In the wide world of VPNs, the options available to protect your sensitive data can seem endless. To help narrow down your search, we’ll be putting two popular VPN providers head-to-head in this article. Today, it’s NordVPN vs IPVanish. We’ll compare them based on several features, look at the pros and cons, and see who emerges as the best VPN service in this duel.
Introduction: IPVanish vs NordVPN
First, let’s start with an overview of both of these providers, both of which are incredibly well-known in the VPN world, to help you get an idea of the main differences between them.
IPVanish
If you like to stream, you’ve probably heard of IPVanish, a popular option for users who take advantage of this feature. IPVanish is fast and reliable, and thanks to its capacity for multiple connections, is a fantastic choice for anyone who has a high number of connected devices.
IPVanish is a great VPN for torrenting as BitTorrent users are able to take advantage of worldwide P2P access. It is also great for anyone looking for advanced security features at a reasonable price. This VPN is based in the United States and supports Windows, Mac, Android, iOS (including iPhone), and Amazon Fire TV/Firestick.
It also has some of the best privacy policies of any of the VPNs that we have reviewed.
NordVPN
NordVPN offers users a variety of advantages that make it one of the more popular VPNs overall. Some of these advantages include fast speeds, reliable service at an economical price point, and consistent Netflix streaming access. Beginners can feel confident about using this VPN, as its interface is user-friendly and allows you to connect easily.
It allows torrenting, it comes with some of the most advanced features around (kill switch, double data encryption etc.), is consitently ranked as one of the fastest VPN services and above all it puts user privacy above anything else.
NordVPN is based in Panama, and this VPN supports Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, and Android operating systems. It also includes browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox. It is a privacy first VPN company and at Blokt.com that is really important to us.
Features Comparison
When it comes to strong multi-platform support, NordVPN and IPVanish are on an equal footing. Both also have unlimited bandwidth and plenty of servers in countries around the globe. There are, however, some main differences between the features each of these VPN services offers.
IPVanish allows users to connect to up to ten devices at once, compared to the six-connection limit NordVPN offers, and it has an app on the Amazon Fire store. These two things are the only areas where IPVanish has the edge over NordVPN, however.
NordVPN boasts some additional features that prove to be incredibly useful for the user, like ad blocking and automatic malware scanning. The browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox are an excellent addition, and you can set NordVPN to connect automatically to specific WiFi networks.
Pros and Cons: IPVanish
Now, let’s take a general look at the pros and cons of IPVanish.
Pros
- Allows simultaneous connections
- Excellent security and privacy features
- Fairly fast speeds
- Reliable
- Ample selection of apps for different devices
Cons
- Based in the US (though it’s 100 percent no logs)
Read our IPVanish review for an in-depth look at what it has to offer.
Pros and Cons: NordVPN
What are the pros and cons of using NordVPN?
Pros
- Torrenting/P2P allowed
- Comes with many advanced security options
- High-speed connections
- Ad-blocker
- Double data encryption
- 30-day money back guarantee
- Strict no logs policy
- Works with Netflix and other streaming systems
Cons
- 30-day money back guarantee refunds can take up to a month to process
- Discounts for longer subscriptions only
If you want to know more about this service, head over to our NordVPN review.
Performance/Speed
Before we get into which of these two VPNs is faster, we want to mention that speed is a measure with several variables. Individual users can report varying speeds depending on their location, the VPN servers’ location, and what time of day it is (among other things). As such, it can be subjective.
Despite the subjectivity of VPN speed, IPVanish and NordVPN are pretty comparable when it comes to raw download speeds. Both of them have a large server network with high bandwidth, which gives you speeds fairly close to your baseline download speed.
Some users do have complaints about the speed with both VPNs, but again, this factor can be dependent on the conditions of individual users, so keep that in mind. In the competition for which VPN has higher performance and faster speeds, there is no clear winner. Both IPVanish and NordVPN are fairly evenly matched.
Reliability and Support
How reliable are these two, and what kinds of customer support systems do they provide? You should look at both of these factors when deciding on a VPN, with reliability—a VPN’s ability to provide stable connections without interruptions—one of the more critical elements.
NordVPN is highly reliable, so you won’t have to worry about connectivity problems, and it’s unlikely you’ll ever need to contact them due to any issues.
If you do happen to run into some trouble, there are many resources to help you. The NordVPN website includes an extensive FAQ section, as well as a thorough help center, and if those don’t solve your problems, you can get in touch with one of its friendly staff members via email or using the 24-hour live chat.
IPVanish is similarly highly reliable, so you won’t have to worry about having issues there. Like NordVPN, its website assists users via the help center and FAQ sections. You can contact them using the 24-hour live chat (though IPVanish’s chat team is outsourced, unlike NordVPN’s local team) or via email.
IPVanish also provide telephone assistance during its hours of operation.
Privacy/Logging/Security
Excellent privacy and security are some of the most important features to consider when deciding on a VPN. You are, after all, choosing this service to protect sensitive data and give yourself some online anonymity. So how do NordVPN and IPVanish rank in these areas?
Both VPNs use 256-bit AES encryption, and both offer a kill switch should you for some reason disconnect from the VPN. They also have DNS servers, so that no third party can access your traffic. With IPVanish, users connect via OpenVPN, IKEv2, L2TP, and PPTP protocols, whereas NordVPN users connect using OpenVPN and IKEv. For those who need additional security, both VPNs are compatible for use with the secure browser: Tor
The similarities end with encryption and having a kill switch, however. One significant difference between the two providers is that NordVPN is based in Panama and IPVanish in the US. Unfortunately, being based in the US means that IPVanish has some security implications that are important to keep in mind.
Panama has no mandatory data retention laws, but the United States is a Five Eyes country. Five Eyes countries, which include the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, can share user activity details with one another. You can assume that if one of these countries can access your online data, they can then share it with the others.
NordVPN keeps no logs and accepts cryptocurrency as payment. IPVanish says that it doesn’t keep logs either, though it did provide information to Homeland Security for an investigation. IPVanish doesn’t accept cryptocurrency.
Price – Which is Best? IPVanish or NordVPN
NordVPN and IPVanish have similar pricing systems.
As is the case with many VPN providers, NordVPN’s most economical option is to pay for an annual subscription, which is $69.00 and works out to a price of $5.75 per month. If you prefer to pay month-to-month, that plan will cost you $11.95.
The IPVanish annual subscription costs $77.99 per year or $6.49 per month, and the month-to-month price comes out at $10.00.
As you can see, NordVPN is a bit cheaper, but there is no major price difference between the two.
The Verdict
After carefully weighing all these factors, one winner emerged, and that is NordVPN.
We chose NordVPN over IPVanish because, even though both services have plenty to offer, NordVPN has more features and more servers.
Do keep in mind that our winner might not necessarily be your winner. Every user’s needs and circumstances are different, so IPVanish might be the perfect match for you. Both services work for streaming and gaming, and feature secure encryption, excellent performance, and no-logs private browsing experience, so whichever one you choose will meet your privacy needs.
Still can’t decide? The great thing about these two services is that you can try both of them and cancel whichever one you like least. NordVPN gives you a 30-day refund period, and IPVanish gives you seven days. So whether you choose NordVPN or IPVanish in the end, you can do so knowing you are able to get a full refund if the service doesn’t meet your expectations.
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