Once the preserve of techies and security obsessives, virtual private networks (or VPNs) have become the go-to tool for keeping your online activity private. The best VPNs encrypt your data and route it through a secure tunnel, shielding your activity from internet providers, advertisers and anyone else trying to track you online.
I’ve tested countless VPNs over the years, and NordVPN has consistently remained at the top. Launched in 2012 with just one server, it’s now grown into a global behemoth with more than 8,300 servers across 127 countries, and a burgeoning security suite that includes a password manager, encrypted cloud storage and an ad and malware blocker.
Based in Panama, a country with no mandatory data-retention laws, NordVPN operates under a strict no-logs policy and has backed this up with independent audits. But with more rivals than ever in 2025, including former top pick ExpressVPN, Proton VPN and Nord Security-owned Surfshark, I wanted to see if it still deserves its reputation as one of the best. I’ve spent the past year testing its apps, speeds, privacy tools and streaming performance to find out.
How I tested
To see how NordVPN stacks up, I ran it through a series of tests to check its speed, security and overall usability across a number of devices. I looked at streaming, extra privacy settings and tools, as well as pricing and customer support. You can read my full testing methodology at the bottom of this article, and we have a full guide on how we test VPNs at The Independent if you want more detail.
The best NordVPN deals
- NordVPN Basic, 24-month plan: Was £234.63, now £61.83, Nordvpn.com
- NordVPN Plus, 24-month plan: Was £302.13, now £78.03, Nordvpn.com
- NordVPN Ultimate, 24-month plan: Was £501.93, now £129.33, Nordvpn.com
NordVPN review
NordVPN
Number of servers: More than 8,300
Number of server countries: 126
Number of devices supported: Up to 10
Devices supported: Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Fire TV Stick and more
Why we love it
- Fast and reliable
- Really great cybersecurity features
- Meshnet is a useful addition
- Strong on privacy
- Works well with streaming
Take note
- Ran into some issues when split tunnelling
- User interface is a bit clunky
NordVPN: Pricing and plans
NordVPN isn’t the cheapest VPN out there, but it’s far from the most expensive. It’s about £1 more per month than Surfshark, but cheaper than ExpressVPN – and for what you’re getting, I’d say it’s worth it. The features, security, and the fact you can now connect up to 10 devices make it one of the best VPNs available. Plus, there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee, so if it’s not for you, you can cancel within a month for a full refund. No strings attached.
A word of advice: if you go for a two-year plan, set a reminder to cancel it before it renews. Once those initial two years are up, you’ll be charged a steep fee for another two years.
Prices do fluctuate due to various promotions. NordVPN offers three subscription tiers – basic, plus and ultimate – so you can pick the plan that suits your needs (and budget). There’s also the option to add a dedicated IP address, which is ideal for corporate users. It costs an extra £3.19 per month, but like the rest of the subscriptions, the price can vary.
NordVPN Basic
This is the most affordable option, giving you access to all the core VPN features. At the time of writing, the cheapest plan is the two-year subscription at £62.16 upfront (around £2.59 per month).
The one-year plan costs £45.48 (about £3.79 a month), while the monthly plan is £10.09 per month.
NordVPN Plus
If you want a bit more than the basics, the plus tier adds useful extras like threat protection pro (which blocks malware, trackers and ads) and a password manager.
A one-month plan is £10.79 per month; a one-year plan costs £55.08 (around £4.59 per month), and the two-year plan comes in at £81.36 (roughly £3.39 per month).
NordVPN Ultimate
This is the full VPN and cybersecurity suite. Along with the VPN, threat protection pro and password manager, you also get 1TB of encrypted cloud storage and cyber insurance. If you’re scammed or defrauded online, you could be covered up to £5,000.
Right now, the monthly plan is £12.79; the one-year subscription costs £77.87 (£6.49 per month); and the two-year subscription is £126.96 (£5.29 per month).
NordVPN: Privacy and features
NordVPN has all the security features you’d expect from a good VPN provider. It uses RAM-based servers, meaning that data isn’t stored on hard drives, and information is wiped with every server reboot, giving me confidence that data can’t be saved or recovered. It also uses AES-256-bit encryption, a gold-standard encryption method used by militaries and banks.
It supports connections over NordLynx (NordVPN’s WireGuard-based protocol) and OpenVPN. These are basically high-security protocols that create an encrypted tunnel between the VPN client and the server. By default, NordVPN uses NordLynx – it’s lightning fast, so I didn’t see much need to change it. But you can switch it in the settings if you want. You can also install the VPN on your router.
In January 2025, NordVPN launched a new protocol called NordWhisper, specifically designed to help users bypass VPN blocks and internet censorship. It works by disguising VPN traffic to look like regular HTTPS web traffic, especially useful in places like China or Iran.
There’s also a built-in kill switch that’s turned on by default. If your VPN connection drops, it cuts off internet access altogether, so your data doesn’t leak. The split tunnelling feature is there too, letting you exclude certain websites, handy for things like online banking.
While those are all pretty standard these days, NordVPN also offers more advanced features that help it stand out. I really like the double VPN setting, it routes your traffic through two VPN servers instead of one, encrypting your data twice. That makes it even harder for anyone to trace your activity. It’s especially useful for journalists or people in countries with heavy surveillance.
If you want to take things even further, NordVPN lets you route your traffic through the Onion network, without needing to download the Tor browser. If you’ve heard of Onion, it’s probably been in the context of the dark web, but the Tor browser was also what Edward Snowden used to leak NSA documents. He recommended it for anyone trying to stay anonymous online.
There are dedicated servers for P2P torrenting, something that not all VPNs offer. When I tested them, download speeds were the same as on regular servers.
One underrated feature (that ExpressVPN and others still don’t have) is the pause button. If you’re as forgetful as I am, you’ve probably left your VPN on by mistake and ended up seeing odd Google results or landing on Amazon’s German site. With NordVPN, you can pause your connection for up to an hour and have it turn back on automatically.
NordVPN also introduced Meshnet in 2023, which lets you create a private network over the internet. It’s great for securely sharing files with specific people, or for gamers who want to play together on a private connection.
Those are the core features, but if you opt for the plus or ultimate plans, you get some extra cybersecurity tools. Not all of them are essential – you could replicate a lot of it with free browser extensions – but it’s nice to have the option.
Threat Protection Pro blocks malicious websites and trackers, scans files for malware, and checks your apps for vulnerabilities. Yes, free antivirus software can do this too, but it’s convenient having it all in one place. There’s also a dark web monitor that scans for leaked login credentials and lets you know if your data’s been exposed.
The password manager is a nice bonus if you don’t want to pay for something like 1Password separately. The ultimate tier is probably only worth it for business users. The extra perks are the cyber insurance and 1TB of cloud storage.
NordVPN: Logging
If you’re worried about your internet traffic being tracked, you shouldn’t be. NordVPN was the first major provider to undergo an independent no-logs audit. The first one was in 2018, and it’s completed four more since then.
In 2018, PricewaterhouseCoopers found that NordVPN didn’t keep logs of your connection data or browsing activity. That means your IP addresses, VPN usage, websites visited, and files downloaded were all kept private. A second audit in 2020 confirmed the same thing.
After that, NordVPN switched to Deloitte for future audits. In 2022, Deloitte interviewed staff, checked server configurations, and examined technical logs. Again, no user activity data was stored. In late 2023, Deloitte audited its infrastructure again, including obfuscated, double VPN, Tor and P2P servers, and found no evidence of logging.
Most recently, in early 2025, Deloitte Audit Lithuania carried out a fifth audit, confirming that NordVPN’s servers still weren’t storing any user data.
NordVPN: Performance and speed
In mid-2025, NordVPN finally replaced its clunky map-based interface with a cleaner, dashboard-style layout on both Windows and Mac. While some people liked the map for picking out countries visually, I always found it a bit overcrowded. The new layout is much easier to use.
You now get a list of recent, specialty and standard servers on the right, with pause and quick connect buttons up top. The middle section gives you access to settings for Threat Protection, Meshnet and the Dark Web Monitor. Things like the kill switch are already enabled, so you don’t have to mess around with advanced settings unless you want to. One downside: it now takes a few more clicks to reach specific city-level servers. You’ll need to pick a country, click the options button, then choose your city. It’s not as quick as before.
Split tunnelling is still only available on Windows. Even then, it’s not flawless. I had a few issues where streaming services didn’t recognise that they were whitelisted and thought I was still using the VPN. A bit of a letdown, considering how polished the rest of the experience is.
As for speed? NordVPN is seriously fast. It’s one of the quickest VPNs I’ve tested. Using the quick connect UK server, I only saw a 4% drop on my 67 Mbps broadband. Connecting to the US server resulted in about a 9% slowdown. Still pretty snappy.
NordVPN: iOS and Android apps
The dashboard view has yet to come to iOS and Android, but it’s less overbearing on mobile, so I don’t mind too much. As with many VPNs, the Android app is more feature-rich than the iOS app, even though they look nearly identical. Both feature the same map-based interface, with a server list at the bottom for easier navigation. While the design feels more suited to desktop devices than mobile, it still works well enough and offers most of the same features alongside the same fast speeds.
That said, the Android app has a couple of key advantages. It supports split tunnelling, letting you choose which apps use the VPN and which bypass it – something iOS doesn’t offer, mainly due to Apple’s restrictions. The Android app also provides more granular control, such as the ability to set custom DNS servers and access obfuscated servers, features that aren’t available on iOS.
That said, they both deliver a really good level of performance, speed and reliability, on both Android and iOS.
NordVPN for streaming
If you’re travelling abroad and want to stream your favourite shows or catch up on sports from back home in the UK, a VPN can make that possible. While it isn’t technically illegal to use a VPN to stream geo-restricted content on platforms like Netflix or BBC iPlayer, it does violate most streaming services’ terms of service, so proceed with caution.
That said, if you’re struggling to access content on BBC iPlayer, Sky Sports, or even Netflix, NordVPN is a fantastic choice. Thanks to its obfuscated servers, NordVPN effectively masks your VPN usage, making it appear as though you’re browsing normally. In our tests, streaming platforms never detected that we were using a VPN, and we could watch all my favourite shows and live sports while connected to UK servers without interruption.
I tried NordVPN on a few different devices and with various different streaming services and it performed admirably. I was able to watch ITVX, Channel 4, Sky Go and Prime Video without any issues on my iPhone, Mac and Windows laptop. Speeds were still fast, without any annoying buffering.
Overall, streaming worked like a charm, and I didn’t have to jump servers trying to find one that would work with my streaming service of choice. Speeds were decent too – I didn’t experience any issues with buffering on my various devices.
Support
NordVPN has 24-hour live chat support, which can be accessed through the provider’s website. There is no live chat in the mobile app, but I was able to send a message through the contact us button located inside the app settings.
NordVPN’s support staff were extremely responsive. It took me just 10 seconds to get connected to a human agent, and you can ask to speak to a person at any point during your conversation with the chatbot. That said, I probably didn’t even need the agent’s help – the chatbot is surprisingly thorough, answering almost every question I threw at it. Chances are, you’ll figure out what you need just by talking to the bot.
Buy now £2.59, NordVPN.com
Your questions on NordVPN answered
Should you download NordVPN?
NordVPN is one of the most feature-packed VPNs on the market right now – you get all the regular encryption and security features, but also some more advanced settings like access to The Onion Network, Double VPN, Meshnet and lots more. The threat protection and password manager are really useful additions for plus-tier users, putting it a notch above the competition. I particularly liked the presets on the Mac application. NordVPN has also finally ditched that big map interface across Windows, and useful features like quick search and auto-enabled kill switch mean you rarely need to dig through settings unless you want to.
TrustPilot user reviews echo much of what I found in my testing. A lot of the reviews praise the service’s speed and ease of use, especially when streaming. Customer support also gets a lot of positive attention on TrustPilot, with reviewers frequently name-checking agents for being friendly and fast at responding. Even users who decided to cancel said the refund process was smooth and hassle-free.
While NordVPN might not be the cheapest platform, it offers much more than ExpressVPN, which costs more and has more features than Surfshark, as well as better speeds. It’s fast, connections are quick and it just does what it says on the tin. It’s well-rounded and will serve any type of user well.
How I tested NordVPN in full
Why you can trust IndyBest reviews
Alex Lee is a technology journalist with more than eight years of experience writing about cybersecurity, digital privacy and technology. Since 2020, Alex has rigorously researched, tested and reviewed VPNs, including NordVPN, ExpressVPN and Surfshark, keeping up with every new feature release and development from all the leading providers.
