Speed is the metric VPN marketing pages love to bury. It’s easy to find a provider’s server count, its device limit, or its no-logs claim on a pricing page — much harder to find a straight answer to “how much slower will my internet actually be.” So the Aovory Team measured it directly.
We ran download, upload, and ping tests across twelve VPN providers, comparing each to a no-VPN baseline connection on the same network, at the same time of day, across three server distances: same-country, same-continent, and intercontinental. Every test was repeated five times per condition and averaged to smooth out normal network fluctuation.
The goal wasn’t to crown a single “fastest” provider based on one flattering number, but to build a fuller picture of how each service performs across the conditions real users actually encounter — a quick local connection for everyday browsing, a longer hop for accessing region-specific content, and the worst-case scenario of a server on the other side of the world.
Why Most Published VPN Speed Claims Are Misleading
A provider’s own marketing page will almost always show its best-case number: a nearby server, low network load, and a favorable time of day. That’s not necessarily dishonest, but it’s incomplete, and it’s part of why so many published “fastest VPN” claims can’t be reproduced by independent testers. Our approach was to test every provider under the same conditions rather than relying on any single provider’s self-reported benchmark.
Testing Setup
- Baseline connection: a fiber connection rated at 500 Mbps download / 250 Mbps upload.
- Test tool: a standard speed-test service, run five times per condition and averaged.
- Server distances tested: same-country (under 200 miles), same-continent (over 1,000 miles), and intercontinental (over 5,000 miles).
- Protocol: each provider’s fastest available modern protocol (WireGuard or a WireGuard-based proprietary build) was used, since this is what most users select by default.
Speed Ranking Table (Same-Country Server, % of Baseline Speed Retained)
| Rank | Provider | Protocol | Download Retained | Ping Increase |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hotspot Shield | Catapult Hydra | 94% | +8ms |
| 2 | NordVPN | NordLynx (WireGuard) | 92% | +9ms |
| 3 | ExpressVPN | Lightway | 90% | +11ms |
| 4 | Surfshark | WireGuard | 89% | +12ms |
| 5 | Private Internet Access | WireGuard | 87% | +13ms |
| 6 | Mullvad | WireGuard | 86% | +14ms |
| 7 | CyberGhost | WireGuard | 84% | +15ms |
| 8 | IPVanish | WireGuard | 82% | +16ms |
| 9 | ProtonVPN | WireGuard | 80% | +18ms |
| 10 | Windscribe | WireGuard | 77% | +20ms |
| 11 | PureVPN | WireGuard | 75% | +22ms |
| 12 | TunnelBear | WireGuard | 71% | +26ms |
Hotspot Shield — Fastest on Short-Distance Servers
Hotspot Shield’s proprietary Catapult Hydra protocol consistently posted the smallest overhead in our same-country tests, retaining an average of 94% of baseline download speed. The gap narrowed less impressively on intercontinental hops, where it settled closer to the middle of the pack — a reminder that “fastest” often depends heavily on which distance you’re actually testing.
NordVPN — Best Balance of Speed Across All Distances
NordVPN’s NordLynx protocol was the most consistent performer across all three distance categories, not just the short-hop test. Where several providers lost significant ground on intercontinental server connections, NordVPN’s drop-off was the smallest of any provider we tested at that distance, making it the strongest overall pick for users who regularly connect to distant servers rather than staying close to home.
ExpressVPN — Fastest Connection Establishment
While ExpressVPN’s raw throughput sits just behind NordVPN and Hotspot Shield, its Lightway protocol distinguished itself in a metric our table doesn’t fully capture: how quickly a connection actually establishes after you hit “connect.” Across dozens of reconnects during testing, Lightway consistently connected in under two seconds, meaningfully faster than several WireGuard implementations that took five seconds or more, particularly on mobile networks.
Why Speed Varies So Much Between Providers Using the Same Protocol
It’s a common point of confusion: many of these providers all run on WireGuard, so why aren’t their speeds identical? Three factors explain most of the gap:
- Server load and capacity planning. A provider with fewer users per server, or better real-time load balancing, will consistently outperform one running the exact same protocol on an overcrowded server.
- Network backbone quality. Some providers lease bandwidth from premium tier-1 network backbones with better peering agreements; others use cheaper infrastructure that shows up as latency under load.
- Protocol implementation tuning. A proprietary build like NordLynx or Lightway can be optimized in ways a stock WireGuard implementation isn’t, particularly around how quickly it handles connection handshakes and packet loss recovery.
Intercontinental Server Performance: Where the Real Gaps Appear
Same-country speed tests tend to flatter every provider on this list, since a well-engineered VPN barely needs to work hard over a short physical distance. The real differentiation showed up once we tested intercontinental hops. NordVPN and ExpressVPN retained the highest percentage of baseline speed at long distances, while several mid-tier providers — capable performers on nearby servers — dropped by more than 40% once traffic had to travel across an ocean and back.
If you regularly need to connect to distant servers, whether for work, travel, or accessing region-specific content, weigh intercontinental performance more heavily than the flashier same-country numbers most review sites lead with.
Testing Caveats Worth Knowing
No speed test, including ours, perfectly predicts what you’ll experience on your own connection. Results shift based on your ISP’s network peering agreements with a given VPN provider’s infrastructure, the time of day tests are run, and even how many other users happen to be connected to the same server at that moment. We minimized this variability by averaging five runs per condition and testing during comparable off-peak windows across providers, but treat any published benchmark, ours included, as a strong directional guide rather than a guaranteed outcome on your specific network.
Practical Tips to Improve Your Own VPN Speed
- Choose the nearest server that meets your need rather than the “recommended” default, which sometimes prioritizes load balancing over proximity.
- Switch to a WireGuard-based protocol if your provider still defaults you to OpenVPN, which carries noticeably more overhead on most connections.
- Restart your router periodically, since accumulated network congestion on consumer routers compounds with VPN encryption overhead.
- Avoid peak local hours on shared public Wi-Fi networks, where congestion — not your VPN — is often the real bottleneck.
- Test wired versus wireless if you’re on the edge of acceptable speeds; VPN overhead is more noticeable on an already-weaker Wi-Fi signal.
Upload Speed and Ping: The Metrics Download Numbers Hide
Most VPN comparisons lead with download speed because it’s the number most people care about for streaming and browsing. But upload speed and ping matter just as much for video calls, cloud backups, and online gaming, and the rankings shift slightly when you weigh those factors. In our testing, NordVPN and ExpressVPN retained the highest percentage of upload speed relative to baseline, while Hotspot Shield’s advantage narrowed considerably once upload traffic was factored in. For ping specifically, Hotspot Shield and NordVPN posted the smallest increases, making them the strongest picks for latency-sensitive use cases like online gaming or video conferencing, where a consistent connection matters more than peak download throughput.
Mobile vs Desktop Speed Differences
Every provider on this list performed measurably better on desktop than on mobile, a gap that widened further on older phone hardware. Part of this comes down to weaker mobile processors handling encryption overhead less efficiently than a desktop CPU, and part of it comes down to how well each provider’s mobile app is optimized versus its desktop counterpart. ExpressVPN and NordVPN had the smallest desktop-to-mobile performance gap in our testing, while a few budget-tier providers saw mobile speeds drop by an additional 10 to 15 percentage points beyond their already-lower desktop numbers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will I ever get 100% of my normal speed with a VPN turned on?
In practice, no — some overhead from encryption and the extra routing hop is unavoidable. Modern protocols have narrowed this to a small enough margin that most users won’t notice it during everyday browsing, though it becomes more visible during large downloads or 4K streaming.
Does a more expensive VPN plan guarantee faster speeds?
Not directly. Speed is driven more by a provider’s server capacity planning and protocol engineering than by subscription tier. Some of the fastest providers in our testing were mid-priced rather than the most expensive options on the market.
Why is my ping so much higher on a VPN even for local browsing?
Ping increases because your traffic is being routed through the VPN server before reaching its destination, adding physical distance and processing time to every request, even for websites hosted near you.
The Bottom Line
For raw short-distance speed, Hotspot Shield edged out the field, but NordVPN’s consistency across every distance we tested — including the intercontinental hops where most providers stumble — makes it the strongest overall pick if speed matters to you across a variety of use cases. ExpressVPN remains the best choice if fast, reliable reconnection matters as much as raw throughput. Whichever provider you choose, test it yourself on your own network before committing to a long-term plan; published benchmarks are a strong guide, but your own ISP, router, and location will always be the final word.
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