It can be something of a challenge to choose a VPN, particularly when there are so many different factors to consider. This includes the number of servers and locations, speed and consistency of connections, and overall level of security. If this is your first time using a VPN, you may find some of the more technical information to be a little overwhelming.

For this reason, we’ve taken an in-depth look at CyberGhost and IPVanish, comparing the two side-by-side. You’ll find a full breakdown of each feature and what it does as well as an easy-to-follow explanation of how this benefits you. With any luck, this will make deciding between CyberGhost and IPVanish much quicker and easier.

Highlights

CyberGhost & IPVanish Pricing

The monthly plan of CyberGhost costs $12.99 USD while the month-to-month plan of IPVanish is priced at $10.00 This makes CyberGhost the more expensive of the two if you’re looking for a more short-term option. However, both VPNs become much better value if you’re willing to commit to a long-term plan.

CyberGhost

  • Over 7,000 servers in 90 countries
  • High-speed servers and unlimited bandwidth
  • Strict no-logs policy protects your privacy
  • Use on up to seven devices simultaneously

IPVanish

  • Consistent connections and unthrottled bandwidth
  • Unlimited simultaneous connections per account
  • Successfully unblocks Netflix US and other services
  • Easy-to-use desktop and mobile apps

CyberGhost highlights that its best value plan is the 18-month option. This costs $49.50, which works out at just $2.75 per month. However, it occasionally offers a three-year plan at an even steeper discount, lowering the price to just $2.25 per month. Meanwhile, IPVanish’s best value plan is the one-year subscription; this costs $39.00 for the first year which works out at $3.25 per month. Needless to say, if you’re looking for long-term protection, you’ll save substantially by selecting one of these plans.

It’s important to know that both CyberGhost and IPVanish come with money-back guarantees. This means that you can try them out risk-free and request a full refund if unsatisfied or even if you simply change your mind about needing a VPN. In the case of IPVanish, there’s a 30-day guarantee. However, CyberGhost’s guarantee is longer at 45 days — much more than most VPNs on the market.

Best Deal for CyberGhost:Get an 83% discount and three months extra free with a three-year plan.

Best Deal for IPVanish:Cut the cost by more than 70% by choosing IPVanish’s annual plan.

Features

Both CyberGhost and IPVanish offer apps for desktop and mobile (Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS). However, this is the extent of the options available with IPVanish which doesn’t offer an app for Linux. Users can still use IPVanish on Linux devices, they’ll just have to configure it manually. Fortunately, IPVanish does provide instructions to help with this.

If you have multiple devices to secure, you may be interested to know that there’s a big difference between these two VPNs. While CyberGhost lets you connect up to seven devices at once (more than most VPNs), IPVanish allows unlimited simultaneous connections per account. This makes it a far better option for sharing with family.

When comparing the features offered by these two VPNs, it’s clear that CyberGhost offers more features. For example, it includes an ad-blocker as well as an anti-malware feature. However, split tunneling is a feature that’s available on both VPNs. This allows you to choose which apps and websites use a VPN connection and which can bypass the VPN.

Streaming and unblocking

Unfortunately, IPVanish tends to struggle when it comes up against streaming services that employ anti-VPN measures. An example is Netflix (although IPVanish does at least successfully unblock Netflix US). One particular reason for the difference in unblocking is that CyberGhost offers far more servers and IP addresses. This makes it more likely that you’ll find an IP address that hasn’t been blacklisted by a particular website or service.

When it comes to streaming performance, you can expect a great deal of consistency from both CyberGhost and IPVanish. The two VPNs offer unlimited bandwidth which means you’ll be able to stream without lag or buffering. They also allow torrenting with a number of P2P-optimized servers on offer.

China

In recent years, China has expanded its censorship efforts by banning VPNs that aren’t government-approved. Unfortunately, one requirement is the logging of user activity which no reputable VPN provider will ever agree to. There are still a few services that work reliably in China, but unfortunately, this doesn’t include either of these VPNs.

The Great Firewall of China blocks access to many foreign websites including the sites of these two VPNs. Furthermore, many of the IP addresses have been blacklisted, making using these VPNs in China all the more challenging.

In the case of IPVanish and CyberGhost, both providers acknowledge that their apps don’t work in China. However, the two provide configuration guides and workarounds should you wish to try connecting manually. Note that this is unlikely to be successful due to the fact that the Chinese government is actively blacklisting the IP addresses of both VPNs.

See also: Best VPN to use in China

Setup and interface

The apps of both CyberGhost and IPVanish are beginner-friendly, making them quick and easy to use. Both offer you the option to automatically connect to the best available server. This is typically the server closest to your physical location (and the fastest as a result). Servers are presented in a drop-down list, sorted by country and city. However, in the case of the IPVanish desktop apps, you can also search via a map as well as filter servers by latency.

In both cases, you’ll find more settings options on the desktop apps than the apps for mobile. However, CyberGhost and IPVanish still provide a number of security options on mobile including the ability to change protocol (IKEv2 or IPSec) or automatically connect to the VPN when using a public Wi-Fi network.

Servers and performance

CyberGhost stands out in this area, offering a very impressive network of more than 7,000 servers in 90 countries at the time of writing. This number is far more than most VPNs on the market. In contrast, IPVanish has just over 1,500 servers in approximately 50 countries. It’s worth knowing that roughly half of the servers of IPVanish are located in the United States.

The more servers a VPN offers, the less server load you can expect on each, resulting in faster speeds and more consistent connections. Furthermore, having more IP addresses increases the chances of being able to unblock more region-locked online content. Overall, IPVanish has good speeds but the reduced number of servers compared to CyberGhost may result in occasionally slow speeds during peak usage times.

With CyberGhost and IPVanish, you’ll not only be able to choose the country of the server you connect to, but also the city in many cases. Being able to select a specific city is particularly useful when you’re trying to access local TV streams or bypass regional NFL blackouts.

Below, you’ll find a list of every country where these VPNs have servers:

Security

Both CyberGhost and IPVanish allow OpenVPN and L2TP protocols. IPVanish also supports PPTP while CyberGhost works with IKEv2. However, both VPNs use 256-bit AES encryption to secure your internet traffic, protecting you from threats such as hackers and snoopers. They also offer DNS and IPv6 leak protection while CyberGhost goes one step further and also protects you from WebRTC leaks.

CyberGhost and IPVanish have a kill switch for desktop and mobile platforms although there is no kill switch offered for the IPVanish iOS app. As such, there is a risk that some data may be accidentally shared should the VPN connection drop while you’re using an iOS device. Another shared feature is the option for the VPN to automatically turn itself on when you connect to a public Wi-Fi hotspot.

Privacy

CyberGhost is headquartered in Romania, a country with strong privacy laws. Just as important, Romania is not part of the 5 Eyes, 9 Eyes, or 14 Eyes intelligence alliances. As such, it isn’t obliged to comply with data requests from the US, UK, Australia, Canada, or New Zealand governments.

IPVanish is based in the US which is a Five Eyes member. While this means that participating governments could gather and share intelligence about each other’s citizens, it’s important to note that IPVanish has a zero-logs policy. As it doesn’t keep identifying logs of its users, you can therefore browse anonymously.

It’s also worth knowing that IPVanish owns its servers (as opposed to renting them) while CyberGhost includes independently operated “NoSpy” servers. In both cases, this reduces the risk of any interference from third parties.

CyberGhost states that it has a strict no-logs policy although it does keep some connection logs for statistical and diagnostic purposes. Further, all records of logins are deleted at the end of each month. CyberGhost is unique in that it also produces a quarterly “Transparency Report”, detailing the number of data requests received from authorities.

Neither VPN logs identifiable data such as your IP address or browsing history. CyberGhost allows you to pay in Bitcoin. It’s, therefore, possible to sign up for this VPN service anonymously when combined with a throwaway email address. Unfortunately, there’s no such anonymous payment option available with IPVanish.

Configuration

Both of these VPNs use shared address allocation meaning that every user that connects to a particular server at the same time shares the same IP address. The advantage of this is that your online activities are mixed with that of other users, making it impossible to tell user activity apart, even if connection logs were to be requested.

Of the two VPNs, only CyberGhost offers the option of a static/dedicated IP address (a server that only one user can access). This costs an extra $5 per month, though. One benefit of having a dedicated IP address is that you don’t need to worry about too many people using it and eventually getting it blacklisted on a particular website or service.

Neither of these VPN services has anti-DDoS servers but by connecting to a VPN, you can hide your true IP address, protecting you in the process. As such, anyone attempting to flood your network with requests will be targeting the VPN’s network instead. What’s more, most VPNs can handle this without too many issues by simply switching a server’s IP address in the event of an attack.

Both services include a NAT firewall that blocks unsolicited incoming traffic. It does this by decrypting the packet headers, sending them to the relevant device, and discarding any it considers to be suspicious in any way.

Customer Service

CyberGhost and IPVanish both offer 24/7 support via live chat and email. We have tested the live chat support feature extensively at different times of the day. More often than not, we received replies within seconds rather than minutes. In the event that the customer support representative didn’t know the answer to a question (this is only likely with more technical enquiries), we received an email response a short while later.

We tested the response time of CyberGhost and IPVanish by emailing them three questions, each of varying levels of difficulty. IPVanish typically took several days to get back to us while CyberGhost replied within hours.

The Winner

CyberGhost

Although it doesn’t offer unlimited simultaneous connections like IPVanish, CyberGhost still allows up to seven which should be more than enough for most people’s needs. You may feel more comfortable knowing that CyberGhost is headquartered in Romania as opposed to IPVanish which is based in the US (a Five Eyes member).

CyberGhost lets you try its service for longer with its 45-day money-back guarantee (as opposed to the 30 days offered by IPVanish). While the two VPN providers offer user-friendly apps, CyberGhost supports more platforms and even offers Chrome and Firefox browser extensions. In summary, IPVanish is well worth considering if you have a lot of devices to secure. However, CyberGhost is simply the stronger all-rounder.

See also:

  • ExpressVPN vs IPVanish
  • CyberGhost vs PureVPN
  • NordVPN vs IPVanish
  • ExpressVPN vs CyberGhost