Surfshark vs Private Internet Access

There is an uncomfortable thing to say about these two before anything else, and it applies to both of them equally.

Two kill switches, and neither held

Under testing, Surfshark's kill switch allowed traffic through after a restart. So did Private Internet Access's. This is the feature whose failure is silent — nothing tells you it did not work, and the exposure happens in the seconds after a reconnection you did not notice. Two products in the same comparison failing the same test is not a reason to pick between them; it is a reason to check the switch yourself after a reboot whichever one you buy.

If that is disqualifying, stop reading and look at a service whose switch holds — Windscribe and Proton VPN both pass the test these two failed. The rest of this page assumes you have decided it is not.

What one of them lets you inspect

Every Private Internet Access app is open source on every platform. Surfshark's are closed. Private Internet Access also has port forwarding, a SOCKS5 proxy and IPv6 protection; Surfshark has none of the three and its guidance is to disable IPv6 on your network rather than have the VPN handle it.

Both cover unlimited simultaneous devices and both run their fleets from memory with nothing on disk. Both have been audited recently — Deloitte inspected Private Internet Access in October 2025 and Surfshark in June 2025, with a separate network test that December.

Price separates them at the far end. Private Internet Access renews its three-year plan at what it charged. Surfshark's advertised rate covers twenty-seven months and then roughly doubles.

Which should you choose?

Choose Private Internet Access if you want readable source, port forwarding, IPv6 handled rather than switched off, and a renewal that does not jump. Pick Surfshark if you want multi-hop, which Private Internet Access also has, or you prefer its apps — but you are paying more in year three for a shorter feature list.

The honest summary is that Private Internet Access wins this on the merits and both leave you with the same homework, which is verifying a kill switch that a lab could not get to behave.