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 13 of 68 in the register
Netherlands · Commercial VPN
Exits in 100 countries
1 documented demand, 1 of which produced data
1 documented demand, none of which produced data
Recent changes
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.
The two prices. U04_price_monthly=16.45 and U04b_price_yearly=79.00 are the Surfshark Starter (VPN + Alternative ID) renewal figures in USD. The pricing page itself only ever shows the promotional first-term rate, but the ToS links a current-recurring-amounts page (surfshark.com/terms-of-service/pricing) that lists renewal prices by term — read there on a US IP, since currency is geo-locked. There is no VPN-only tier below Starter.
What no primary document confirmed. C00_architecture, C08_servers_ownership, U09, U11, V12/V13, X04, X06-X08, X10, X11 were not confirmed against a primary document in the time available and are left unknown. M11_owner_jurisdiction and X04_owner_group_history carry the same gap recorded for nordvpn.json: Nord Security's own jurisdiction and record are not stated on either brand's site.
India, and the secret-order regime. P04_mandate_response=withdrew_physical is the June 2022 India exit, restored from Surfshark's own blog (surfshark.com/blog/surfshark-servers-certin-india) after the earlier run found the /trust-center page no longer carried it. P11=judicial_only rests on the transparency report showing the April 2026 Amsterdam District Court warrant and its National-Security-letter and gag-order counters at zero.
Two reports found, maybe not all. Only two Deloitte no-logs reports (Dec 2022, Jun 2025) were found published; there may be others not linked from robots.txt that this audit did not search for by other means.
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
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.
surfshark.com is not Cloudflare-walled the way nordvpn.com is: robots.txt, static pages and even the two ISAE 3000 no-logs assurance report PDFs and the December 2025 SecuRing infrastructure pentest report are all fetchable directly, and robots.txt's own Disallow list named the exact PDF paths (evidently meant to keep them out of search results, not to hide them from a direct link).
Both audit PDFs were opened and read in full (level A). The 2025 report's appendix and the privacy policy describe the same record in the same terms: 'user ID and/or your IP address and connection to VPN server time stamps', automatically deleted within 15 minutes of the session ending.
This record was previously read twice — connection_timestamps in V11 from the audit wording, source_ip in C01 from the policy wording — and graded at the worse of the two, which made the fifteen-minute buffer cost more than saying nothing at all: a blank on C01 is the market prior 0.550 and source_ip is 0.750.
R29 now draws the line: state deleted within a declared window tied to the end of the session is the connection, not a record of it, so both fields read connection_timestamps on the same sentence. What is still charged is what outlives the session — the last login date in policy section 2.3.1 and the connection timestamps the auditor names.
Surfshark and NordVPN share a parent (Nord Security, since 2022) but Surfshark's own about-us page states the brands merged 'while operating independently' with separate infrastructure — M18 is set to separate on that basis, mirroring the nordvpn.com record.
U12a is partial rather than yes on the server table's own P2P column: 88 of the 100 listed countries carry it and twelve do not (AU, CL, CO, HR, GR, IE, JP, MX, NZ, TW, TR, AE). The column is drawn client-side, so it was read off the rendered table rather than the static HTML, where every row carries every label.
The transparency report at /transparency-report — which is where /warrant-canary now redirects — carries the April-June 2026 quarter as a table: 374,719 DMCA notices, 33 inquiries from government institutions, 1 warrant, 0 national security letters and 0 gag orders. P08 counts the 34 legal requests and leaves the DMCA notices out: those are copyright complaints about traffic, not requests for a user's data.
The same page states Surfshark is retiring its warrant canary in favour of quarterly reporting, which is why P07 is removed rather than none — the canary existed and was withdrawn deliberately.
U07_protocols carries proprietary for Dausos on Surfshark's own word — its protocol page calls Dausos "Surfshark's proprietary protocol" and publishes no source for it — and that single value is what sets C13_weakest_protocol and the hygiene charge that follows. IKEv2 is kept because Surfshark still documents it, though its own blog records the removal from the Windows app; Shadowsocks is gone from the support index and is not listed.
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
13 Sep 20261 changes
Why this provider is in the catalogueM14_inclusion_basis
hand_picked changed to adverse_record
29 Aug 20264 changes
Actual disclosure historyP02_disclosure_history
not on the record changed to account_data_disclosed
Court record of compelled productionP03_court_record
not on the record changed to produced_account_data
Transparency reportP05_transparency_report
not on the record changed to fresh_with_numbers
Reported numbers plausible for this scaleP06_report_plausibility
not on the record changed to plausible
ExpressVPN and Surfshark were assessed by the HushFleet team: ExpressVPN scores 14/100 for security, in the Not recommended band, and Surfshark 16/100, in the Insufficient band. They share an independent audit. The 2-point gap opens widest on Integrity — “Has it been caught saying one thing and doing another?” — taking 63% from ExpressVPN and 35% from Surfshark.
| ChannelPressure taken from what was left | ExpressVPNDominant channel: Integrity0 to 0.9, longer is worse | SurfsharkDominant channel: Integrity0 to 0.9, longer is worse |
|---|---|---|
| IntegrityHas it been caught saying one thing and doing another? | 0.633 | 0.348 |
| RetentionDoes a record exist that links traffic to a person, and who checked? | 0.455 | 0.332 |
| HygieneWhat identifying material is collected in passing, and can the client be checked at all? | 0.134 | 0.264 |
| DisclosureHas it already handed something over? | 0.000 | 0.250 |
| IgnoranceHow much of this did nobody establish? | 0.127 | 0.214 |
| JurisdictionCan someone compel what exists, without the provider getting a say? | 0.000 | 0.117 |
| ArchitectureWho operates the exit, and what does it do to the traffic? | 0.050 | 0.050 |
| 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 | 16 |
By circumstance
| ExpressVPN | Surfshark | |
|---|---|---|
| Torrenting | — not established | Allowed on some servers partial |
| Streaming | Reachable yes | Reachable yes |
| Devices at once | 10 | unlimited |
| Under censorship | Claimed to work claimed | Claimed to work claimed |
| Exits in mandate countries | 7 United Arab Emirates, Belarus, China, India, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Vietnam | 5 United Arab Emirates, India, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Vietnam |
| Hosting in those countries | Virtual locations only, hardware elsewhere virtual_only | Physical and virtual both mixed |
| 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 | Surfshark | |
|---|---|---|
| Security | 14 not recommended · rank 16 of 68 | 16 insufficient · rank 13 of 68 |
| Usability | 70 out of 100 | 67 out of 100 |
| Record completeness | 84% usability 92% | 67% usability 83% |
| ExpressVPN | Surfshark | |
|---|---|---|
| Who operates the exit | Run by the provider itself provider_operatedAexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
| Retention as declared | Session metadata session_metadataBexpressvpn.com · | Connection timestamps connection_timestampsBsurfshark.com · |
| RAM-only diskless servers | Yes, checked by someone independent yes_verified | Yes, checked by someone independent yes_verified |
| IP allocation model | Dedicated address offered as an option dedicated_option | Dedicated address offered as an option dedicated_option |
| Signup without email | No, an email address is required noBexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
| Anonymous payment options | Cryptocurrency through a processorBexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
| Own DNS inside the tunnel | Yes, on the provider's word yes_declaredBexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
| Worst third-party SDK category in the app | Install attribution attributionBexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
| Worst third-party tracker category on the site | Advertising adsBexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
| Who owns the hardware | — not established | — not established |
| Offered countries that sit under a logging mandate | 7 United Arab Emirates, Belarus, China, India, Kazakhstan, Turkey, VietnamBexpressvpn.com · | 5 United Arab Emirates, India, Kazakhstan, Turkey, VietnamBapi.surfshark.com · |
| Hosting in the mandate countries it offers | Virtual locations only, hardware elsewhere virtual_onlyBexpressvpn.com · | Physical and virtual both mixedBapi.surfshark.com · |
| Incorporation country mandates retention | No such mandate no | No such mandate no |
| Beneficial owner sits under a retention regime | No such regime nono source published · | — not establishedno source published |
| Persistent device identifier | A resettable advertising identifier resettable_ad_idBexpressvpn.com · 2 sources · | — not establishedno source published |
| Weakest protocol still offered | — the question does not ariseBexpressvpn.com · 3 sources · | A vendor protocol with no published source proprietaryBsupport.surfshark.com · 2 sources · |
| What the exit does to passing traffic | — not established | — not established |
| ExpressVPN | Surfshark | |
|---|---|---|
| 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 infrastructure | The no-logs claim itself · The infrastructure |
| Server fleet coverage | The whole fleet all_fleetAexpressvpn.com · | A sample of servers sampleAsurfshark.com · |
| Auditor name | KPMG LLPAexpressvpn.com · |
| ExpressVPN | Surfshark | |
|---|---|---|
| Server seizure by law enforcement | Seized, and nothing usable was on it seizure_no_dataCtorrentfreak.com · | No seizure on record none_knownno source published · |
| Actual disclosure history | No disclosure on record none_knownBexpressvpn.com · 2 sources · | Account data was handed over account_data_disclosedBsurfshark.com · |
| Court record of compelled production | No court record none_knownBexpressvpn.com · 2 sources · | Produced account data |
| ExpressVPN | Surfshark | |
|---|---|---|
| Documented gap between claim and behaviour | — not establishedno source published | No documented lie noneno source published · |
| Marketing against audit findings | No gap on record none | No gap on record none |
| Ownership structure transparency | Ownership is stated and checkable clearBexpressvpn.com · 2 sources · | Ownership is partly stated partialBsurfshark.com · |
| Adverse events on the owner group record | A history of adware or malware adware_malware_historyCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · | — not established |
| ExpressVPN | Surfshark | |
|---|---|---|
| Legal entity | Express Technologies Ltd.Bexpressvpn.com · 2 sources · | Surfshark B.V.Asurfshark.com · 2 sources · |
| Where the company sits | Virgin Islands (UK) VGBexpressvpn.com · 2 sources · | Netherlands NLAsurfshark.com · 2 sources · |
| Year the service launched | 2009Bexpressvpn.com · | 2018 |
| ExpressVPN | Surfshark | |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms with a client | 10 Windows, Android, iOS, macOS, Linux, Routers, Android TV, Browser extension, Apple TV, Fire TVBexpressvpn.com · | 9 Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Browser extension, Android TV, Apple TV, Fire TVBsurfshark.com · |
| Countries with an exit | 106 countriesBexpressvpn.com · | 100 countriesBapi.surfshark.com · |
| Paying monthly | $14.99 per monthBexpressvpn.com · | $16.45 per month |
| Deloitte Lietuva UABAsurfshark.com · |
| Auditor category | One of the Big Four big4 | One of the Big Four big4 |
|---|
| Assurance standard | ISAE 3000 isae3000 | ISAE 3000 isae3000 |
|---|
| Date of latest report | 2025-02-28Aexpressvpn.com · | 2025-06-10Asurfshark.com · |
|---|
| Audit cadence | An annual series annual_seriesBexpressvpn.com · 3 sources · | Repeated, at no fixed interval repeated_irregularAsurfshark.com · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Total published audits | 5Bexpressvpn.com · 4 sources · | 2Asurfshark.com · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Retention as the report states it | Session metadata session_metadataAexpressvpn.com · | Connection timestamps connection_timestampsAsurfshark.com · |
|---|
| Client source code published | Some clients partialBexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
| Reproducible builds | Yes, and a build was reproduced yes_verifiedAexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
| Separate pentest | Yes, and the report was read yes_verified | Yes, and the report was read yes_verified |
|---|
| Strength of the assurance opinion | A reasonable-assurance opinion reasonable | A reasonable-assurance opinion reasonable |
|---|
produced_account_data| Response to a national logging mandate | 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 | Taken down removedBsurfshark.com · |
|---|
| Requests received | 155Bexpressvpn.com · | 34Bsurfshark.com · |
|---|
| Requests that produced data | 0Bexpressvpn.com · | 1Bsurfshark.com · |
|---|
| Secret-order regime | No secret-order regime on record none_knownBexpressvpn.com · | Orders go through a judge judicial_onlyBsurfshark.com · |
|---|
| Chronology of documented enforcement events | 1 documented demandCtorrentfreak.com · | 1 documented demandBsurfshark.com · |
|---|
| How the service is paid for | Paid subscriptions only paid_only | Paid subscriptions only paid_only |
|---|
| Claims of 100% anonymity or military-grade crypto | Makes no such claim noBexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
| Aggressive lifetime subscriptions | Does not noBexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
| Coverage exists only on affiliate sites | — not established | — not established |
|---|
| Security incident and how it was disclosed | Disclosed by someone else third_party_disclosedBjustice.gov · 2 sources · | No incident on record none_knownno source published · |
|---|
| Affiliate programme and payout tier | — not established | — not established |
|---|
| Owner-run review media discloses the tie | — not established | — not established |
|---|
| App store declaration | The store form matches the published policy matches_policyBapps.apple.com · 3 sources · | Behaviour is declared to the store, not in the policy undisclosed_behaviourBplay.google.com · 2 sources · |
|---|
| User base scale (mass >=10M, mid >=1M, niche <1M) | — not established | — not established |
|---|
| 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 · | Nord SecurityBsurfshark.com · |
|---|
| Other businesses of the owner group | Antivirus · A review directory · Adtech or adwareCen.wikipedia.org · | A portfolio of other appsBsurfshark.com · |
|---|
| Country of the ultimate beneficial owner | IMBperivan.com · | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
| Owner group | kapeBexpressvpn.com · | nord_securityBsurfshark.com · |
|---|
| Date the current owner took control | 2021-09Cexpressvpn.com · 2 sources · | 2022Bsurfshark.com · |
|---|
| Role of this brand inside the group | A brand the group acquired acquired_brandCexpressvpn.com · | The group's principal brand principalBsurfshark.com · |
|---|
| Infrastructure shared with cluster siblings | — not establishedno source published | Separate infrastructure separateBsurfshark.com · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Paying yearly | $59.85 a year at renewal, billed onceBexpressvpn.com · | $79.00 a year at renewal, billed onceBsurfshark.com · |
|---|
| Usable free tier | No free tier none | No free tier none |
|---|
| 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, A vendor protocol with no published sourceBsupport.surfshark.com · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Kill switch coverage | On every platform all_platforms | On every platform all_platforms |
|---|
| Split tunneling available | Available yesBexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
| Simultaneous connections | 10Bexpressvpn.com · | unlimitedBsurfshark.com · |
|---|
| Friction to start using it | An email address only email_onlyBexpressvpn.com · | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
| P2P allowed | — not establishedno source published | Allowed on some servers partialBsurfshark.com · |
|---|
| Major streaming services reachable | Reachable yes | Reachable yes |
|---|
