👀 I've to confess, I expected Proton VPN to suck ass based on my experience of the past, but being able to see 20GB "flying" in just 5min, I mean 🫶😌 Protect this service at all costs."

@Hakun4M4t4t4 2 weeks ago View on Twitter →

"...still am with few thousands spent 🤣 Then got introduced to private trackers, dude, 20GB in 5 minutes. It's unreal, and everything is routed via Proton VPN, no VPN = No goodies!"

@Hakun4M4t4t4 2 weeks ago View on Twitter →

"You're not wrong, they're just not telling you the whole story 😉 A VPN does hide your traffic from your ISP, but now that encrypted traffic is just visible to your VPN provider instead . So the real question becomes: who do you trust more? Based on their public posture, Proton is one of the better answers. They're Swiss-based, which has strong privacy laws outside major surveillance alliances..."

@LYRASTARCORE 2 weeks ago View on Twitter →

"Been using #ProtonVPN for a while now, and for me, I'm getting faster speeds than I did with #ExpressVPN"

@bernhardhimself 2 weeks ago View on Twitter →

"@TradFidiGuy @ReclaimTheNetHQ Also, Proton VPN has a free version Paid proton performance is better"

@DaveFred311115 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"@T3chFalcon Proton has probably the most locked in no-log policy of all the VPNs, but their speed is not as fast as other VPN providers (Prob 30-50% less in some cases). IIRC the USA pressured the Swiss government that then pressured Proton to share the logs of someone and Proton said no."

@NodalSavage 2 weeks ago View on Twitter →

"Proton's products are very good, but their fear mongering media campaigns are bad. As well as that they continue doing business with russians, including hosting VPN servers there. Once it connected me to the belarusian server as "fastest country". To give me more surveillance 🤷"

@andrewf 2 weeks ago View on Twitter →

"...VPN. It's truly anonymous. No email needed, you can even pay in cash if you want. No logs. I get way better download speeds with them than I did with Proton VPN, which slowed to a halt after about 2gb. Based in Sweden 🐐 €5 about $5.50 per month. Worth it!"

@ItsCass9 2 weeks ago View on Twitter →