We understand that it can be hard to choose a VPN service. The online marketplace is saturated with providers and many make wild claims about being the “fastest” or “most secure”. To help you out, we have used a careful VPN testing methodology to review two market-leading VPN services- Atlas VPN and Avast VPN.

In this guide, you can see the result of our head-to-head battle. By the end of this article, you will know which is more secure, more reliable, faster, easier to use, and better for streaming. So, let’s dive in and look at these two popular VPNs.

Highlights

Avast VPN vs AtlasVPN pricing

When it comes to pricing, it is easy to see which of these competing services is better.

AtlasVPN

  • Unblocks popular streaming services
  • Fast speeds for streaming
  • Unlimited simultaneous connections
  • Plenty of advanced privacy features
  • Servers in 43+ countries

Avast SecureLine VPN

  • No usage logs
  • Affordable protection
  • Connect 10 devices at once
  • Very easy to use
  • Servers in 34 countries

AtlasVPN pricing

Firstly, AtlasVPN provides a more diverse set of subscription length options, including a one-month plan that comes in handy if you only need a VPN for a short time, to go on holiday, or when traveling for work, for example.

The single-month AtlasVPN plan costs $10.99 per month. This compares reasonably with most competing premium VPNs that offer a single-month contract.

A yearly plan reduces the cost substantially to $3.29 per month, payable in a single instalment of $39.42.

Finally, you can subscribe for 2 years. This reduces the cost all the way down to $2.05 per month, which makes AtlasVPN one of the cheapest VPNs on the market – particularly considering the wealth of features it includes.

Avast SecureLine VPN pricing

Avast VPN’s pricing scheme is a little disappointing. Users only get the option to subscribe for one, two, or three years, and you don’t really get a discount for subscribing longer.

This is because Avast VPN offers an introductory discount, rather than lower costs for subscribing longer. This is unusual compared to the rest of the VPN industry, and as a result, you only save 20 cents each month on the longer plans.

So why does Avast VPN have longer plans? The important thing to remember is that the cost of Avast VPN will automatically revert to the full price of $8.33 when your introductory subscription period runs out. So, if you subscribe for two or three years, you will at least lock in the cheaper introduction price for longer.

So how do they compare? A single year with Avast VPN will cost you $55.08, which is only $15 more than Atlas. Not earth shatteringly more expensive, but substantial when you consider how much better Atlas VPN is overall.

The two-year plan makes the difference even more unmistakable. The subscription will cost you $105 with Avast, whereas you will pay just $49.19 with Atlas VPN.

Best Deal for Avast VPN:Get 46% off with Avast’s introductory prices.

Best Deal for AtlasVPN:Save 83% with Atlas VPN’s 2-year plan.

Money-back guarantee

To give you the opportunity to test their service on your devices, both these VPNs have a 30-day money-back guarantee. This gives you plenty of time to install and test the apps on your devices.

To make things even more interesting, AtlasVPN also has a completely free plan. This gives you access to servers in Singapore, the Netherlands, and the United States. However, please bear in mind that the free plan will not provide access to Netflix or other popular services.

It will, however, give you completely free use of the VPN on an unlimited number of devices – useful if you are living in a country that censors the web during elections or protests, for example.

Avast VPN also has a limited free plan. You can use it on an unlimited basis for seven days, and you don’t need to provide your card details. This is a nice way to trial the service without having to pay a dime.

Payment options

You can pay for either of these VPNs using a debit or credit card. You can also choose to pay with PayPal if you want to.

Unfortunately, you can’t pay for AvastVPN using cryptocurrencies. However, AtlasVPN accepts Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ether, Monero, and Ripple. That means you can sign up anonymously using a burner email address, if you prefer.

Avast VPN vs AtlasVPN features

When it comes to picking a VPN, the number of useful privacy and security features you get are always going to be a primary consideration. So, which of these VPNs is a better option?

Apps

This is not the case with Avast VPN, which does not provide any other apps. That said, you can opt to share a VPN-protected wifi hotspot from any Windows or Mac computer using either of these two VPNs. That means that you can still use the VPN with consoles, smart TVs, and any other device that doesn’t natively support VPNs.

For those wondering, neither of these services provide apps or set-up guides for installing the VPN on a router. So, if you prefer to connect the VPN on your router (to protect every device in your home automatically) we recommend shopping elsewhere.

Simultaneous connections

AtlasVPN also sweetens the deal by letting you install and use the VPN on an unlimited number of devices.

Avast, on the other hand, limits you at 10 devices per account. Admittedly, this will still probably be enough for the vast majority of users. But it’s nice to have limitless connections – it means you can share your account with friends and family without a second thought.

Avast VPN also has browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome. However, bear in mind that these proxy extensions do not provide the same privacy benefits as the full VPN client.

Privacy and security features

With Avast VPN, you really don’t get many features to speak of. This makes it easy to install and use, which makes it a reasonable option for beginners. All you get is a big connect button, an auto connect feature that protects you when out and about on public wifi, a kill switch, and a Smart VPN feature that lets you pick what happens when you connect to different wifi networks.

With AtlasVPN, on the other hand, you get DNS leak protection, a kill-switch, malware filtering, ad blocking, split tunneling, multi-hop connections, and rotating IPs. This does increase the learning curve slightly, but it also means you get much better value for money.

Servers

AtlasVPN has servers in 43 countries, and it has been growing its network slowly ever since it was acquired by Nord Technologies. You can expect it to keep improving its network over the coming years.

Avast Secure Line VPN, on the other hand, only has servers in 33 countries – which gives you fewer options for bypassing geo-restrictions and accessing regional services.

Streaming and unblocking

For unblocking streaming services and international TV networks, we much prefer AtlasVPN. First, AtlasVPN is much faster than Avast, which means that it is better for streaming on HD without buffering. It also means that you will not suffer a drop in the quality of video playback.

When it comes to accessing Netflix from abroad, Avast VPN could access Netflix USA and Netflix Germany via its streaming servers. However, please remember it was a touch temperamental.

AtlasVPN, on the other hand, could access a wide choice of Netflix libraries. This includes Netflix US, UK,Canada, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. Atlas also works to access Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, and BBC iPlayer.

The only streaming service we couldn’t unblock with AtlasVPN was DAZN. However, this was also the case with Avast VPN, so if you want to access this service we recommend picking an alternative provider.

As you can see in the list above, Avast VPN is far more restrictive when it comes to streaming. It was unable to unblock Prime Video, HBO Max, ABC, or BBC iPlayer.

Do these VPNs work in China?

When you travel to China, you lose access to many Western online services. The Chinese government blocks access to services like Facebook, Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, Spotify, the BBC, the New York Times, and Reddit.

These blocks are imposed by ISPs on behalf of the government, which means you will need a VPN to use the internet normally. Unfortunately, ISPs are also blocking access to many VPNs. As a result, anybody visiting or living in China has to be extremely picky.

Unfortunately, neither of these VPNs is currently equipped to work in China. You need to subscribe elsewhere to bypass restrictions in China. Our recommendation is NordVPN because it is currently ranked #1 for every category in this article.

Setup and interface

Setting up either of these VPNs is easy. You can take out a subscription by following the links we have provided. Following that, you only need to provide an email address and payment details to take out a subscription.

The apps themselves are lightweight and install quickly. They also have a setup wizard that makes installing the client and all its important components stress free.

User experience

When it comes to using the apps themselves, we find both services to be extremely good for beginners. Admittedly, some users may find Avast VPN easier to use. However, this is mainly due to its lack of features.

AtlasVPN has more on offer, which makes it more useful and versatile. What’s more, those features are easy to navigate, and the settings menu is extremely easy to understand. So, while there will be a slightly longer learning curve, we think this is worthwhile because you are getting better value for money.

What’s more, if you don’t really want to mess around with those extra features right away, AtlasVPN comes set up perfectly as soon as you install it. So you can simply pick a location and hit connect if you want to.

In terms of ease of use, both these VPNs list their servers alphabetically, which makes it easy to find the server you need with either service. Both Avast VPN and Atlas VPN provide servers that are listed for streaming in their apps. Just bear in mind that those streaming servers are not available with the free version of Atlas VPN.

Servers and performance

Having a wide choice of servers allows you to get an IP address in more places around the world. This allows you to access regional services, and to get better speeds depending on where you are to begin with.

The good news is that both these VPNs have a pretty decent international server network. You can gain access to plenty of IP addresses around the globe.

AvastVPN has approximately 700 servers in 33 countries. That is not a bad amount of choice, but is a little restrictive considering the cost of a subscription.

Compare it to Surfshark VPN, for instance, which has servers in a whopping 99 countries (despite costing only $2.49 per month) and you can see that is pretty limited. On the plus side, Avast VPN does have servers in 16 US cities, which gives you many options for accessing state-level services and TV streams.

AtlasVPN has servers in 44 countries. This is clearly better than AvastVPN, but is still small compared to NordVPN (69 countries), ExpressVPN (94 countries), CyberGhost (90 countries), and the aforementioned Surfshark.

Take a look below to find out where exactly these VPNs have servers:

Connection speeds

In terms of performance, both VPNs had excellent uptime and reliability, with no software problems or crashes that we noticed during our time testing. However, when it comes to speeds, AtlasVPN is substantially faster.

We tested three international locations (USA, UK, and Hong Kong) to get download averages. Avast VPN was a little sluggish, with average download speeds of just 34 Mbps. AtlasVPN, on the other hand, is currently the 6th fastest VPN available on the market; racking up an average download speed of  247 Mbps.

As a result, we strongly recommend AtlasVPN over Avast if you want to make video calls, watch HD streams, play online games, or torrent.

Security

Foremost, a VPN is designed to give you online privacy and security. This means that the VPN must be able to provide a secure tunnel for your data that prevents hackers, eavesdroppers, and even government snoops from being able to track what you do online. So how do these VPNs compare?

Avast VPN security

Avast SecureLine VPN gives you a few different VPN protocols to pick from. You can use OpenVPN, IKEv2, and a proprietary protocol called Mimic. It has also now introduced the WireGuard protocol (in beta, for the time being).

The good news is that its OpenVPN tunnel is secured using 256-bit AES encryption, an RSA 2048 handshake, and perfect forward secrecy. These are strong encryption standards. Further, OpenVPN protocol is trusted across the VPN industry because it is open source and has been subjected to community-funded third party audits.

That said, there is one fairly serious caveat with this provider. Avast VPN is designed to switch automatically to the Mimic protocol if the application encounters problems connecting using OpenVPN or IKEv2. This means that you could be using Mimic even when you manually select an alternate protocol – and you wouldn’t actually know this was the case.

This makes it impossible to confidently use this Avast VPN for privacy purposes. Thus, people like journalists, lawyers, political dissidents, and human rights activists – or anybody else looking for watertight security – may feel uncomfortable using it. As a result, Avast VPN is probably only going to be suitable for regular home internet users wanting to conceal their browsing or access foreign streaming services – rather than people with an elevated threat model.

Atlas VPN security

AtlasVPN is slightly different to most other market-leading VPNs because it does not provide the OpenVPN protocol for its users. Instead, it has decided to lead with the lightweight, modern VPN protocol WireGuard. This is a secure protocol that is also lightning fast, which makes it great for streaming, torrenting, and gaming.

The best thing about WireGuard is that the protocol is open source and can be audited quickly, so security experts can constantly monitor it to ensure it provides high levels of privacy for its users.

To give users an additional option, IKEv2 is also available in the apps. It is implemented with robust AES-256 encryption, which is secure and future proof. Thus, both of the protocols available with Atlas VPN are secure, and will handle your data privately. And the VPN has a kill-switch to ensure that you never leak unencrypted data outside of the tunnel should the VPN connection drop out. This makes the VPN safe for torrenting and other sensitive online tasks.

Privacy

Where a VPN is based is important because this is the primary jurisdiction that the VPN provider must adhere to. The good news is that both these VPNs are out of reach of invasive jurisdictions with well-funded intelligence agencies, like the US and the UK. This massively reduced the potential for the VPN to suddenly be served a warrant.

Avast VPN is based in the Czech Republic. This is a country that does not have any mandatory data retention directives that apply to communications service providers or VPNs. AtlasVPN was recently acquired by Nord Technologies, which means it is now based in the jurisdiction of Panama, although it is still headquartered in the US.

Both VPNs are incorporated in countries where there are no overarching privacy concerns.

Avast VPN privacy policy

The Avast VPN privacy policy promises not to track what users do while connected to the VPN. However, the VPN does store some connections logs, including total bandwidth usage, the times and dates you connect to its servers, and which of the VPN’s features you use.

This data is stored next to a partial IP address (the final octet is anonymised). This is supposed to prevent the VPN from being able directly to identify any single user. However, it does raise some privacy concerns due to the potential for anonymised data to be‌ re-identified.

It is also worth noting that the Avast privacy policy is not specifically written for the VPN service. Instead, it is a one-size-fits-all policy that applies to all its platforms, including Avast antivirus, AVG antivirus, and Avast Secure Line VPN.

That policy clearly states that it harvests device-level identifiers and other analytics for marketing purposes. Avast shares this data with third-party service providers, including Google Analytics and Apps Flyer. In our opinion, this is too much data collection for a privacy service.

Atlas VPN privacy policy

AtlasVPN has a solid no-logs policy that does not appear to collect any invasive data from its users. The VPN does not store any connection logs, and it does not log any connection time stamps.

That said, it stores some device-level identifiers that we would prefer it didn’t harvest. This includes device type, model, brand, OS version, device ID, language, and time zone, and advertising IDs. This data is used to track the user’s engagement with the service and its website for sales purposes.

While we would prefer AtlasVPN not to store this data, it is worth mentioning that these identifiers are not tied to the subscriber’s VPN use in any way. Also, there is no concern over a time-correlation attack because the VPN never stores connection time stamps next to an IP address.

Configuration

In terms of configuration, both VPNs provide access to shared IPs. Multiple users use these servers each session, and all users of each server share a single IP address. This helps to provide additional privacy by mixing everybody’s traffic together, which makes it harder to track a single VPN user’s online activity.

Both VPNs proxy DNS requests and resolve them using their own servers. This prevents anybody from being able to detect which websites you are attempting to visit.

They both implement solid DNS leak protection to guarantee that you never accidentally leak those requests outside of the VPN tunnel. We tested both VPNs and found them not to suffer from IP, DNS, or WebRTC leaks, which is good.

Both services provide rudimentary DDoS attack protection by concealing your IP address from web services and other internet users (p2p). This helps to keep you safer if you play online games, tournaments, or poker matches, for example.

In addition, AtlasVPN provides malware filtering and ad blocking. This gives subscribers an extra layer of security and stops them from visiting malicious sites. This feature is not available with Avast VPN.

Other unique features available with Atlas VPN (but not Avast) are its multi-hop servers, which bounce your traffic through various locations and encrypt your data multiple times for added security. And automatically rotating IPs, which periodically change your IP to make you seem like a different user.

Both VPNs provide a NAT firewall that blocks unrequested inbound traffic and helps to protect you against hackers. The only drawback of this feature is that it prevents either of these VPNs from offering port forwarding. If you require this feature, you will need to shop elsewhere.

Lastly, neither of these VPNs provides dedicated or static IPs. If you need a static IP that is only ever used by you, you will need to choose a different provider.

Atlas VPN VS Avast SecureLine VPN for gaming

Anybody looking for a VPN for gaming will be much better off with Atlas VPN. The service recorded much faster speeds during our testing. We found Atlas VPN has average download speeds of 247 Mbps, whereas Avast VPN registered averages of just 34 Mbps.

Atlas VPN also has more server locations around the globe. This gives you additional options for playing on international gaming servers or for purchasing games cheaper on a foreign game store, such as the Turkish PlayStation store, which has cheaper prices.

Customer service

When it comes to customer service, we prefer Atlas VPN. AtlasVPN is focused single-handedly on providing support for its VPN service. This allows agents to be trained for that purpose only. As a result, its agents have a good amount of information and knowledge about the VPN service, how it works, and what users can do to get it working properly.

With Avast VPN, consumer support covers all of Avast’s services. This waters down the knowledge of the customer support agents, meaning that the answers to questions may need referring to other team members, ‌slowing down response times.

It is also worth noting that Avast VPN does not have live chat support. You will need to send any queries to the company via email.

With AtlasVPN, live chat is available 24/7 on its website. The only caveat is that this support is for subscribers only. As a result, you can’t use the live chat to ask about the service prior to signing up. The advantage is that the agents aren’t troubled with questions from prospective customers, and can instead focus on helping account holders.

Below, you can see the response times for each VPN:

 

The Winner: AtlasVPN

                    Jan 2023

Apps Available:

  • PC
  • Mac
  • IOS
  • Android
  • Background
  • FireTV

Website: www.atlasvpn.com

Money-back guarantee: 30 DAYS

By comparing Avast VPN and Atlas VPN across 11 different categories (read more about our testing methodology here), we conclude that Atlas VPN offers better value for money, stronger privacy policies, better security in its apps, and faster speeds. Atlas VPN can also provide access to more international streaming services.

Avast VPN has some concerning data practices you don’t have to worry about with Atlas VPN. Though admittedly, we would prefer Atlas VPN not collect device level identifiers (something for it to improve in the future, hopefully).

Support is much better with AtlasVPN thanks to the live chat application on its website. What’s more, if you are short on money and need to bypass local network restrictions or government website blocks – you can rely on the free version of Atlas VPN to gain internet freedom.

Both of these VPNs can be used to access Netflix US, but with Atlas VPN, you get access to other regional libraries too. Plus, Atlas VPN is by far better if you want to torrent, play games, or make videocalls.

Finally, we were impressed with the many features you get with AtlasVPN. Side by side, ‌it becomes obvious that Avast VPN is lacking – despite costing more. This includes fewer server locations and useful features, such as split tunneling, ad blocking, and malware filtering.

Does Avast VPN or AtlasVPN have easier-to-use apps?

We found both of these VPNs easy to use. Avast VPN has a very low learning curve because it has fewer features. However, we generally preferred the look of AtlasVPN, and found it more useful to have the extra features. Ultimately, we found them both equally easy to use, despite the fact that AtlasVPN gives you much more functionality.

Do AtlasVPN and Avast VPN both work with Netflix?

Yes. However, Atlas VPN provides access to more regions, which makes it better.

See also:

  • NordVPN vs AtlasVPN
  • IPVanish vs AtlasVPN
  • Avast VPN vs PrivateVPN
  • Avast VPN vs Hotspot Shield