Proton VPN vs Mullvad

These are the two services in this directory with the strongest published evidence behind them, and they are not really competing for the same reader. Proton VPN and Mullvad both score 4 for privacy, and they get there by opposite routes: Proton by having outsiders check its servers every year, Mullvad by knowing as little as possible about you. Both have been audited repeatedly by named firms. Only one of them can be paid for in cash by post.

A free plan that is a plan rather than a trial

Proton VPN's free tier has no data cap and no expiry, and the company commits to keeping it that way. Nothing else in this directory offers protection you can use indefinitely without paying, and for a reader who is not sure they want a subscription at all, that settles the question of where to start.

Switzerland also sits outside both the Five and Fourteen Eyes arrangements. Sweden is a Fourteen Eyes member, which is the one criticism of Mullvad that four audits cannot answer. Proton VPN allows ten simultaneous connections against Mullvad's five, supports port forwarding where Mullvad removed it, and offers split tunnelling in both directions rather than only excluding applications.

The trade is latency. Proton VPN added 366 milliseconds to download latency on the bench used throughout this directory, the highest figure of anything measured on it, which is why Proton VPN scores 3 for speed against Mullvad's 4 despite measuring faster on raw throughput.

An account with nothing attached to it

With Mullvad you are a number. Registration takes no email address and no password: the service issues a randomly generated account, you add time to it, and there is nothing on file connecting that account to you unless you connect it yourself. Payment can be made in cash through the post, or in Monero.

The audit record is unusually dense. Four external reviews were published between October 2025 and June 2026, by Leviathan Security Group, Assured Security Consultants and X41 D-Sec, covering the Android app, a new WireGuard implementation and the payment and account backend. In 2023 Swedish police searched Mullvad's servers under warrant and left with nothing, which is the sort of evidence no audit can manufacture.

Pricing is five euros a month whether you buy one month or ten years. Nothing changes at renewal because there is nothing to change.

Which should you choose?

Choose Proton VPN if you want real protection without paying anything, or if jurisdiction is the axis you are optimising along. Choose Mullvad if you want as little information as possible to exist about you, and five devices without port forwarding is a limit you can live inside.

If neither the free tier nor the anonymity is the deciding factor, Windscribe is worth a look before either: it also takes no email address, allows unlimited devices, and scores 5 for value where both of these score 4.