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 1 of 68 in the register
Switzerland · Commercial VPN
Exits in 147 countries
Security
Usability
Rank 5 of 68 in the register
Malaysia · Commercial VPN
Exits in 57 countries
2 documented demands, none of which produced data
No demand on the public record
Notes
On the record as a whole.
Pricing has no plain 12-month tier; the closest analogue to an annual plan is a 13-month term (12 months plus 1 bonus month) billed 54.99 USD, recorded in U04b with this note per the schema's first-term rule. A 26-month term (24+2 bonus months) also exists at 69.99 USD but is not the annual plan the field asks for. C05_payment_anonymous also lists Visa/Mastercard/Amex/PayPal on the same page; only the Coinpayments crypto option is anonymous-adjacent.
C07b_site_trackers is a self-hosted/proxied Plausible-style analytics script served from hide.me's own domain (data-api https://hide.me/api/event) rather than a third-party domain; coded as analytics since it is still a distinct analytics product, not a first-party log.
U07_protocols refresh (2026-09-14) found SoftEther added to the protocol list alongside WireGuard, IKEv2, SSTP and OpenVPN; SoftEther is third-party open-source software (not hide.me's own protocol) with a published, reviewable implementation, so it is coded vendor_open rather than proprietary.
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.
Recent changes
1 change logged, on 14 Sep 2026
Open questions
Still open on this record.
Ultimate beneficial owner. eVenture Ltd. is named and registered (Malaysia, LL09685) with a street address, but no individual owner or parent structure is disclosed anywhere in the provider's own documents; M09, M11 and the owner-jurisdiction channel stay unknown.
Seizure and court-record history. The transparency report states law-enforcement requests received nothing to hand over every year since 2013, which supports P02_disclosure_history, but no single dated seizure or court order is documented with its own record, so P01_seizure_event and P03_court_record stay unknown rather than the favourable none_known/unable_to_produce a P12 event would earn.
Mandate-country hosting. hide.me offers exit locations in three countries this catalogue's mandate table flags (AE, TR, VN); none of the three country pages state whether the hardware there is physical or virtual, so C09b_mandate_hosting is unknown.
Circumvention and streaming claims. The pricing page advertises undifferentiated "Streaming Support" and the site offers no measured circumvention evidence, so U06_censorship_circumvention, U12a_p2p_allowed and U12b_streaming_works stay unknown rather than resting on marketing copy.
Audit history before 2024. The provider's own pages assert an audit "back in 2015" and describe audits as routine, but only the 2024 Securitum PDF could be located and opened; V09_audit_regularity and V10_audit_count are scored on the one document actually read, not the claimed series.
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.
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
14 Sep 20261 changes
Protocols offeredU07_protocols
wireguard, ikev2, sstp, openvpn changed to wireguard, ikev2, sstp, openvpn, vendor_open
By circumstance
| hide.me | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Torrenting | — not established | — not established |
| Streaming | — not established | — not established |
| Devices at once | 10 | 10 |
| Under censorship | — not established | Claimed to work claimed |
| Exits in mandate countries | 3 United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Vietnam | 8 United Arab Emirates, Belarus, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, Vietnam |
| Hosting in those countries | — not established | — not established |
| Company under a mandate | No such mandate no | No such mandate no |
| Secret orders | — not established | Orders go through a judge judicial_only |
| hide.me | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Security | 28 insufficient · rank 5 of 68 | 70 acceptable · rank 1 of 68 |
| Usability | 81 out of 100 | 78 out of 100 |
| Record completeness | 77% usability 75% | 89% usability 83% |
| hide.me | 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_metadataBhide.me · | Nothing that links traffic to a person none_linkableBprotonvpn.com · |
| RAM-only diskless servers | Yes, checked by someone independent yes_verifiedAhide.me · | No, servers write to disk noCprotonvpn.com · |
| IP allocation model | Dedicated address offered as an option dedicated_optionBhide.me · | Exit address shared between users sharedCprotonvpn.com · |
| Signup without email | No, an email address is required noBhide.me · | Yes, on the provider's word yes_declaredCprotonvpn.com · |
| Anonymous payment options | Cryptocurrency through a processorBhide.me · | Cash · Cryptocurrency through a processorCprotonvpn.com · |
| Own DNS inside the tunnel | Yes, checked by someone independent yes_verifiedAhide.me · | Yes, on the provider's word yes_declaredCprotonvpn.com · |
| 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 | Analytics analyticsBhide.me · | — not establishedno source published |
| Who owns the hardware | Owned by the provider ownedBhide.me · | Owned and rented both mixedCprotonvpn.com · |
| Offered countries that sit under a logging mandate | 3 United Arab Emirates, Turkey, VietnamBhide.me · | 8 United Arab Emirates, Belarus, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, VietnamDprotonvpn.com · |
| Hosting in the mandate countries it offers | — not established | — not established |
| Incorporation country mandates retention | No such mandate no | No such mandate no |
| Beneficial owner sits under a retention regime | — not establishedno source published | No such regime noBprotonvpn.com · 2 sources · |
| Persistent device identifier | None held none | None held none |
| Weakest protocol still offered | SSTP sstpBhide.me · | — the question does not ariseBprotonvpn.com · |
| What the exit does to passing traffic | — not established | — not established |
| hide.me | 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 no-logs claim itself |
| Server fleet coverage | A sample of servers sample | A sample of servers sample |
| Auditor name | Securitum (Pawel Rozanski, Maciej Szymczak)Ahide.me · | Securitum (Martin Matyja, Maciej Szymczak)Asecuritum.com · |
| Auditor category | A security specialist security_specialist | A security specialist security_specialist |
| Assurance standard |
| hide.me | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Server seizure by law enforcement | — not establishedno source published | 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 | — not establishedno source published | Told a court it had nothing to produce unable_to_produceBprotonvpn.com · |
| 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 |
| hide.me | 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 | — not establishedno source published | Nothing adverse on record cleanCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
| How the service is paid for | A free tier funded by the paid one freemium_funded | A free tier funded by the paid one freemium_funded |
| hide.me | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Legal entity | eVenture Ltd. (eVenture Limited), registered in Malaysia under registration number LL09685Bhide.me · | Proton AG, Plan-les-Ouates, Geneva, SwitzerlandCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
| Where the company sits | Malaysia MYBhide.me · | Switzerland CHCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
| Year the service launched | 2012Bhide.me · | 2017Cen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources |
| hide.me | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms with a client | 10 Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Apple TV, Android TV, Fire TV, Browser extension, RoutersBhide.me · | 9 Android, Android TV, Apple TV, Browser extension, Fire TV, iOS, Linux, macOS, WindowsBprotonvpn.com · |
| Countries with an exit | 57 countriesBhide.me · | 147 countriesDprotonvpn.com · |
| Paying monthly | $11.99 per monthBhide.me · | $9.99 per monthBprotonvpn.com |
| ChannelPressure taken from what was left | hide.meDominant channel: Retention0 to 0.9, longer is worse | Proton VPNDominant channel: Hygiene0 to 0.9, longer is worse |
|---|---|---|
| RetentionDoes a record exist that links traffic to a person, and who checked? | 0.518 | 0.079 |
| IgnoranceHow much of this did nobody establish? | 0.149 | 0.071 |
| HygieneWhat identifying material is collected in passing, and can the client be checked at all? | 0.146 | 0.088 |
| JurisdictionCan someone compel what exists, without the provider getting a say? | 0.125 | 0.050 |
| ArchitectureWho operates the exit, and what does it do to the traffic? | 0.050 | 0.050 |
| IntegrityHas it been caught saying one thing and doing another? | 0.040 | 0.000 |
| 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 | 28 | 70 |
hide.me and Proton VPN were assessed by the HushFleet team: hide.me scores 28/100 for security, in the Insufficient band, and Proton VPN 70/100, in the Acceptable band. They share an independent audit, independent ownership and the same kind of free tier. The 42-point gap opens widest on Retention — “Does a record exist that links traffic to a person, and who checked?” — taking 52% from hide.me and 8% from Proton VPN.
Another standard other |
Another standard other |
| Date of latest report | 2024-06-07Ahide.me · | 2026-05-27Cprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Audit cadence | One-off one_offAhide.me · 2 sources · | An annual series annual_seriesCprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Total published audits | 1Ahide.me · 2 sources · | 5Cprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Retention as the report states it | Nothing that links traffic to a person none_linkable | Nothing that links traffic to a person none_linkable |
|---|
| Client source code published | Some clients partialBgithub.com · | Every client allCprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Reproducible builds | — not established | — not established |
|---|
| Separate pentest | — not establishedno source published | Yes, on the provider's word yes_declaredCprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Strength of the assurance opinion | — the question does not arise | — the question does not arise |
|---|
| Reported numbers plausible for this scale | — not establishedno source published | The numbers are plausible at this scale plausibleBprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Warrant canary discipline | — not establishedno source published | Never had one noneBprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Requests received | 9Ahide.me · | 458Bprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Requests that produced data | 0 | 0 |
|---|
| Secret-order regime | — not establishedno source published | Orders go through a judge judicial_onlyCswissinfo.ch · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Chronology of documented enforcement events | 0 No demand on the public recordAhide.me · 2 sources · | 2 documented demandsCswissinfo.ch · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Claims of 100% anonymity or military-grade crypto | Claims total anonymity or military-grade encryption yesBhide.me · | — 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 | No incident on record none_known | No incident on record none_known |
|---|
| Affiliate programme and payout tier | A high payout high_payoutBhide.me · | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
| 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) | Mass: 10 million users or more mass | Mass: 10 million users or more mass |
|---|
| Ultimate beneficial owner as written | — not establishedno source published | Proton Foundation (Swiss non-profit, controlling shareholder since 06/2024); employees; FONGITCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Other businesses of the owner group | None disclosedBhide.me · 3 sources · | A portfolio of other appsCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Country of the ultimate beneficial owner | — not establishedno source published | CHCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Owner group | independent | independent |
|---|
| Date the current owner took control | 2012Bhide.me · 2 sources · | 2024-06Cen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| 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 |
|---|
| Paying yearly | $54.99 a year at renewal, billed onceBhide.me · | $53.88 a year at renewal, billed onceBprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Usable free tier | A free tier with limits limited_free | A free tier with limits limited_free |
|---|
| Works under active censorship | — not establishedno source published | Claimed to work claimedDprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Protocols offered | 5 WireGuard, IKEv2, SSTP, OpenVPN, A vendor protocol with published sourceBhide.me · | 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 | — not established | — not established |
|---|
