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 3 of 68 in the register
Gibraltar · Commercial VPN
Exits in 41 countries
Security
Usability
Rank 1 of 68 in the register
Switzerland · Commercial VPN
Exits in 147 countries
No demand on the public record
2 documented demands, none of which produced data
Recent changes
Open questions
Still open on this record.
One no-logs audit, in 2019. IVPN is unusually explicit about what it does not do: its own post states that its last and only no-logs audit was Cure53 in March 2019, and that it has deliberately not repeated the format because such a stamp describes one day and not the days after it.
What the claim rests on now. Every audit since targets apps and services, so the no-logs claim on the infrastructure rests on the March 2019 engagement and on the February 2023 gateway review, not on anything recent.
The audit not yet published. The eighth annual Cure53 audit was scheduled for July 2026 and no report for 2025 or 2026 is published yet, which is why the latest report date is the April 2024 one.
The August 2026 incident. In August 2026 an attacker exploited a vulnerability in the self-hosted BTCPay Server, before it was public, and took IVPN's own Lightning operating funds. IVPN published the account four days later, unprompted, and scoped it to that machine: the VPN gateways were not involved, no customer records were reached, no customer money was lost.
Why it costs nothing. The model charges nothing for this, which is the point — an operator that says so promptly is behaving the way the field is meant to reward, and the entry is here so a reader knows it happened rather than to move a number.
What the engagements covered. The app pentest (iOS, Android, Electron, the daemon) is from March 2022 and the gateway/server-OS review from February 2023; neither tested the no-logs claim itself, the 2023 report says so explicitly, so retention rests on the privacy policy declaration alone.
The latest report is not the relevant one. April 2024's engagement, Cure53's sixth with IVPN, tested the customer account website, API and hosting; its own scope page names client apps and VPN servers out of scope, so it extends neither the app nor the gateway evidence, and V03_audit_subject reads unknown for it rather than carrying that credit forward. The seventh engagement, on the new email and DNS services, was only announced for May 2025; no report for it is published.
What the primary site never establishes. RAM-only is recorded as partial because IVPN describes it as a transition with test deployments under way, and has not announced its completion. Server hardware ownership (leased vs owned), traffic modification at the exit, and the beneficial owner's personal jurisdiction are unestablished: no primary IVPN page states any of the three, nor does user-base scale.
Three fields the knowledgebase answers, not the pages read at first fill. IP allocation is shared by design — "crowding" pools users on one address to blunt attribution. P2P is allowed everywhere, but IVPN asks customers to avoid US exits, citing upstream DMCA pressure. Streaming carries no guarantee, though the company says many customers do reach it.
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.
First fill 2026-08-26. Sourced entirely from ivpn.net's own pages, the Cure53 audit PDFs and IVPN's blog — no affiliate or review-aggregator site cited.
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.
12 Sep 20265 changes
Security scoresecurity.score
42 changed to 40
IP allocation modelC03_ip_sharing
not on the record changed to shared
P2P allowedU12a_p2p_allowed
not on the record changed to partial
Major streaming services reachableU12b_streaming_works
not on the record changed to partial
Subject of the latest auditV03_audit_subject
app_security, infrastructure 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
IVPN and Proton VPN were assessed by the HushFleet team: IVPN scores 38/100 for security, in the Weak band, and Proton VPN 70/100, in the Acceptable band. They share an independent audit, independent ownership and the same four protocols. The 32-point gap opens widest on Retention — “Does a record exist that links traffic to a person, and who checked?” — taking 53% from IVPN and 8% from Proton VPN.
By circumstance
| IVPN | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Torrenting | Allowed on some servers partial | — not established |
| Streaming | Some services reachable partial | — not established |
| Devices at once | 5 | 10 |
| Under censorship | Claimed to work claimed | Claimed to work claimed |
| Exits in mandate countries | None | 8 United Arab Emirates, Belarus, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, Vietnam |
| 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 | No secret-order regime on record none_known | Orders go through a judge judicial_only |
| ChannelPressure taken from what was left | IVPNDominant 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? | 0.526 | 0.079 |
| HygieneWhat identifying material is collected in passing, and can the client be checked at all? | 0.063 | 0.088 |
| IgnoranceHow much of this did nobody establish? | 0.061 | 0.071 |
| JurisdictionCan someone compel what exists, without the provider getting a say? | 0.030 | 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 |
| IntegrityHas it been caught saying one thing and doing another? | 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 | 38 | 70 |
| IVPN | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Security | 38 weak · rank 3 of 68 | 70 acceptable · rank 1 of 68 |
| Usability | 66 out of 100 | 78 out of 100 |
| Record completeness | 89% usability 100% | 89% usability 83% |
| IVPN | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| 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_linkable | Nothing that links traffic to a person none_linkable |
| RAM-only diskless servers | Part of the fleet partialBivpn.net · | No, servers write to disk noCprotonvpn.com · |
| IP allocation model | Exit address shared between users shared | Exit address shared between users shared |
| Signup without email | Yes, on the provider's word yes_declared | Yes, on the provider's word yes_declared |
| Anonymous payment options | Cash · Cryptocurrency paid directlyBivpn.net · 2 sources · | 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 | No third-party SDK none | No third-party SDK none |
| Worst third-party tracker category on the site | Analytics analyticsBivpn.net · | — 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 | NoneBivpn.net · | 8 United Arab Emirates, Belarus, India, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Russia, Turkey, VietnamDprotonvpn.com · |
| 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 | — not establishedno source published | No such regime noBprotonvpn.com · 2 sources · |
| Persistent device identifier | An identifier scoped to the app app_scoped_idBivpn.net · | 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 |
| IVPN | 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 | — not establishedAcure53.de · | The no-logs claim itselfAsecuritum.com · |
| Server fleet coverage | — the question does not ariseno source published | A sample of servers sampleCsecuritum.com · |
| Auditor name | Cure53 |
| IVPN | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Server seizure by law enforcement | No seizure on record none_known | No seizure on record none_known |
| Actual disclosure history | No disclosure on record none_known | No disclosure on record none_known |
| Court record of compelled production | Told a court it had nothing to produce unable_to_produce | Told a court it had nothing to produce unable_to_produce |
| Response to a national logging mandate | Was never present in that country no_presenceBivpn.net · | Pulled its servers out rather than comply withdrew_physicalBprotonvpn.com · |
| Transparency report | Current, with request numbers fresh_with_numbers | Current, with request numbers fresh_with_numbers |
| Reported numbers plausible for this scale |
| IVPN | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Documented gap between claim and behaviour | No documented lie none | No documented lie none |
| 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 | Nothing adverse on record clean | Nothing adverse on record clean |
| How the service is paid for | Paid subscriptions only paid_onlyBivpn.net · | A free tier funded by the paid one freemium_fundedCprotonvpn.com · |
| Claims of 100% anonymity or military-grade crypto | Makes no such claim no |
| IVPN | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Legal entity | IVPN Limited, 5 Secretary's lane, GX11 1AA, GibraltarBivpn.net · | Proton AG, Plan-les-Ouates, Geneva, SwitzerlandCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
| Where the company sits | Gibraltar GIBivpn.net · 2 sources · | Switzerland CHCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
| Year the service launched | 2009Bivpn.net · | 2017C |
| IVPN | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Platforms with a client | 6 Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, RoutersBivpn.net · | 9 Android, Android TV, Apple TV, Browser extension, Fire TV, iOS, Linux, macOS, WindowsBprotonvpn.com · |
| Countries with an exit | 41 countriesBivpn.net · | 147 countriesDprotonvpn.com · |
| Paying monthly | $6.00 per monthBivpn.net · | $9.99 per monthBprotonvpn.com · |
| Securitum (Martin Matyja, Maciej Szymczak)Asecuritum.com · |
| Auditor category | A security specialist security_specialist | A security specialist security_specialist |
|---|
| Assurance standard | Another standard other | Another standard other |
|---|
| Date of latest report | 2024-04-08Acure53.de · | 2026-05-27Cprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Audit cadence | An annual series annual_series | An annual series annual_series |
|---|
| Total published audits | 7Bivpn.net · | 5Cprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Retention as the report states it | The report does not address retention not_statedBivpn.net · | Nothing that links traffic to a person none_linkableAsecuritum.com · |
|---|
| Client source code published | Every client all | Every client all |
|---|
| Reproducible builds | — not established | — not established |
|---|
| Separate pentest | Yes, and the report was read yes_verifiedAcure53.de · 3 sources · | Yes, on the provider's word yes_declaredCprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Strength of the assurance opinion | — the question does not arise | — the question does not arise |
|---|
plausibleThe numbers are plausible at this scale plausible |
| Warrant canary discipline | Kept current maintainedBivpn.net · | Never had one noneBprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Requests received | 34Bivpn.net · | 458Bprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Requests that produced data | 0 | 0 |
|---|
| Secret-order regime | No secret-order regime on record none_knownBivpn.net · 2 sources · | Orders go through a judge judicial_onlyCswissinfo.ch · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Chronology of documented enforcement events | 0 No demand on the public recordBivpn.net · 2 sources · | 2 documented demandsCswissinfo.ch · 2 sources · |
|---|
| — not establishedno source published |
| 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 | Disclosed by the provider, promptly self_disclosed_promptBivpn.net · | No incident on record none_knownCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Affiliate programme and payout tier | No affiliate programme noneBivpn.net · | — 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_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 | Nicholas Pestell, founder and CEO, 100% owner of IVPN LimitedBivpn.net · | Proton Foundation (Swiss non-profit, controlling shareholder since 06/2024); employees; FONGITCen.wikipedia.org · 2 sources · |
|---|
| Other businesses of the owner group | None disclosedCivpn.net · | 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 | — the question does not ariseno source published | 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 | $60.00 a year at renewal, billed onceBivpn.net · | $53.88 a year at renewal, billed onceBprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Usable free tier | No free tier noneBivpn.net · | A free tier with limits limited_freeBprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Works under active censorship | Claimed to work claimed | Claimed to work claimed |
|---|
| Protocols offered | 4 WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, An obfuscated protocol | 4 WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, An obfuscated protocol |
|---|
| Kill switch coverage | On every platform all_platforms | On every platform all_platforms |
|---|
| Split tunneling available | Available yes | Available yes |
|---|
| Simultaneous connections | 5Bivpn.net · | 10Bprotonvpn.com · |
|---|
| Friction to start using it | No account needed no_accountBivpn.net · 2 sources · | An email address only email_onlyBaccount.protonvpn.com · 2 sources · |
|---|
| P2P allowed | Allowed on some servers partialBivpn.net · | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
| Major streaming services reachable | Some services reachable partialBivpn.net · | — not establishedno source published |
|---|
