Best free VPN: the 2 plans worth using

Six of the eight providers on our full VPN rankings sell subscriptions only. The two exceptions — Proton VPN and Windscribe — make opposite trades with their free tiers: one gives you unlimited data on a single device, the other caps you at 10 GB a month but runs on every device you own. Every limit below comes from the vendors’ own pages, as of 23 Jul 2026.

The two real free VPN plans, compared on the limits that matter

Free plan	Data cap	Devices	Server countries	Card required	Most recent audit
Proton VPN Free	None	1	10, randomly assigned	No	Securitum, 2026 — no-logs audit, published in full
Windscribe Free	10 GB/month with email, 2 GB without	Unlimited	10	No	Packetlabs, 2024 — security pen test

1. Proton VPN Free — unlimited data on one device

The no-cap policy is what separates Proton VPN Free from every other free tier: no data limit, no bandwidth limit, no ads, and no credit card at sign-up. You can run it indefinitely at $0. The limits sit elsewhere — one device at a time, speed the vendor itself labels “medium”, and servers in 10 countries that the app assigns randomly. You never choose your location, so a specific country for a region-locked site is off the table.

The trust case is unusually strong for a free product. Securitum has audited Proton VPN’s no-logs infrastructure five years running, and the 2026 report — like the 2022–2025 reports before it — is published openly rather than gated behind a customer login. The apps are open source. Proton AG operates from Geneva, states that current Swiss law imposes no logging requirements on it, and says the policy has held through more than 400 legal cases with no logs to hand over.

When the one-device limit starts to pinch, the upgrade math deserves a clear-eyed look. VPN Plus costs $9.99 a month, or $71.76 for the first 24 months on the 2-year plan — the advertised $2.99 a month. That advertised rate is an intro price: after the first term it renews at $83.88 a year, about $6.99 a month, more than double the headline number. Paid plans raise the limits to 10 simultaneous devices and a network of 148 countries (live server-page count, 23 Jul 2026).

Get the free plan directly from Proton VPN, or weigh the paid tiers in our full Proton VPN review.

2. Windscribe Free — 10 GB a month across unlimited devices

Windscribe inverts the trade. Connections are unlimited even on the free plan — the vendor’s own line is “We don’t limit connections even for our free users” — and no app feature is held back from free accounts. The ceiling is data: 10 GB a month with a confirmed email address, 2 GB without one, and an extra 5 GB for posting about Windscribe on X. Free servers cover 10 countries.

The trust file is thinner than Proton’s, and the difference is worth spelling out. Windscribe’s most recent independent audit — Packetlabs, June 2024 — was a privacy and security penetration test of its rebuilt server stack, not a formal no-logs attestation. What backs the logging claims instead: a privacy policy (updated 30 Jul 2024) stating it stores no session logs, source IPs, or visited sites — only a 30-day bandwidth total and a last-activity timestamp per account — plus a Greek court case Windscribe cites as real-world evidence. Two structural notes: Windscribe Limited is registered in Ontario, Canada, a Five Eyes country, and its servers run on RAM disks that store no identifying data.

Windscribe’s paid pricing avoids the intro-rate trap entirely: $9 a month, or $69 a year ($5.75 a month), and the renewal price equals the sign-up price — the homepage puts it as “The price you signed up for is the price you pay. Forever.” A custom Build A Plan starts at $3 a month, at $1 per location with a three-location minimum. The refund policy is the catch: 7 business days, under 10 GB used, initial payment only, and support must first fail to resolve a stated technical issue. Paid coverage is 69+ countries per the server-list page — though Windscribe’s own pages disagree, with a FAQ on that same page claiming over 85.

Get the free plan at Windscribe, or see where the paid plan lands in our full Windscribe review.

What about NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and the rest?

None of the other six providers we track offers a free plan. What they sell as “risk-free” is a short trial, a refund window, or both — and the fine print varies more than the marketing suggests.

Trials and refund routes at the six paid-only providers

Provider	Free trial	Money-back window
NordVPN	3 days, Android only	30 days
ExpressVPN	3 days, iOS and Android apps only	30 days — suspended for promo-period purchases (see below)
Surfshark	7 days on 12- and 24-month plans; card required, converts automatically	30 days, initial purchase only
CyberGhost	24 hours on Windows/macOS, 3 days on Android, 7 days on iOS; no card	45 days; 14 days on the 1-month plan
Private Internet Access	None	30 days
Mullvad	None	14 days; excludes cash and cryptocurrency payments

Two rows deserve a closer look. ExpressVPN’s 30-day guarantee is suspended for anything bought during its sweepstakes promo running 11 Jul to 11 Aug 2026 — buy during the promo and the refund route disappears. Surfshark’s 7-day trial requires a payment method and charges the full plan automatically when the week ends. Mullvad is the bluntest of the six: no free plan, no trial, a pricing FAQ that says plainly it doesn’t operate that way — just a flat €5 a month (shown as $5.71) unchanged since 2009.

How we picked

Four rules produced this short list:

1. A permanent free plan, not a trial. Anything that expires or auto-converts into a paid subscription is a trial, whatever the landing page calls it. This rule alone removed six of the eight providers.
2. Published limits only. Every data cap, device count, and country count above comes from the provider’s own pages, as of 23 Jul 2026.
3. An independent audit trail. Who audited, what they examined, and whether you can read the report all count. Proton’s annual no-logs audits are public; Windscribe’s 2024 pen test is documented but is not a no-logs attestation.
4. An honest upgrade path. A free plan is also a funnel, so the renewal price counts here, not the intro banner.

Other names that fill out typical free-VPN roundups — hide.me, TunnelBear, Hotspot Shield, PrivadoVPN — aren’t ranked because their current free-tier terms couldn’t be confirmed from vendor pages.

Who should pay instead

You stream. Proton VPN Free assigns your server at random, so you can’t sit in the country a streaming library requires, and Windscribe’s 10 GB cap runs out fast once video is involved. The paid picks in our best VPN for streaming guide exist precisely because free tiers fail here.

You torrent. Neither vendor’s pages state a free-tier torrenting policy — and a 10 GB cap makes the question nearly moot on Windscribe anyway.

You want many locations for little money. Long-term intro rates at the paid providers run from $2.03 to $3.49 a month — Surfshark’s 24-month Starter works out to $2.49 a month ($67.23 billed for the first 27 months), CyberGhost’s 26-month deal to $2.19, and Private Internet Access’s 39-month deal to $2.03 — though every one of those renews higher. Our best cheap VPN guide prices the renewals, not just the banners.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free VPN?

Proton VPN Free. It is the only major free plan with no data cap, it shows no ads, and its no-logs infrastructure has been audited by Securitum five years in a row, with every report published in full. The trade-off is one device and a randomly assigned server in one of 10 countries.

Which free VPN has no data limit?

Proton VPN Free has no data or bandwidth cap. Windscribe Free, the strongest alternative, caps free use at 10 GB a month with a confirmed email address, or 2 GB without one.

Are free VPNs safe to use?

It depends entirely on the provider. Look for published limits, an independent audit record, and no credit-card requirement. Proton VPN Free is covered by annual public no-logs audits; Windscribe publishes its logging policy and a 2024 third-party security test. A free VPN with no published policy or audit history is the one to avoid.

Do free VPNs keep logs?

Policies vary, so read each one. Proton VPN's free tier falls under the same no-logs policy Securitum audits annually. Windscribe says it stores no session logs, source IPs, or visited sites — only a 30-day bandwidth total and a last-activity timestamp per account, per its privacy policy updated 30 Jul 2024.

Is there a completely free VPN with no catch?

No. Proton VPN Free's catch is one device, medium speed, and a randomly assigned server. Windscribe Free's catch is the 10 GB monthly cap. Both companies publish their limits openly, because the free tier exists to sell the paid one — a provider that hides its catch is the real risk.

Which free VPN is best for streaming?

Neither of our picks handles streaming well. Proton VPN Free assigns servers randomly, so you cannot choose the country a streaming library requires, and Windscribe Free's 10 GB cap is too small for regular video. Reliable streaming is a paid-VPN job.