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 16 of 68 in the register
Virgin Islands (UK) · Commercial VPN
Exits in 106 countries
Security
Usability
Rank 1 of 68 in the register
Switzerland · Commercial VPN
Exits in 147 countries
1 documented demand, none of which produced data
2 documented demands, none of which produced data
Open questions
Still open on this record.
The pentest, and the one not done. The pentest field is backed by Cure53's October-November 2024 review of the Lightway protocol, which found an unauthenticated-data-fragment denial of service rated High alongside four lesser items. ExpressVPN's trust centre lists a long series of such engagements, so the cadence is real; what it does not contain is an infrastructure pentest of the server fleet separate from the KPMG no-logs engagement.
The two prices, corrected. The pricing page now sells three separate plan lengths — 1-month, 12-month and 2-year — rather than the 24-28-month-only structure read on 2026-08-29. U04_price_monthly=14.99 is the Basic 1-month plan, autorenewing at the same $14.99. U04b_price_yearly=59.85 is what the Basic 12-month plan (billed as 12 months plus a 3-month bonus) actually charges for its first term; it autorenews at $99.95/year afterward, the figure the previous record had mistakenly stored as the yearly field itself.
The transparency report. P05/P06/P08/P09 now rest on ExpressVPN's biannual transparency report (Jul–Dec 2025: 155 government/law-enforcement requests, 0 disclosures, 3 warrants listed separately) reached via the Trust Center — the earlier run missed both.
The canary, and the rest of the block. No ExpressVPN warrant canary could be found and no primary statement denies one, so P07 stays unknown. P02/P03=none_known rest on the transparency series and the privacy policy's litigation stance; P11=none_known on the policy's statement that all demands run through BVI courts. P04=withdrew_physical is the June 2022 India exit.
What is never published. Subscriber count (M08) and total server count (U03) are not published. Server hardware ownership (C08: owned vs leased) and app-level device identifiers (C12) could not be established from any page checked.
106 countries against a claim of 113. U02_server_countries reflects the 105 country-landing pages in ExpressVPN's own sitemap plus China (confirmed 'Available - Virtual Locations' on the live /vpn-server page but lacking a dedicated landing page) — 106 codes total, against the site's own marketing claim of '113 Countries'; the live server-location page is a very large per-protocol table that was not exhaustively parsed, so the gap between 106 and 113 is reported rather than resolved.
An audit finding between two categories. V11_audit_findings is recorded as session_metadata rather than none_linkable or aggregates_only: the 2025 KPMG report describes a structured per-connection record (country, ISP, date, protocol, data volume, a stable salted-hash pseudonym) that is more than a pure aggregate but lacks IP and precise time — a genuinely ambiguous case for this field's four middle categories.
Not checked this pass. Whether ExpressVPN's coverage exists outside affiliate sites (X08), its affiliate payout tier (X10), and whether owner-run review media flags the ownership tie (X11) were not checked in this pass.
P2P, looked for and absent. U12a_p2p_allowed stays unknown for a different reason than the rest: it was looked for and is not published. Neither sitemap (578 page and support URLs) nor the terms of service mentions P2P, BitTorrent or file sharing anywhere, while every other catalogued provider states its position in its own documents. A support article or a terms clause would close it; a review site saying it works would not.
Still open on this record.
What the audit actually checked. The no-logs finding is strong and narrow at once. Securitum inspected production servers in person in August 2025 and has done so annually since 2022.
The limits the report states itself. It is a point-in-time check, a guided review of systems demonstrated by Proton's engineers rather than an unsupervised forensic examination, and a representative sample rather than the whole fleet. CI/CD, source code and the account-management systems were explicitly out of scope, so nothing here speaks to what the billing side holds.
The appeal, and what it does not settle. The 22 October 2021 appeal is cited here with a caveat worth stating plainly: the Federal Administrative Court ruled that email services are not telecommunications providers, and neither the judgment coverage nor Proton's own account of it mentions the VPN.
What actually settles the two fields. What settles C10 and C11 is that Switzerland carries no mandate basis in the catalogue's own country list; the appeal corroborates how Swiss authorities treat Proton and is not by itself a finding about Proton VPN. A ruling on a sibling service is thinner ground than the citation makes it look.
The single largest open item. Proton offers exit locations in eight countries that impose a logging mandate. Whether hardware actually sits in any of them is not established: Proton withdrew physical servers from India in 2022 and documents Smart Routing for locations it serves from elsewhere, which points to virtual, but that was verified for India alone. Establishing C09b_mandate_hosting is the single largest open item on this record.
Notes
On the record as a whole.
Express Technologies Ltd., incorporated in the British Virgin Islands since 2009, owned by Kape Technologies plc since the September 2021 acquisition ($936M, Kape's own about-us page). TrustedServer RAM-only architecture has been audited annually by KPMG (ISAE (UK) 3000 Type I, most recently 28 Feb 2025) since 2022 for privacy-policy compliance, plus PwC Switzerland (2019, TrustedServer) and Cure53 (2019 browser extensions; 2021 Lightway protocol, open-sourced).
The 2025 KPMG report was read directly (confidence A): the server writes one pseudonymous event per connection (date without time, salted/hashed username, country+ISP GeoIP, data volume, location group, protocol) but never logs IP address or exact timestamp; builds are described as reproducible across two independently operated build systems.
In 2017, Turkish authorities seized an ExpressVPN server investigating the assassination of Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov and found no usable logs (TorrentFreak, which carries a sponsorship notice for ExpressVPN — noted, not excluded, since the facts are externally checkable and ExpressVPN's own statement page has since returned HTTP 410 with no Wayback Machine snapshot).
In September 2021 the DOJ's Deferred Prosecution Agreement with Daniel Gericke, ExpressVPN's Chief Information Officer, over his prior 2016-2018 role in the UAE's 'Project Raven' hacking operation became public; the primary DPA document itself never names ExpressVPN (it covers only his earlier UAE employment) — the ExpressVPN link comes from ExpressVPN's own and press statements. ExpressVPN kept Gericke employed and published a public defense of that decision.
C12 is resettable_ad_id on the provider's own prose rather than on a store category. The privacy policy's marketing paragraph states that an Installation ID and an XV User ID are always collected and that advertising identifiers — IDFA or the Android Advertising ID — follow on explicit consent, all of it reaching AppsFlyer; the Play data-safety form independently declares Device or other IDs for advertising or marketing.
The consent gate and a mitigation nobody else here offers — AppsFlyer-bound traffic routed through a dedicated ExpressVPN IP pool so attribution cannot correlate by IP — are real and are recorded here, because the floor prices what can be held, not how well it is explained.
U07_protocols carries the whole picker: Lightway UDP and TCP as vendor_open, beside WireGuard, OpenVPN UDP/TCP and IKEv2. Lightway is ExpressVPN's own protocol and its source is published with independent review behind it (Cure53, 2021 and 2024), which is the distinction
Recent changes
vendor_openproprietaryPPTP is retired on ExpressVPN apps by the provider's own protocol page, and L2TP and SSTP are explained there without being offered.
On the record as a whole.
The 2021 Swiss order that compelled prospective logging targeted Proton Mail, not the VPN, and is deliberately absent from P12: charging the VPN for a sibling product's order would be a fact about Proton AG, not about this service.
U08 is all_platforms because the support document gives enabling steps for Windows, macOS, Linux (GUI and CLI), Android and iOS/iPadOS — every platform with an app. The same document states two limitations that the value cannot carry and this note can: on macOS the real IP may be exposed briefly while switching servers, and on iOS some Apple service DNS requests can bypass the tunnel with the kill switch on.
U04b_price_yearly records the first-term charge on the 1-year VPN Plus plan: $53.88 for the first 12 months ($4.49/month), stated on the pricing page beside its own renewal line — "then renews at $83.88 every 12 months" ($6.99/month) — which is not the field's value.
13 Sep 20261 changes
Why this provider is in the catalogueM14_inclusion_basis
hand_picked, adverse_record changed to adverse_record
12 Sep 20263 changes
Security scoresecurity.score
15 changed to 14
Security verdictsecurity.verdict
insufficient changed to not_recommended
Yearly plan price USD, first term as chargedU04b_price_yearly
99.95 changed to 59.85
30 Aug 20261 changes
Weakest protocol still offeredC13_weakest_protocol
wireguard changed to not on the record
12 Sep 20265 changes
Security scoresecurity.score
75 changed to 70
Security verdictsecurity.verdict
strong changed to acceptable
Platforms with a clientU01_platforms
android, android-tv, apple-tv, fire-tv, ios, linux, macos, windows changed to android, android-tv, apple-tv, browser-extension, fire-tv, ios, linux, macos, windows
Friction to start using itU11_signup_friction
no_account changed to email_only
Usability scoreusability.score
80 changed to 78
| ExpressVPN | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Security | 14 not recommended · rank 16 of 68 | 70 acceptable · rank 1 of 68 |
| Usability | 70 out of 100 | 78 out of 100 |
| Record completeness | 84% usability 92% | 89% usability 83% |
| ExpressVPN | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Who operates the exit | Run by the provider itself provider_operated | Run by the provider itself provider_operated |
| Retention as declared | Session metadata session_metadataBexpressvpn.com · | Nothing that links traffic to a person none_linkableBprotonvpn.com · |
| RAM-only diskless servers | Yes, checked by someone independent yes_verifiedAexpressvpn.com · | No, servers write to disk noCprotonvpn.com · |
| IP allocation model | Dedicated address offered as an option dedicated_optionBexpressvpn.com · 2 sources · | Exit address shared between users sharedCprotonvpn.com · |
| Signup without email | No, an email address is required noBexpressvpn.com · | Yes, on the provider's word yes_declaredCprotonvpn.com · |
| Anonymous payment options | Cryptocurrency through a processorBexpressvpn.com · | Cash · Cryptocurrency through a processorCprotonvpn.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 | Install attribution attributionBexpressvpn.com · | No third-party SDK noneCprotonvpn.com · |
| Worst third-party tracker category on the site | Advertising adsBexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
| Who owns the hardware | — not establishedno source published | Owned and rented both mixedCprotonvpn.com · |
| Offered countries that sit under a logging mandate | 7 United Arab Emirates, Belarus, China, India, Kazakhstan, Turkey, VietnamBexpressvpn.com · | 8 United Arab Emirates, Belarus, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, VietnamDprotonvpn.com · |
| Hosting in the mandate countries it offers | Virtual locations only, hardware elsewhere virtual_onlyBexpressvpn.com · | — 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 | A resettable advertising identifier resettable_ad_idBexpressvpn.com · 2 sources · | None held noneBplay.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 |
| ExpressVPN | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| At least one independent audit | Yes, and the report was read yes_verified | Yes, and the report was read yes_verified |
| How the report is published | The full report is published full_pdf | The full report is published full_pdf |
| Subject of the audit | The no-logs claim itself · The infrastructureAexpressvpn.com · | The no-logs claim itselfAsecuritum.com · |
| Server fleet coverage | The whole fleet all_fleetAexpressvpn.com · | A sample of servers sampleC |
| ExpressVPN | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Server seizure by law enforcement | Seized, and nothing usable was on it seizure_no_dataCtorrentfreak.com · | No seizure on record none_knownCswissinfo.ch · 2 sources · |
| Actual disclosure history | No disclosure on record none_known | No disclosure on record none_known |
| Court record of compelled production | No court record none_knownBexpressvpn.com · 2 sources · | Told a court it had nothing to produce unable_to_produceBprotonvpn.com · |
| Response to a national logging mandate |
| ExpressVPN | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Documented gap between claim and behaviour | — not establishedno source published | No documented lie noneCswissinfo.ch · 2 sources · |
| Marketing against audit findings | No gap on record none | No gap on record none |
| Ownership structure transparency | Ownership is stated and checkable clear | Ownership is stated and checkable clear |
| Adverse events on the owner group record | A history of adware or malware adware_malware_historyCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · | Nothing adverse on record cleanCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
| ExpressVPN | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Legal entity | Express Technologies Ltd.Bexpressvpn.com · 2 sources · | Proton AG, Plan-les-Ouates, Geneva, SwitzerlandCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
| Where the company sits | Virgin Islands (UK) VGBexpressvpn.com · 2 sources · | Switzerland CHCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
| Year the service launched | 2009Bexpressvpn.com · | 2017C |
| ExpressVPN | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms with a client | 10 Windows, Android, iOS, macOS, Linux, Routers, Android TV, Browser extension, Apple TV, Fire TVBexpressvpn.com · | 9 Android, Android TV, Apple TV, Browser extension, Fire TV, iOS, Linux, macOS, WindowsBprotonvpn.com · |
| Countries with an exit | 106 countriesBexpressvpn.com · | 147 countriesDprotonvpn.com · |
| Paying monthly | $14.99 per monthBexpressvpn.com · | $9.99 per monthB |
By circumstance
| ExpressVPN | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Torrenting | — not established | — not established |
| Streaming | Reachable yes | — not established |
| Devices at once | 10 | 10 |
| Under censorship | Claimed to work claimed | Claimed to work claimed |
| Exits in mandate countries | 7 United Arab Emirates, Belarus, China, India, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Vietnam | 8 United Arab Emirates, Belarus, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, Vietnam |
| Hosting in those countries | Virtual locations only, hardware elsewhere virtual_only | — not established |
| Company under a mandate | No such mandate no | No such mandate no |
| Secret orders | No secret-order regime on record none_known | Orders go through a judge judicial_only |
ExpressVPN and Proton VPN were assessed by the HushFleet team: ExpressVPN scores 14/100 for security, in the Not recommended band, and Proton VPN 70/100, in the Acceptable band. They share an independent audit. The 56-point gap opens widest on Integrity — “Has it been caught saying one thing and doing another?” — taking 63% from ExpressVPN and 0% from Proton VPN.
| ChannelPressure taken from what was left | ExpressVPNDominant channel: Integrity0 to 0.9, longer is worse | Proton VPNDominant channel: Hygiene0 to 0.9, longer is worse |
|---|---|---|
| IntegrityHas it been caught saying one thing and doing another? | 0.633 | 0.000 |
| RetentionDoes a record exist that links traffic to a person, and who checked? | 0.455 | 0.079 |
| HygieneWhat identifying material is collected in passing, and can the client be checked at all? | 0.134 | 0.088 |
| IgnoranceHow much of this did nobody establish? | 0.127 | 0.071 |
| JurisdictionCan someone compel what exists, without the provider getting a say? | 0.000 | 0.050 |
| 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 |
| SilenceTen years, millions of users and nothing on record? | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| What is left of 100The channels multiply: each one takes a share of what the one before it left standing | 14 | 70 |
| Auditor name | KPMG LLPAexpressvpn.com · | Securitum (Martin Matyja, Maciej Szymczak)Asecuritum.com · |
|---|
| Auditor category | One of the Big Four big4Aexpressvpn.com · | A security specialist security_specialistAsecuritum.com · |
|---|
| Assurance standard | ISAE 3000 isae3000Aexpressvpn.com · | Another standard otherAsecuritum.com · |
|---|
| Date of latest report | 2025-02-28Aexpressvpn.com · | 2026-05-27Cprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Audit cadence | An annual series annual_series | An annual series annual_series |
|---|
| Total published audits | 5 | 5 |
|---|
| Retention as the report states it | Session metadata session_metadataAexpressvpn.com · | Nothing that links traffic to a person none_linkableAsecuritum.com · |
|---|
| Client source code published | Some clients partialBexpressvpn.com · | Every client allCprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Reproducible builds | Yes, and a build was reproduced yes_verifiedAexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
| Separate pentest | Yes, and the report was read yes_verifiedAcure53.de · 2 sources · | Yes, on the provider's word yes_declaredCprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Strength of the assurance opinion | A reasonable-assurance opinion reasonableAexpressvpn.com · | — the question does not ariseno source published |
|---|
Pulled its servers out rather than comply withdrew_physical |
Pulled its servers out rather than comply withdrew_physical |
| Transparency report | Current, with request numbers fresh_with_numbers | Current, with request numbers fresh_with_numbers |
|---|
| Reported numbers plausible for this scale | The numbers are plausible at this scale plausible | The numbers are plausible at this scale plausible |
|---|
| Warrant canary discipline | — not establishedno source published | Never had one noneBprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Requests received | 155Bexpressvpn.com · | 458Bprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Requests that produced data | 0 | 0 |
|---|
| Secret-order regime | No secret-order regime on record none_knownBexpressvpn.com · | Orders go through a judge judicial_onlyCswissinfo.ch · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Chronology of documented enforcement events | 1 documented demandCtorrentfreak.com · | 2 documented demandsCswissinfo.ch · 2 sources · |
|---|
| How the service is paid for |
|---|
Paid subscriptions only paid_onlyBexpressvpn.com · |
A free tier funded by the paid one freemium_fundedCprotonvpn.com · |
| Claims of 100% anonymity or military-grade crypto | Makes no such claim noBexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
| Aggressive lifetime subscriptions | Does not no | Does not no |
|---|
| Coverage exists only on affiliate sites | — not establishedno source published | Covered outside affiliate sites too noCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Security incident and how it was disclosed | Disclosed by someone else third_party_disclosedBjustice.gov · 2 sources · | No incident on record none_knownCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Affiliate programme and payout tier | — not established | — not established |
|---|
| Owner-run review media discloses the tie | — not establishedno source published | — the question does not ariseno source published |
|---|
| App store declaration | The store form matches the published policy matches_policy | The store form matches the published policy matches_policy |
|---|
| User base scale (mass >=10M, mid >=1M, niche <1M) | — not establishedno source published | Mass: 10 million users or more massCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Ultimate beneficial owner as written | Teddy Sagi, via Unikmind Holdings Limited (Isle of Man), sole shareholder of Kape Technologies plc since the May 2023 delisting; Kape owns ExpressVPN through Express Technologies Ltd.Cen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · | Proton Foundation (Swiss non-profit, controlling shareholder since 06/2024); employees; FONGITCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Other businesses of the owner group | Antivirus · A review directory · Adtech or adwareCen.wikipedia.org · | A portfolio of other appsCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Country of the ultimate beneficial owner | IMBperivan.com · | CHCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Owner group | kapeBexpressvpn.com · | independentCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Date the current owner took control | 2021-09Cexpressvpn.com · 2 sources · | 2024-06Cen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Role of this brand inside the group | A brand the group acquired acquired_brandCexpressvpn.com · | The group's principal brand principalCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Infrastructure shared with cluster siblings | — not establishedno source published | Separate infrastructure separateCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Paying yearly | $59.85 a year at renewal, billed onceBexpressvpn.com · | $53.88 a year at renewal, billed onceBprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Usable free tier | No free tier noneBexpressvpn.com · | A free tier with limits limited_freeBprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Works under active censorship | Claimed to work claimed | Claimed to work claimed |
|---|
| Protocols offered | 4 A vendor protocol with published source, WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2Bexpressvpn.com · 3 sources · | 4 WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, An obfuscated protocolBprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Kill switch coverage | On every platform all_platforms | On every platform all_platforms |
|---|
| Split tunneling available | Available yes | Available yes |
|---|
| Simultaneous connections | 10 | 10 |
|---|
| Friction to start using it | An email address only email_only | An email address only email_only |
|---|
| P2P allowed | — not established | — not established |
|---|
| Major streaming services reachable | Reachable yesBexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
