NordVPN review: A sprawling VPN that stumbles on price

NordVPN is one of the best VPNs , but it really stands out in two ways: its truly enormous server network that reaches 130 countries, and its suite of bonus features. These extras can be found both within the VPN app and in several side bundles.

There's so much going on here that it can be hard to see the actual VPN, but running my 11-point test helped me reach some truths about what using NordVPN is actually like. In this full review, I'll discuss its features, its speeds, whether it can unblock Netflix and even more.

TLDR: Most important things to know about NordVPN

• Streaming:NordVPN only unblocked Netflix in three out of five locations, but did better with Hulu and Amazon Prime Video .

• Speed:NordVPN slowed my internet down by an average of 20.2 percent worldwide.

• Pricing:The best deal is a 27-month Basic plan for $83.43, which works out to $3.09 per month; after that expires, a monthly subscription is your best bet.

• Bundles:The password manager, encrypted cloud storage and automated data removal give you the best value. Higher-tier perks, like the NordProtect anti-ID theft suite, feel unnecessary.

• Ease of use:The recent redesign of the Windows app is a misstep, but all the other new versions look and work much better.

• Security:NordVPN is free of leaks, and all four of its protocols — including the unique NordLynx and NordWhisper — are stable and secure.

• Privacy:All gathered personal data is anonymized, but there is a little too much liberty for unknown third parties to gain access to your information.

• Locations:NordVPN has servers in 130 countries and territories with 190 total locations.

• Extras:Dark web monitoring and special servers are great, but the best feature is Meshnet, which lets you securely connect two devices without going through a VPN location.

• Support:Written articles can be hard to find and parse, but live chat and email support are quick and helpful.

• Background:NordVPN has suffered only one severe breach in 14 years. While it shouldn't have waited a year to announce that hack, it responded well behind the scenes.

Can NordVPN unblock Netflix?

If you came here from my other reviews, you might be aware that VPNs are having a tough time unblocking Netflix right now. This happens from time to time — VPNs and streaming services are in a constant race. VPNs have to refresh their infrastructure quickly enough that Netflix doesn't figure out how to block it; inevitably, Netflix sometimes gets ahead.

This is one of those times. When NordVPN unblocked Netflix three times each in Canada and Germany, I dared to hope it had broken the curse. But things slowed down in Japan, where only one of three NordVPN IP addresses didn't get caught by Netflix. In Australia and the Netherlands, none of my tests got through.

Fortunately, NordVPN is better at unblocking other streaming services, including Hulu and Amazon Prime Video. It also did better at unblocking Netflix than any other VPN I've tested since this problem began. Finding a streaming VPN is tough right now, but NordVPN remains one of the best.

Speed test

I used Ookla Speedtest to see how much NordVPN reduced my browsing speeds on five different servers. I set the app to choose the fastest protocol, and picked popular servers to see how well NordVPN handles large loads, balancing that with distances. The results were decent, but not as fast as I'd hoped.

On average, NordVPN slowed down my internet by around 20 percent worldwide, with better performances on closer servers. Speeds were best on the nearest server to me, in Seattle, but that still lost me about 7.5 percent of my speed. Ultimately, this puts NordVPN ahead of B-tier services like CyberGhost and Private Internet Access, but behind its direct competitors like Proton VPN, ExpressVPN and Surfshark.

How much does NordVPN cost?

NordVPN has four different pricing tiers in a world where most VPNs stop at three, but its pricing isn't as complicated as it first seems. There are some great deals available here — at least at first. Unfortunately, NordVPN's renewal pricing is so expensive that it hardly saves you money over a month-to-month subscription. This is a good VPN, but once you've worked out all this math, it costs more than it should.

NordVPN comes in four types of subscription, each of which adds more perks. Here's the full menu. All of these tiers can be used on 10 devices at once, and all include a 30-day refund guarantee.

• Basiccomes with the full VPN service, and also includes the Threat Protection ad blocker and a stripped-down version of the Dark Web Monitor, which can search data leaks for up to five email addresses.

• Plusadds Threat Protection Pro, which adds a download scanner, stronger website blocking, an ad and tracker blocker and email scam protection. It also includes the NordPass password manager.

• Completeupgrades the Dark Web Monitor to check for eight emails, plus other personal and financial information. It also adds encrypted NordLocker cloud storage and protections against scam calls.

• Primeadds NordProtect features, including additional dark web monitoring, credit bureau monitoring, a credit score analyzer and scam insurance.

Each of these four subscriptions comes with three options for paying, though the longer two will renew at a higher cost. Basiccosts $12.99 per month, $59.88 for the first 12 months ($4.99/month) and $83.43 for the first 27 months ($3.09/month). After the first billing period, it renews at $139.08 for a year ($11.59/month). Pluscosts $15.29 per month, $65.88 for the first 12 months ($5.49/month) and $96.93 for the first 27 months ($3.59/month). Subsequent long-term plans cost $179.88 per year ($14.99/month).

For Complete,you'll pay $18.69 per month, $83.88 for 12 months ($6.99/month) and $134.73 for 27 months ($4.99/month), with both longer plans renewing at $219.48 for 12 months ($18.29/month). A Primesubscription goes for $25.29 per month, $107.88 for 12 months ($8.99/month) and $188.73 for 27 months ($6.99/month). The longer plans renew at $296.28 for 12 months ($24.69/month).

As you can see, once the longer plans renew, you're barely saving any money at all. Plus is the worst offender, with a long-term renewal saving you about 30 cents per month. That's not enough reward for locking yourself into a year-long plan. If you like NordVPN, just renew monthly after your introduction period ends — or create an account with a new email and see if you can get the first-time deal again.

NordVPN side apps and bundles

NordVPN has enough side offerings at this point that the VPN risks getting lost in the shuffle. The plans beyond Basic don't add anything to the VPN service itself; instead, their additional apps address other aspects of security, like password strength, malware and phishing scams. Several of these can help you with the 12 most important steps for staying safe online .

• A dedicated IP addresscan be added to any NordVPN plan for an extra fee. If you regularly access a restricted network, you can use a dedicated IP to get through the firewall while staying on the VPN. It's also useful if you get a lot of "are you human" requests while NordVPN is active.

• You can also add Incogni data removalto any plan for an additional fee. Incogni contacts data brokers and asks them to remove your personal information, scrubbing your internet presence without you having to do anything. It doesn't clear 100 percent of data, but even one month can seriously cut the amount of spam you get.

• Scam call protectionis available for Android users with a Complete or Prime subscription. It alerts you when your phone receives a call that might be a swindle.

• Threat Protection Probuilds on the protection included in the Basic plan by blocking a larger range of harmful websites and directly shutting down ads. It can also scan links in emails to check for phishing schemes.

• NordPassis a password manager that can generate passwords, autofill them on websites, sync them across devices and alert you to change them if they appear in data breaches.

• NordLockergives you a terabyte of cloud storage with end-to-end encryption, so not even the people at Nord can see what you've got in there.

• NordProtectis a large suite of identity protection options. This is the most unfocused add-on, as some of the features are redundant with lower-tier ones (we're up to at least three different data breach monitors by now) and others are basically coupons for third-party services from TransUnion or HSB.

Setting up and using NordVPN

NordVPN recently overhauled its desktop apps from top to bottom — really recently, as in while I was writing this review. I've thought for a while that NordVPN's macOS and Windows apps were due for a redesign, so I was happy to hear the news. The overhaul impacted iOS and Android too, though not as much. Let's see if the new apps address some of the old issues without creating new ones.

I'll start with the Windows app. Unfortunately, the new UI changes are mainly lateral moves, and sometimes even downgrades. I'm glad they got rid of the map, which wasn't doing much, but they've replaced it with a lot of clutter. The main page is less than half VPN, with the other half taken up by Threat Protection and the Dark Web Monitor — two great features, but not the VPN I subscribed to.

The redesigned server list is only big enough to display four locations at a time, and the scroll bar is tiny. The search function works well, but casually looking for options is now awkward and unwieldy. My Windows laptop is pretty small, which ran me into another problem: the settings button, which leads to all the important VPN options, was cut in half by the bottom of the screen. Since all NordVPN's widgets are a fixed size, I wasn't able to shrink the window, so I just had to make do.

The main mistake of NordVPN's new Windows approach is that it's way too eager to frontload everything except the actual VPN. Side features get their own individual tabs, even if you don't have the plan that includes them. Meanwhile, everything about the VPN itself feels crammed into corners and crevices. Also, connections still take too long, and disconnecting is still much harder than it needs to be.

What makes this even weirder is that I actually quite like the Mac redesign. The front page prioritizes the VPN, with server locations in a separate but easily accessible panel. Different types of servers are laid out in six tabs, and it's easy to search through the offerings within a country.

The Mac settings menu is hidden in the upper toolbar — go to NordVPN > Settings or hit Cmd+comma to open it. Awkwardly, it opens beneath the server list, so close out of that to see it. It's easy to use once you actually get there. My only other complaint is that there's no way to go directly to the fastest server with a click; you have to go into the server menu, pick a country and click the Fastest option under that country.

Android hasn't changed as much. The map screen is still there, and it's easy — and often actually fun — to navigate and zoom. If you prefer a list, that works fine too. Connections seem to happen much faster than they do on desktop (during testing, I was on a server in Australia for several minutes before I even noticed).

The only downside here is that the VPN settings menu remains unreasonably hard to find. As before, go to the Profile tab and tap the Settings button you find in there. I'd vote for putting this on the main screen instead of the Statistics window, which has never been useful on any VPN.

NordVPN's iOS app thankfully takes its cues from the Mac redesign, not the Windows edition. It has the same problem as Android with hiding the actual VPN settings in a corner (as above, they're hidden under Settings in the profile tab), but they're easy to understand and use. Like on Android, connections happen quickly enough to convince me that NordVPN's true home is on mobile.

There's only one thing that gets in the way: you still can't log into your Nord account on any platform without going through a web browser. You have to do this repeatedly, even if you've already logged in on the same device. No app should ever rely on another app to function.

Finally, we come to the browser extensions for Firefox, Chrome and Microsoft Edge. These have also been redesigned, along the lines of Windows but with mercifully better use of space. The main reason to use these is to split tunnel by website on any app — including Mac and iOS, which don't have native split tunneling support. As always, remember that a VPN browser extension only protects traffic through the browser it's on.

Security test

Testing a VPN's security is often simpler than it sounds. It's usually a combination of making sure the service is using strong protocols and testing for IP address leaks. That said, though my tests found NordVPN to be free of any kind of obvious leak, VPNs can sometimes fail in ways that are harder to predict.

I can't recommend a VPN if it isn’t secure, so this section is vital. Luckily for NordVPN and its users, I’ve got good news. NordVPN uses four different protocols. Everyone has access to OpenVPN, a good choice with a long history of continual improvement, and NordLynx, a unique protocol built off the already-excellent WireGuard. Windows and Android users also get the very fast IKEv2 and NordWhisper, which works better than the others on restricted networks (though it's a bit slower).

Since all those protocols are up-to-date and use uncracked encryption, I moved on to the leak tests, where I check my IP address before and after connecting to NordVPN. If my IP address stays the same when the VPN is active, then for several reasons, it might have sprung a security leak. I used ipleak.net to run the tests.

After checking five servers (for maximum coverage, different from the ones I used for the speed and streaming tests), I found no leaks — NordVPN is doing everything right here. Most importantly, it didn't even leak when I switched from one server to another, a feat Surfshark didn't manage.

I continued by using WireShark to run an encryption test, which ensured that NordVPN consistently keeps all your data inside its secure tunnels. Before moving on, I checked the one major security concern about NordVPN: the possibility of decryption keys being stolen, as happened in Finland in 2018.

As I'll cover in more detail in the background check section below, NordVPN has done more than enough to regain my trust since that breach. Since the problem was caused by poor information sharing practices from the managers of a server location, Nord is now using virtual server locations anywhere it can't run a data center personally. It's also using full-disk encryption and RAM-only servers to make even a hacked server impossible to read.

NordVPN's privacy policy

You can learn a lot more from a VPN's privacy policy than you might think. As a contract with the user, the policy is technically a legal document, and the words within are enforceable. I set out to read NordVPN's privacy policy in detail to get a sense of its actual attitude toward the rights of its users. The two relevant documents here are the Nord Security privacy policy and a second policy specific to NordVPN itself .

The general Nord policy starts by declaring that "we only collect and use the bare minimum of information needed." It undercuts that a little by later claiming the right to add your account email address to a mailing list, though in NordVPN's defense, that's hardly unusual.

The gist of the policy is that any information that you don't explicitly provide to Nord will be anonymized, then deleted as soon as it stops being necessary. This includes the data needed to operate the VPN, such as your home IP address for establishing the VPN tunnel. What you actually do online isn't necessary to log, so NordVPN doesn't log it.

Nord and NordVPN do comply with law enforcement requests, a decision that caused some controversy when they revised the policy to include it. To me, though, it's reasonable — "complying" can easily mean telling the police you don't have anything to show them. The only part of this policy that bothers me is the leeway it claims to share your data with third parties, not all of whom are listed on the website.

When I reached out, a spokesperson for NordVPN told me that partners often changed over time and varied by region. That makes sense, but other VPNs are able to publish complete lists, so NordVPN suffers by not following suit. The policy states that these partners, including payment processors, support staff and analytics platforms, "will act as independent controllers of your personal data...your relationship will be governed by the procedures they have established."

You might have seen the issue already. Not only do you need to read every privacy policy for every third party listed in the Nord document, but some of them aren't listed at all, so you'll never know exactly what "procedures they have established." I'm not trying to write off Nord here — other leading VPNs do similar things. But I do recommend thinking twice before using NordVPN to protect anything truly sensitive.

The NordVPN-specific privacy policy doesn't change much, but it does lead me to one thing you can do in the app to ensure a bit more privacy. As the policy states, "The collection of analytics and advertising data is optional and may be managed by you." However, both analytics (data about how you use the NordVPN app) and advertising (info for NordVPN to use in marketing campaigns) are active by default.

To turn them off, go to Settings, scroll down to Privacy preferences and turn off both Analytics and Engagement measurement. Although the data these features collect is aggregated so nothing traces back to a specific user, it's still worth choosing to be as private as possible.

NordVPN's privacy policy has been guaranteed by six consecutive independent audits, with the last review conducted in December 2025 . The report by Deloitte Lithuania — which you need a Nord account to read, though not a paid subscription — stated that Nord's servers were set up in ways that fit with its no-logging policy.

NordVPN's server locations

NordVPN's server network has exploded in the year since I last reviewed it and now reaches 190 cities in 130 countries. This growth relies heavily on virtual servers, where the actual server is not in the location shown. There's nothing inherently wrong with that as long as the new locations are being deployed thoughtfully, instead of in a rush to create ad hype.

My speed and security tests showed no marked reduction in quality between real and virtual servers, so NordVPN's growth appears sustainable — just be warned that a virtual location might not always give you the performance you expect.

The upside of using so many virtual servers is that NordVPN now has servers in more countries than any competitor. It doesn't have the most locations overall — ExpressVPN currently holds that title — but it does offer IP addresses in an extraordinary range of countries, including almost everywhere in South America and 18 nations in Africa.

It's great to see so many options in the network that don't turn up on any other provider. If you've been dying to find out what they're watching on Netflix in Tajikistan, NordVPN is the answer to your prayers.

Testing the extra features

NordVPN is a feature-forward service with a great deal going on, but I'll do my best to touch on everything. First off, on top of the regular list of VPN locations, you get four types of specialty servers. One is Dedicated IP,which I went over in the Bundles section. Then there's Meshnet,a huge and defining feature that deserves its own subsection (see below).

Obfuscatedservers use an extra-secure version of the OpenVPN protocol to disguise your VPN traffic as normal traffic. This makes your connection slower, so it's best to use it if all the normal locations are getting blocked — but in that situation, NordVPN's obfuscation works well.  Double VPNservers run your connection through two different VPN servers. Unlike some providers, NordVPN doesn't make it possible to choose your own start and end points; instead, you're limited to 12 exits.

Lastly we've got Onion Over VPN,which relays all your data through the volunteer-run, decentralized Tor network. Visiting a VPN server first does a lot to mitigate the inherent risks of Tor. P2Pservers used to be a separate feature, but now all of its locations allow torrenting, except three (all in Eastern Europe for some reason).

Meshnet

Nobody was more upset than I was when NordVPN briefly discontinued Meshnet last year, and nobody more excited when they reversed course a month later . Meshnet isn't just NordVPN's most unique feature; it's one of the most interesting things happening on any VPN.

Any two devices with a NordVPN app can use Meshnet. When you activate Meshnet on one device, it gets added to the Meshnet tab on the server list. Other devices can then use Meshnet to connect to it directly (using the NordLynx protocol), without going through a VPN server first.

This means you can use phones and computers you own as VPN connections — and connect to your friends' devices too, if they accept your requests. This isn't for privacy, since your devices still have their normal IP addresses, but there are tons of other applications. With Meshnet, as long as you or a friend have a computer in a country, you have a VPN location there. You can also use it to transfer files between connected devices, or remotely access folders or gaming servers.

Threat Protection and Dark Web Monitor

Basic NordVPN subscribers, and anybody using it on mobile, get the standard Threat Protection antivirus package. Threat Protection, which only works while NordVPN is active, is pretty straightforward: it blocks your web browser from accessing any web page from a list of known unsafe domains.

Threat Protection Pro is available on Plus and above plans and is usable on macOS and Windows. In addition to blocking hostile websites, Pro can block certain trackers and scan files for viruses as you download them.

NordVPN's other best non-VPN security feature is its Dark Web Monitor, which watches the secret sites where hackers distribute stolen data. If a breach contains an email address you've registered with NordVPN, you'll be alerted that this account might be compromised. Basic and Plus subscribers can keep watch for five email addresses, while Complete and Prime users can track eight, plus phone numbers, credit card numbers and social security numbers.

Other notable features

A few other important parts of NordVPN don't fit neatly into a category. Users on all platforms can add quantum-resistant encryption to their connection. This is basically NordLynx, encrypted one extra time with a cipher not currently breakable by quantum computers. I don't recommend using this, since quantum decryption isn't yet a major threat and it makes your VPN connection a lot slower.

Lastly, NordVPN includes a kill switch and split tunneling. A kill switch cuts off your internet if you lose your connection to the VPN. This doesn't just protect you from broadcasting unprotected information, but also keeps you from connecting to a fake VPN server — which would have foiled the hackers who stole NordVPN keys in 2018 (see "Background check.")

Split tunneling works on Windows and Android, and divides the VPN tunnel by app — some get encrypted and others don't use the VPN. If you'd rather split by website instead, you can use the browser extension.

NordVPN's customer support

I always like to approach customer support with a question in mind. This time, I wanted to know the difference between the various dark web monitoring features in different parts of NordVPN. The help center has been overhauled so the top categories make more sense, which makes it somewhat easier to find the articles you need. There's also a search bar, but only on the home page.

That's annoying, because the help articles go several levels deep. Just by clicking the first link on every page, I wound up five pages in before I found a basic guide on Windows connectivity issues. The articles themselves lean heavily on bullet points, with very few pictures for guidance.

I found a definition of the two levels of in-app Dark Web Monitoring pretty easily, but information on NordProtect and NordPass was lacking. For that, I turned to live chat, which you can access from the bottom of any help page. That went significantly better — I quickly got past the bot and met with a real person, who explained that all the Dark Web Monitors were the same feature managed by different apps.

Even better, I checked the page I asked about last year, which covered the difference between Threat Protection and Threat Protection Pro. That support rep promised to update some confusing parts of that page, and I saw the changes had in fact been made.

Background check

NordVPN was launched in 2012 in Lithuania, the same homeland as its partner VPN Surfshark . These days, it's officially based in Panama . Its parent company is Nord Security, which has a pretty uninteresting record. Which is a good thing! VPNs are like babysitters — you don't want to see yours on the news.

2018 server breach

In the 14 years NordVPN has operated, it's only suffered one breach worth talking about. In March of 2018, hackers broke into a NordVPN server in Finland . They weren't able to see any browsing activity by NordVPN users, since that was hidden behind deeper encryption, and the area they'd penetrated did not host any passwords or other compromising data.

Instead, the hackers stole three decryption keys and held them until they expired a year or so later. During that time, they theoretically could have used those keys to set up a fake NordVPN server on public Wi-Fi and direct unsuspecting victims into their honeypot. There's no evidence they ever did this, but it was technically possible.

Getting hacked can often paradoxically help a VPN's credibility, since it gives the company an opportunity to demonstrate how it handles a crisis. NordVPN made an early mistake by not disclosing the breach as soon as they learned about it in May 2018. Instead, the news broke through a third party in 2019, which made NordVPN look negligent — though they'd been working on the problem since the first warning.

After that, though, NordVPN responded in exactly the way I would have hoped. They discovered that the breach occurred due to a weak remote access system installed by the managers of the Finnish data center. Since then, they've focused on managing their servers themselves instead of contracting through third parties.

Final verdict

NordVPN proved difficult to categorize this time around. It's a solid choice, but not for the reasons I initially expected. Its speeds are only OK, its pricing is pretty egregious and I don't like its new Windows app much. However, the vast selection of locations, the wide variety of specialty servers, the flexible utility of Meshnet and the improved designs of all the non-Windows apps won me over.

The only users I wouldn't recommend NordVPN for are those with serious information to hide, such as dissidents and journalists. There's just slightly too much of a loophole with third parties in the privacy policy. I don't think NordVPN is abusing this to spy on its customers, but for people who need true privacy, any amount of suspicion is too much.