Proton VPN Review

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

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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 "China Gfw"

11 reviews

"...e an issue; and if it is, I doubt it is significant. I've never had fundamental speed problems with Proton VPN. Obviously it may be different for you. But as others have said, just try. I suspect many complain about Proton are using the Fre..."

r/vpn_question 1 week ago View on Reddit →

"When in china last november, I used proton vpn. its free and it worked. My friends tried to use other paid VPN when using Wifi. but seems like proton works better for us"

r/travelchina 1 month ago View on Reddit →

"Just got back from Chengdu and Chongqing. Read on a lot of threads that Proton VPN wasn't working in China, NordVPN did the job. Took a 30 days free VPN for the holiday... NordVPN didn't allow me to connect to any server. Funny enough Proto..."

r/chinalife 1 month ago View on Reddit →

"Currently in China and I’m having no issues at all with Proton. Just pressed fastest country and connected straight away to a Singapore server."

r/travelchina 1 month ago View on Reddit →

"I had zero problems with China Unicom sim (in a dual sim setup) with ProtonVPN last time. But it could always change. An additional trip eSim is cheap, you might end up being very happy having redundancy"

r/travelchina 2 weeks ago View on Reddit →

"Proton worked fine for me when I was there a month back. Stayed for a month. But the best VPN is still LetsVPN, just use that one on “Hong Kong” servers. It has always worked for me, even Chinese people use it"

r/travelchina 1 month ago View on Reddit →

"@mattfle02898557 @A1an_M ProtonVPN, MullVad or SurfShark + Fake email address (via protonmail etc) VPS with own VPN is still valid, but extreme and unnecessary for most users - until of course VPN's themselves come under REAL scrutiny, but even China has problems controlling offshort VPNs"

@DaveFred311115 1 week ago View on Twitter →

"Octohide VPN is basically a better version of Proton. Its free, audited, has no registration, and IT WORKS in China because of the Vless+reality protocol."

r/travelchina 4 weeks ago View on Reddit →

"...anecdotal evidence that our service does at least sometimes work in China, we cannot guarantee that Proton VPN will work in mainland China (it works in Hong Kong)." [https://protonvpn.com/support/does-protonvpn-work-in-china](https://proto..."

r/travelchina 1 month ago View on Reddit →

"I'll second this, I live in Beijing and I've tried Proton a few times. It doesn't work. Maybe it works in other cities (you could get a doctoral degree in which vpns can be used where in China) but it definitely doesn't here."

r/travelchina 1 month ago View on Reddit →

"Proton VPN does NOT work in China The proton bots have been out in full force spreading disinformation that proton VPN is a workable VPN solution in China and also downvoting people (including myself) who speak the truth that proton VPN do..."

r/travelchina 1 month ago View on Reddit →