Head to head
The gap
The security score is not a total of good things. It starts at 100 and eight channels each take a share of what is left, so one channel can settle a record on its own. Both records are drawn here on the same scale — the model’s own cap of 0.9 — rather than on a scale fitted to this pair, which would make every comparison look equally dramatic.
Line by line
Every field the contract publishes about a provider, in the contract’s own groups, including the rows where the two agree — a table that printed only differences would invent a disagreement, and one that printed only the interesting rows would be us choosing what is interesting. Open a group to read its rows; each one says how many it holds and how many of them the two records answer differently.
A green cell means the methodology itself prices that value below the other one, not that we prefer it. Rows the model does not price carry no mark at all: price is never marked, because nothing in the model says cheaper is safer, and neither is coverage, platform count or devices. Where a value was never established the cell says so instead of showing a zero.
What actually happened
Other pairs
Pairs within the top ten get a page — 80 comparisons in all. Records below that are not paired here: a comparison earns a page where the choice between the two is a real one, and that choice is made near the top of the register.
Security
Usability
Rank 4 of 68 in the register
Italy · Commercial VPN
Exits in 23 countries
Security
Usability
Rank 21 of 68 in the register
Canada · Commercial VPN
Country list not published
3 documented demands, none of which produced data
1 documented demand, none of which produced data
Notes
On the record as a whole.
AirVPN is a sole proprietorship ("AirVPN di Paolo Brini") registered in Perugia, Italy, and explicitly refuses service to residents of Italy (stated on every page footer and in the Terms of Service §1) — the practical effect is that its own home jurisdiction cannot compel it to log its own resident customers, though this is not evidence of a broader logging-mandate exemption.
AirVPN prices only in EUR (airvpn.org/buy/): 7.00 EUR/month, 49 EUR/year (4.08 EUR/month), flat on renewal. U04_price_monthly (8.11) is 7.00 EUR/month and U04b_price_yearly (56.74) is the 49 EUR/year total, both converted to USD at 1.158 EUR/USD — the rate Mullvad publishes on its own pricing page for the same date, where 5 EUR is shown as 5.79 USD — hence confidence C and a second source for the rate. Multi-year plans drop as low as 2.75 EUR/month.
A notable practice data point: public US federal court transcripts in United States v. Klyushin (D. Mass., docket 61629108, documents #183 and #217, found via CourtListener/RECAP) show a law-enforcement pen register was placed directly at the hosting company (DediPath), not at AirVPN, to monitor an AirVPN server's IP from Jan–Feb 2020; AirVPN's own staff, replying on their forum, confirmed the company had no knowledge of or involvement in the tap and that the device had to be installed outside AirVPN's own systems.
This is recorded in P12_case_history as a court_order/nothing_produced event, sourced to AirVPN's own forum confirmation (not to the PACER PDFs themselves, which returned 403 to automated fetches and were read only via a secondary summary).
On the record as a whole.
Three separate demands in three jurisdictions, none of which produced data, and all three dated. This is the record the practice route was built to price: it outweighs the audit, which is a pentest rather than a no-logs engagement.
U08 is desktop_only on Windscribe's own feature page: the Firewall ships in the Windows, Mac and Linux apps, and on Android and iOS the page directs the user to the operating system's own Always-On VPN instead. That is a platform feature rather than the provider's, which is the distinction the field is counting.
U12b is partial on the same basis — the marketing page promises unblocking, while the support article states the company cannot guarantee that all streaming services will work and a second article attributes Netflix showing only Originals to Netflix's own VPN detection.
Open questions
Still open on this record.
Retention, unchecked by anyone. No independent audit has ever been commissioned (V01=no, based on consensus among reviewers and the absence of any AirVPN announcement of one, rather than a primary AirVPN denial) — retention (C01) rests entirely on the provider's own privacy notice, never checked by an outside party.
No transparency report, no canary. No transparency report of government/legal requests and no warrant canary could be found on airvpn.org (P05, P07 unknown) — the site does publish periodic 'mission' reports, but those cover donations to NGOs, not law-enforcement requests, so they do not establish P05.
What the forum threads show. Forum threads show users repeatedly asking AirVPN for a warrant canary with no confirmation from staff that one exists, which is suggestive but not a primary denial, so P07 stays unknown rather than 'none'.
Counts nobody publishes. Request/data-handover counts are consequently also unknown (P08, P09), and total subscriber count is never disclosed (M08 unknown) — AirVPN publishes only a live concurrently-connected-users counter, not a registered-user or subscriber total, so silence/ignorance carry real weight here.
Builds and pentests. Reproducible builds are not documented on AirVPN's own build-from-source page (eddie.website/support/build/), and no dedicated client/infrastructure pentest could be found (V13, V14 unknown). Kill switch scope and split-tunneling behaviour are sourced to a third-party review rather than AirVPN's own documentation (U08, U09 at confidence C) because the relevant FAQ pages could not be reached directly through the site's routing (they render via JavaScript and returned only a loading shell to a plain fetch).
Coverage outside the affiliates. Press coverage is not affiliate-only: BleepingComputer, a mainstream outlet outside the affiliate-aggregator list, has published an independent review carrying its own affiliate-disclosure notice rather than being confined to affiliate directories (X08=no). Its same review also found AirVPN failed every streaming service it tried — Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, ABC, NBC, CBS — which is why U12b_streaming_works now reads no rather than the addictivetips.com-sourced partial it carried before that host was ruled forbidden.
The yearly price. U04b_price_yearly=4.08 is the EUR effective-monthly rate of the one-year plan (49 EUR/year) on airvpn.org/buy/, flat on renewal like every AirVPN term.
The wordmark. AirVPN serves its wordmark only as PNG (/static/img/logo/web_header.png, logo_horiz.png) and has no press or brand page, so logos/airvpn.svg is left absent per AUDITOR.md §1 rather than tracing a raster.
Still open on this record.
What the pentest found. The security score rests on the June 2024 Packetlabs report and reads it in the negative direction. The penetration test found the IKEv2 service storing the origin IP of connecting users along with session start and stop times, in volatile memory and also on disk, and microservice logs carrying OpenVPN credentials, WireGuard pre-shared keys and IKEv2 usernames.
The retest, and its own caveat. The retest three weeks later verified all of it remediated — but the report's own conclusion states that this "does not cover every discovery noted within the finding", and attributes part of the finding to configuration improperly deployed on the test node.
Why retention is priced on the finding. Retention is therefore priced on what an auditor demonstrated was reachable rather than on what the policy declares, and the integrity channel carries the distance between the two. Read that as a two-year-old finding on one node, not as a current measurement: the scope was ca-023.windscribe.com alone, and a newer engagement covering more of the fleet is what would settle it.
The list that was never read. The offered country list was never read, so neither the usability country score nor the mandate intersection can be computed — Windscribe publishes a physical/virtual distinction, which makes C09b answerable here as soon as the list is. User scale is also unestablished, which leaves the exposure band resting on less than it should.
Where the three events now cite from. AIN.UA still carries the Ukrainian servers taken on 24 June 2021, and Windscribe's own blog the Greek case dismissed on 11 April 2025. The Dutch seizure and the seizure field itself now cite Windscribe's own no-logs page rather than the affiliate-paid press that first reported it: a company account of its own seizure is primary, not somebody else's account of one. The Ukrainian event is dated to the seizure itself, not the write-up.
Recent changes
12 Sep 20265 changes
Major streaming services reachableU12b_streaming_works
partial changed to no
Usability scoreusability.score
60 changed to 57
Security scoresecurity.score
40 changed to 37
Monthly price USD, month-to-month plan, as chargedU04_price_monthly
8.11 changed to 8.12
Yearly plan price USD, first term as chargedU04b_price_yearly
56.74 changed to 56.84
13 Sep 20261 changes
Why this provider is in the catalogueM14_inclusion_basis
hand_picked changed to adverse_record
12 Sep 20264 changes
Platforms with a clientU01_platforms
android, browser-extension, ios, linux, macos, windows changed to android, apple-tv, browser-extension, fire-tv, ios, linux, macos, routers, windows
Usability scoreusability.score
65 changed to 68
Chronology of documented enforcement eventsP12_case_history
{"date":"2021-06","kind":"seizure","outcome":"nothing_produced","source_url":"https://en.ain.ua/2021/07/28/ukrainian-authorities-seize-windscribe-vpn-servers/"}, {"date":"2025-04","kind":"court_order","outcome":"nothing_produced","source_url":"https://windscribe.com/blog/windscribe-greek-court-case/"}, {"date":"2026-02","kind":"seizure","outcome":"nothing_produced","source_url":"https://www.tomshardware.com/software/vpn/dutch-authorities-allegedly-seize-vpn-server-without-a-warrant-company-claims-that-law-enforcement-will-return-it-after-analyzing-the-device-fully"} changed to {"date":"2021-06","kind":"seizure","outcome":"nothing_produced","source_url":"https://en.ain.ua/2021/07/28/ukrainian-authorities-seize-windscribe-vpn-servers/"}, {"date":"2025-04","kind":"court_order","outcome":"nothing_produced","source_url":"https://windscribe.com/blog/windscribe-greek-court-case/"}, {"date":"2026-02","kind":"seizure","outcome":"nothing_produced","source_url":"https://windscribe.com/features/no-identifying-logs"}
Security scoresecurity.score
12 changed to 11
AirVPN and Windscribe were assessed by the HushFleet team: AirVPN scores 37/100 for security, in the Weak band, and Windscribe 11/100, in the Not recommended band. They share independent ownership and sign-up without an account. The 26-point gap opens widest on Retention — “Does a record exist that links traffic to a person, and who checked?” — taking 35% from AirVPN and 75% from Windscribe.
| ChannelPressure taken from what was left | AirVPNDominant channel: Retention0 to 0.9, longer is worse | WindscribeDominant channel: Retention0 to 0.9, longer is worse |
|---|---|---|
| RetentionDoes a record exist that links traffic to a person, and who checked? | 0.349 | 0.750 |
| IntegrityHas it been caught saying one thing and doing another? | 0.000 | 0.320 |
| SilenceTen years, millions of users and nothing on record? | 0.240 | 0.000 |
| IgnoranceHow much of this did nobody establish? | 0.162 | 0.104 |
| JurisdictionCan someone compel what exists, without the provider getting a say? | 0.000 | 0.145 |
| HygieneWhat identifying material is collected in passing, and can the client be checked at all? | 0.066 | 0.083 |
| ArchitectureWho operates the exit, and what does it do to the traffic? | 0.050 | 0.050 |
| DisclosureHas it already handed something over? | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| What is left of 100The channels multiply: each one takes a share of what the one before it left standing | 37 | 11 |
By circumstance
| AirVPN | Windscribe | |
|---|---|---|
| Torrenting | Allowed yes | Allowed on some servers partial |
| Streaming | Not reachable no | Some services reachable partial |
| Devices at once | 5 | — not established |
| Under censorship | Claimed to work claimed | Claimed to work claimed |
| Exits in mandate countries | None | — not established |
| Hosting in those countries | — the question does not arise | — not established |
| Company under a mandate | No such mandate no | No such mandate no |
| Secret orders | Orders go through a judge judicial_only | Secret orders are possible secret_order_possible |
| AirVPN | Windscribe | |
|---|---|---|
| Security | 37 weak · rank 4 of 68 | 11 not recommended · rank 21 of 68 |
| Usability | 57 out of 100 | 68 out of 100 |
| Record completeness | 82% usability 100% | 84% usability 83% |
| AirVPN | Windscribe | |
|---|---|---|
| Who operates the exit | Run by the provider itself provider_operated | Run by the provider itself provider_operated |
| Retention as declared | Nothing that links traffic to a person none_linkableBairvpn.org · | Connection timestamps connection_timestampsBwindscribe.com · |
| RAM-only diskless servers | Yes, on the provider's word yes_declaredBairvpn.org · | Part of the fleet partialAdrive.google.com · |
| IP allocation model | Exit address shared between users sharedCairvpn.org · | Dedicated address offered as an option dedicated_optionBwindscribe.com · |
| Signup without email | Yes, on the provider's word yes_declared | Yes, on the provider's word yes_declared |
| Anonymous payment options | Cryptocurrency paid directlyBairvpn.org · | Cryptocurrency through a processorBwindscribe.com · |
| Own DNS inside the tunnel | Yes, on the provider's word yes_declared | Yes, on the provider's word yes_declared |
| Worst third-party SDK category in the app | No third-party SDK none | No third-party SDK none |
| Worst third-party tracker category on the site | No third-party tracker noneBairvpn.org · | — not establishedno source published |
| Who owns the hardware | Rented from third parties rentedCairvpn.org · | Owned and rented both mixedBwindscribe.com · |
| Offered countries that sit under a logging mandate | NoneBairvpn.org · | — not establishedno source published |
| Hosting in the mandate countries it offers | — the question does not ariseno source published | — not establishedno source published |
| Incorporation country mandates retention | No such mandate no | No such mandate no |
| Beneficial owner sits under a retention regime | No such regime no | No such regime no |
| Persistent device identifier | None held noneBplay.google.com · | An identifier scoped to the app app_scoped_idBplay.google.com · |
| Weakest protocol still offered | — the question does not arise | — the question does not arise |
| What the exit does to passing traffic | — not established | — not established |
| AirVPN | Windscribe | |
|---|---|---|
| At least one independent audit | No independent audit noCbleepingcomputer.com · | Yes, and the report was read yes_verifiedAdrive.google.com · |
| How the report is published | — the question does not ariseno source published | The full report is published full_pdfAdrive.google.com · |
| Subject of the audit | — the question does not ariseno source published | The infrastructure · The app's securityAdrive.google.com · 2 sources · |
| Server fleet coverage |
| AirVPN | Windscribe | |
|---|---|---|
| Server seizure by law enforcement | No seizure on record none_knownno source published · | Seized, and nothing usable was on it seizure_no_dataBwindscribe.com · |
| Actual disclosure history | No disclosure on record none_known | No disclosure on record none_known |
| Court record of compelled production | No court record none_knownno source published · | Told a court it had nothing to produce unable_to_produceBwindscribe.com · |
| Response to a national logging mandate | Was never present in that country no_presenceno source published · | — not establishedno source published |
| AirVPN | Windscribe | |
|---|---|---|
| Documented gap between claim and behaviour | No documented lie none | No documented lie none |
| Marketing against audit findings | — the question does not ariseno source published | The policy contradicts the audit policy_contradicts_auditBdrive.google.com · 2 sources · |
| Ownership structure transparency | Ownership is stated and checkable clear | Ownership is stated and checkable clear |
| Adverse events on the owner group record | Nothing adverse on record clean | Nothing adverse on record clean |
| How the service is paid for | Paid subscriptions only paid_onlyBairvpn.org · | A free tier funded by the paid one freemium_funded |
| AirVPN | Windscribe | |
|---|---|---|
| Legal entity | AirVPN di Paolo Brini — Via Sagittario 4, Perugia (PG), Italy. VAT ID IT03297800546, REA PG-279011 (individual/sole-proprietor enterprise)Bairvpn.org · | Windscribe Limited, Toronto, Ontario, CanadaBwindscribe.com · |
| Where the company sits | Italy ITBairvpn.org · | Canada CABwindscribe.com · |
| Year the service launched | 2010Bairvpn.org · | 2016Bwindscribe.com · |
| AirVPN | Windscribe | |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms with a client | 8 Android, Android TV, Fire TV, iOS, Linux, macOS, Routers, WindowsBairvpn.org · | 9 Android, Apple TV, Browser extension, Fire TV, iOS, Linux, macOS, Routers, WindowsBwindscribe.com · |
| Countries with an exit | 23 countriesBairvpn.org · | — not establishedno source published |
| Paying monthly | $8.11 per monthCairvpn.org · 2 sources · | $9.00 per monthBwindscribe.com · |
| Paying yearly | $56.74 |
| — the question does not ariseno source published |
A sample of servers sampleAdrive.google.com · |
| Auditor name | — the question does not ariseno source published | Packetlabs (June 2024 retest, one production node); Leviathan Security Group (desktop 2021, mobile 2022)Adrive.google.com · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Auditor category | — the question does not ariseno source published | A security specialist security_specialistAdrive.google.com · |
|---|
| Assurance standard | — the question does not ariseno source published | No standard stated noneAdrive.google.com · |
|---|
| Date of latest report | — the question does not ariseno source published | 2024-06-26Adrive.google.com · |
|---|
| Audit cadence | — the question does not ariseno source published | Repeated, at no fixed interval repeated_irregularBwindscribe.com · |
|---|
| Total published audits | 0Cbleepingcomputer.com · | 3Bwindscribe.com · |
|---|
| Retention as the report states it | — the question does not ariseno source published | Source IP address source_ipAdrive.google.com · |
|---|
| Client source code published | Every client all | Every client all |
|---|
| Reproducible builds | — not established | — not established |
|---|
| Separate pentest | — not establishedno source published | Yes, and the report was read yes_verifiedAdrive.google.com · |
|---|
| Strength of the assurance opinion | — the question does not ariseno source published | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
| Transparency report |
|---|
| — not establishedno source published |
Current, with request numbers fresh_with_numbersBwindscribe.com · |
| Reported numbers plausible for this scale | — the question does not ariseno source published | The numbers are plausible at this scale plausibleBwindscribe.com · |
|---|
| Warrant canary discipline | — not establishedno source published | Never had one noneBwindscribe.com · |
|---|
| Requests received | — not established | — not established |
|---|
| Requests that produced data | — not establishedno source published | 0Bwindscribe.com · |
|---|
| Secret-order regime | Orders go through a judge judicial_onlyCairvpn.org · | Secret orders are possible secret_order_possibleBwindscribe.com · |
|---|
| Chronology of documented enforcement events | 1 documented demandBairvpn.org · | 3 documented demandsCwindscribe.com · 3 sources · |
|---|
| Claims of 100% anonymity or military-grade crypto | Makes no such claim no | Makes no such claim no |
|---|
| Aggressive lifetime subscriptions | Does not no | Does not no |
|---|
| Coverage exists only on affiliate sites | Covered outside affiliate sites too no | Covered outside affiliate sites too no |
|---|
| Security incident and how it was disclosed | No incident on record none_knownno source published · | Disclosed by the provider, promptly self_disclosed_promptCen.ain.ua · |
|---|
| Affiliate programme and payout tier | A standard payout standardBairvpn.org · | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
| Owner-run review media discloses the tie | — the question does not arise | — the question does not arise |
|---|
| App store declaration | The store form matches the published policy matches_policyBplay.google.com · | An identifier is declared to the store, not in the policy undisclosed_identifierBplay.google.com · 2 sources · |
|---|
| User base scale (mass >=10M, mid >=1M, niche <1M) | — not established | — not established |
|---|
| Ultimate beneficial owner as written | Paolo Brini, sole owner/operator trading as 'AirVPN di Paolo Brini'. The service began in 2010 as a project of a small group of Rome-based activists/hacktivists (initially operated by a company called Iridium), and was formalized under a dedicated company with Brini as owner in November 2012.Bairvpn.org · 2 sources · | Founder-owned: Yegor Sak (CEO), Alex Paguis (CTO), Mark Ulicki (CIO); self-funded, no outside investorsBwindscribe.com · |
|---|
| Other businesses of the owner group | None disclosedBairvpn.org · | Something elseBwindscribe.com · |
|---|
| Country of the ultimate beneficial owner | ITBairvpn.org · | CACwindscribe.com · |
|---|
| Owner group | independent | independent |
|---|
| Date the current owner took control | — the question does not arise | — the question does not arise |
|---|
| Role of this brand inside the group | The group's principal brand principal | The group's principal brand principal |
|---|
| Infrastructure shared with cluster siblings | Separate infrastructure separate | Separate infrastructure separate |
|---|
| $69.00 a year at renewal, billed onceBwindscribe.com · |
| Usable free tier | No free tier noneBairvpn.org · | A free tier with limits limited_freeBwindscribe.com · |
|---|
| Works under active censorship | Claimed to work claimed | Claimed to work claimed |
|---|
| Protocols offered | 3 WireGuard, OpenVPN, An obfuscated protocolBairvpn.org · | 4 WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, An obfuscated protocolBwindscribe.com · |
|---|
| Kill switch coverage | On some platforms partialCeddie.website · 2 sources · | On desktop only desktop_onlyBwindscribe.com · |
|---|
| Split tunneling available | Not available noCbleepingcomputer.com · | Available yesBwindscribe.com · |
|---|
| Simultaneous connections | 5Bairvpn.org · | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
| Friction to start using it | No account needed no_account | No account needed no_account |
|---|
| P2P allowed | Allowed yesBairvpn.org · | Allowed on some servers partialBwindscribe.com · |
|---|
| Major streaming services reachable | Not reachable noCbleepingcomputer.com · | Some services reachable partialBwindscribe.com · 2 sources · |
|---|
