Windscribe VPN

Windscribe is an excellent VPN that exceeds expectations by almost every metric. We were impressed by its easy and anonymous signup process, its ability to access the full Netflix library in every region we tested, and its exceptionally generous free tier of service. Windscribe's blunt and refreshing approach to privacy policies and data retention also contributes to the overall positive experience. Despite some middling speed results, Windscribe easily earns our Editors' Choice award alongside category leaders NordVPN and Proton VPN while costing a few dollars less per month than either.

How Much Does Windscribe VPN Cost?

Windscribe VPN costs $9.00 per month, which is just under the $10.29 average we've seen among the field of VPNs we've tested. However, unlike most VPNs, which offer a flat price with the possibility of add-ons, Windscribe allows you to "build" a subscription to your liking.

(Credit: Windscribe/PCMag)

All plans in the "build" category start at $3 but are customized by going through a list of servers and choosing which you would like to have access to. Each country you choose adds one dollar to the plan, with a minimum of three and no maximum. Now, this will only get you nine countries of coverage for the same price as a monthly plan, which covers the total network of 69 locations. As such, we only recommend the BYOP option if you expect to use the VPN in specific circumstances and already know what countries you need to connect to before signing up.

Mullvad VPN notably offers €5 per month pricing ($5.36 as of this writing), which makes it one of the best cheap VPNs we've tested.

As with most VPNs, Windscribe VPN offers discounted annual subscriptions. An annual subscription costs $69.99—somewhat higher than the average of $57.33 across the VPNs we've tested. When asked about this, company owner Yegor Sak candidly replied, "Except for a handful of actual sales throughout the year (that provide real discounts), our prices are always the same, and listed on our website... We don't do any of the always-on fake sales most VPN providers do. Buy 2 years get 4 months free, limited time only? Yeah, not a chance."

It's worth noting that the purchase process on the Windscribe desktop page is one of the smoothest, most well-designed sales funnels I've seen in 15 years of reviewing VPN clients. Every element of the signup process can be handled directly from the homepage as various prompts flip in and out of the same box. This isn't just a site that the VPN industry should emulate, but anyone selling a product on the web, period.

You can pay for the service with any major credit card or Amazon Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or PayPal. You can also use cryptocurrencies, FasterPay local options, Alipay, or Mint. These are a significant number of choices that allow you to keep your personal and financial information anonymous.

If price is a major concern, consider either of Windscribe's two free service tiers: With an email signup, you get 10GB of bandwidth per month, while a no-email signup comes with 2GB.

Normally, this is where I'd take another paragraph to list the many strings that are often attached to free VPN plans; your data is sold to third parties, there are advertisements everywhere, and so on. But with Windscribe, the same client and all its features available for paid accounts are also available to free users. The traffic limitation is the only catch.

What Do You Get for Your Money With Windscribe VPN?

Windscribe doesn't limit the number of devices you can connect simultaneously, whereas many other VPN companies limit you to an average of five or six devices. It joins options like IPVanish by leaving your plan unrestricted, and like IPVanish, it also monitors your account for unusual use cases that might be violating the terms and conditions of use. (Note: IPVanish is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com's parent company. For more, see the ethics policy in our Editorial Mission Statement.)

Windscribe uses extremely plain and blunt but effective language to communicate with its current or potential users on this issue:

"You can use Windscribe on all your personal devices without any issues. But please keep in mind that the Windscribe service is strictly for personal use, so make sure those devices are yours and you are not using the service in any sort of data-center environment or using it for commercial purposes. No one has 30 personal computers that all need a VPN enabled simultaneously or 25 phones that all need a VPN connection at the same time. This sort of extreme use will almost always get your account banned."

Along with Windscribe, Avira Phantom VPN, Ghostery Midnight, and Surfshark put no limits on simultaneous connections.

I'm also a big fan of Windscribe's support center and knowledge base. The information located within is both extensive and extremely easy to access, thanks to an AI-assisted chatbot at the bottom right of Windscribe web page. I could phrase my questions about the service in completely natural language. The AI understood my requests in context and quickly pointed me to the information I needed within the knowledge base.

What VPN Protocols Does Windscribe Offer?

Normally it's up to the reviewer to decode and decipher long lines of technical text to describe the protocols it offers and why you should or shouldn't use them in particular circumstances. But in Windscribe's case, the company makes it very easy to understand:

Windscribe has 6 protocols that are available depending on which Windscribe client you are using. Below are the protocols and their best use cases:

Windscribe VPN Servers and Server Locations

According to Sak, "[Windscribe covers] 69 countries and 134 cities. This is actually more than any VPN out there. I'm of course excluding fake 'virtual locations' some VPNs use to pad their numbers. We don't have any of those except the appropriately named Fake Antarctica, which is not included in the count of 69."

Sak is completely right here, which is why it's difficult to make direct comparisons between Windscribe and any other VPN service I review. Sak is so transparent that he refuses to bulk his marketing figures with virtual locations, which, as mentioned, can often make up vast swaths of what a VPN provider will call its network.

I asked Sak if the company makes use of virtual servers or virtual locations and if all servers are physically located in the same country as they are labeled in the app. Sak replied, "We do not. We find this dishonest and pointless."

It's rare to find a VPN company willing to discuss its true server count versus virtualized locations, and nearly all of them virtualize their networks to begin with. Without that virtualization, Windscribe can't claim the same figures. Again, however, this is not exactly a negative in our book.

Your Privacy With Windscribe VPN

I've been in the VPN review industry for a long time and have spoken with many companies over the years. These communications vary, from getting nothing more than a customer support representative filling out a ticket to talking to founders or CEOs directly. However, this is the first time that upon reaching out to a cold contact form (hello@windscribe.com), I was directly connected with a company's founder.

The plain language of the company's website was immediately apparent in our correspondence, which reassured me about using the service. For starters, it's rare (if not exclusive to Windscribe) to find a VPN provider with a page solely dedicated to its ethics and philosophy. Reading through this article, the company is already off to a fantastic start.

Windscribe also provides an open and honest accounting of every request it receives from law enforcement or the DMCA. This is not necessary to get a good score, but again feeds into the "above and beyond" mentality that permeates every aspect of Windscribe.

Speaking of which, Windscribe has undergone and been cleared as part of a third-party audit, though results will not be published until several weeks after this review goes live. Windscribe has a strict "no identifying logs" policy, which differs from a flat no-logs policy. Audits and reports are not a guarantee of quality and are admittedly imperfect tools, but undertaking them in a meaningful way is still valuable.

Finally, I'm particularly impressed by how dedicated Windscribe is to reforming how things are done in the VPN industry. According to Sak:

"In my opinion, the consumer VPN industry is broken. This is in part due to the ancillary "VPN review industry" which tends to highly preference VPNs that have high paying affiliate programs, forcing a "pay to win" strategy. This in turn affects the consumer who is lead to believe that a VPN is basically magic and the one-stop solution to privacy—it's not.

VPN providers, take notes—this is how it's done.

Hands On With Windscribe VPN for Windows

You can configure almost any device to use Windscribe services, and the company offers native apps for Android, AppleTV, Chrome OS, iOS, Linux, macOS, and Windows. It also offers browser plug-ins for Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and Edge. Alternatively, you can configure your router to use the VPN, which applies its protection to every device that connects through it.

Installing the Windscribe application was quick and easy on our Intel NUC 13 Extreme Kit ('Raptor Canyon') test PC running the latest version of Windows 10.

The app's interface is incredibly minimal. A menu button at the top left lets you access account information, advanced settings, and a full server list. I especially like that the server list is searchable and can be filtered by speed, Netflix compatibility, or whether it's in Fake Antarctica.

(Credit: Windscribe/PCMag)

Inside the settings and configuration menus, I found an incredibly helpful tool that every VPN provider should include going forward: a link to information about any setting you'll find in the client. Say you aren't sure which protocol is for you. If you click the information button located next to that setting, you'll immediately be taken to the corresponding support page, which explains the feature and what it's for.

(Credit: Windscribe/PCMag)

From the settings menu, you can also configure what the company calls R.O.B.E.R.T., or Remote Omnidirectional Badware Eliminating Robotic Tool, which acts as an allowlist and IP filtering tool. If you want to keep things like ads, trackers, malware, porn, social media, gambling content, and more to be filtered out from your browsing experience, R.O.B.E.R.T. will handle the job.

Windscribe VPN on Other Platforms

I tested the Windscribe apps for Android, ChromeOS, iOS, and macOS. On iOS, the app feels right at home in its vertical format. In fact, it almost seems like the desktop app was developed as an afterthought, with the mobile implementation of Windscribe lending itself best to scrolling and tapping.

(Credit: Windscribe/PCMag)

Notable features on iOS include all the same ad, malware, and tracker blocking available in the PC version via R.O.B.E.R.T., and even the option to Circumvent Censorship using a toggle in the Connection preferences (the description for this feature reads, "Connect to the VPN even in a hostile environment"). Given that I was testing from the US, I was able to connect both with and without this feature enabled.

Using the iOS app, I tested the service's included adblocker on PCMag.com, and it blocked all the ads on the page. The Android and ChromeOS applications look identical and offer all of the features found in the iOS version of the app, but add a number of additional options I also found in the Windows client, including a kill switch, Secure Hotspot (share your VPN connection wirelessly), and MAC address spoofing.

Can You Watch Netflix With Windscribe?

Many streaming video services block VPNs because you can use them to spoof your location and access content licensed for specific regions. Netflix is the example that comes most readily to mind. Another is BBC's free streaming app, iPlayer, which is only available to UK citizens. But if you hop onto a VPN server in London, you may appear to be a local.

During testing, I could access the entire Netflix library in an Open format when connected to all five Windscribe servers I tried, including Canada, Japan, the UK, the US, and Australia. You can learn more about how I qualify the Open format in how to unblock Netflix with a VPN, and you can see the results of our testing in the chart above.

Speed and Performance

A VPN service usually reduces download and upload speeds and increases latency. To compare the impact of each VPN on web browsing, I take a series of speed measurements using Ookla's Speedtest tool with and without the VPN running from a box located in New York City, connecting to the closest server offered, and then find a percent change between the two. See our story on how we test VPNs for further details. (Note: Ookla is owned by Ziff Davis, PCMag.com's parent company. For more, see the ethics policy in our Editorial Mission Statement.)

Windscribe performed so-so in these tests, trailing behind some of its closest competitors like Nord and Proton by a notable amount. Our results show that Windscribe decreased download speed test scores by 52.49% and decreased upload speed test scores by 45.99%. Latency increases of 76.26% put it right around the middle of the pack.

You can see the full results in the table below:

Because your experience with a VPN will differ dramatically depending on when, where, and how you use it, I strongly advise against using speed as a deciding factor when making a purchase. Instead, I suggest focusing on features, cost, and the privacy protections a VPN provides.

Verdict: Transparency for the Win

From its blunt and honest approach to user privacy to a near-excessive amount of transparency, you have every reason to trust Windscribe with your data. Combine this with solid app performance and a bevy of settings alongside broad Netflix support on both free and paid accounts and you have a terrific VPN that's easy to recommend. Its speeds were slower than NordVPN and Proton in testing, but it also costs less than either. Accordingly, Windscribe earns our Editors' Choice award alongside these industry titans and should be your first choice if transparency is your primary concern.