Proton VPN vs TunnelBear

Free plans are what bring people to this pair, and the two free plans are shaped differently enough that the choice is usually made there rather than on the paid product.

What each free plan actually gives you

Proton VPN's free tier has no data cap and no expiry, and covers one device across ten countries. TunnelBear's covers unlimited simultaneous devices, the same as its paid plan, but meters you with a monthly data allowance.

One protects a single machine forever. The other protects everything you own until the allowance runs out. Neither asks for a card, and which is more useful depends entirely on whether your constraint is devices or data.

McAfee and Proton AG

Proton VPN is Proton AG of Geneva, and Switzerland sits outside every intelligence-sharing agreement. Outside auditors have inspected its servers five years running, most recently June 2026, and its clients are open source so the software's behaviour can be checked by someone who does not work there.

TunnelBear has been owned by McAfee since 2018. It runs from Toronto under Canadian law but the entity in the contract is a Delaware company, and Canada is inside the five-country agreement. Cure53 has assessed it most years since 2017, which is the longer habit, but the 2024 audit was never published and exists only as a late company summary. Its clients are closed, and an independent lab found its kill switch leaks after a reboot and after a crash.

On capability it is not close. Proton VPN has port forwarding, multi-hop, obfuscation and a kill switch that holds. TunnelBear has obfuscation, split tunnelling and a kill switch that does not, and no Linux app, no multi-hop, no ad blocking and nothing for a television.

TunnelBear's advantages are real but narrow: unlimited devices against Proton's ten, and a yearly plan that renews at the price it charged where Proton's roughly doubles at the end of the first term. Proton VPN is also the slowest service measured here to start loading a page, which shows on calls, and TunnelBear is not.

Which should you choose?

Choose Proton VPN unless the device ceiling or the slow first page load is the binding constraint. On jurisdiction, source, audits and protective features it leads on every one.

Choose TunnelBear if you need to cover more than ten devices for nothing, and you have decided the leaking kill switch and the unpublished audit are acceptable at that price.