Mullvad vs AirVPN

These are the two services here that most obviously do not care about marketing. Both take no email address, both publish source, both are run by small European operations that would rather show you a technical page than a testimonial. One of them has evidence and the other has transparency, and those are not the same thing.

Examined by outsiders, or not examined at all

No outside firm has ever audited AirVPN. What it offers instead is a live public monitor showing what every server is doing, continuously, plus open-source clients — which is real and unusual, and is a different claim from an independent examination of whether logs are kept.

Mullvad has four external reviews published between October 2025 and June 2026, covering the Android app, a WireGuard implementation and the payment and account backend. In 2023 Swedish police searched its servers under warrant and left with nothing.

Both are inside the fourteen-country intelligence agreement — Mullvad in Sweden, AirVPN registered in Perugia. Neither can answer that with jurisdiction, so both answer it by holding as little as possible.

What each one is willing to be awkward about

AirVPN includes every feature on every plan, with no tiers, sells by the three days if you want, includes port forwarding, and accepts cryptocurrency directly. It also has no iPhone or iPad app at all, which for most households ends the conversation, and Italian residents are not permitted to use it.

Mullvad charges five euros a month at any term, takes cash through the post and Monero, and runs on Apple's platforms as well as everything else. It has no port forwarding, caps you at five devices, and its browser add-on is a proxy switch for the desktop app rather than a VPN on its own.

Mullvad is also considerably quicker; AirVPN measures at the slower end of everything here.

Which should you choose?

Choose Mullvad unless you need port forwarding and have no Apple devices. It is faster, it has been examined by outsiders repeatedly, and its no-logs claim has survived an actual search.

Choose AirVPN if port forwarding and a fully inclusive plan matter, you are comfortable with a service nobody outside the company has ever checked, and no iPhone needs covering.