ExpressVPN vs IPVanish VPN

Express VPN and IPVanish are two top contenders for residential VPN services. These are services that help protect your identity and keep your activity from being tracked when you’re online or streaming entertainment. This article provides a brief overview of the key features to look for when you’re shopping for VPN services. We also provide a comparison between ExpressVPN and IPVanish so you can feel confident making a choice between these top contenders or decide if neither is the right option and that you need to look at some other providers.

How We Evaluated ExpressVPN vs IPVanish

A lot of companies provide VPN service for residential or small-business use these days. This is a service that used to be limited mostly to business or corporate functionality, but evolving technology and lower costs has made it more accessible to many people. That being said, these changes also mean that there are many companies offering a wide range of features and benefits. It can be difficult to know where to start if you’ve never shopped VPN services before.

We cut through all this confusion and evaluated these two companies based on some core features that are important to VPNs. Obviously, what’s most important to you depends on how you plan on using the service, but these four features are a good place to start.

Common Features We Looked For

1. Security & Privacy This is feature number one we look for because it’s the primary purpose of a VPN. You connect through a virtual private network because you want to add a layer of security to your own home or small business network or because you want more privacy as you browse and stream content. The best VPNs use encryption technology to ensure your activity is harder to hack. The highest level of encryption as of August 2020 is 256-bit AES. This is what many government agencies use, and we looked for VPN service providers who use it.

Other features that can help ensure security and privacy include kill switches, no logging policies and IP masking.

2. Server Coverage How many servers your provider runs and where those servers are located can impact your experience with a VPN company. First, you want to choose a provider that has many servers. Hundreds or thousands of servers — this is the type of number you want to see. When you log into your VPN, your activity is routed through a server. Potentially hundreds of thousands of people might be using the same VPN you are, and you can’t all route through a few servers without a serious impact to speed. When your VPN provider can spread that load over many servers, the results are much better.

You also want to choose a provider with servers in many locations across the globe. That way if some servers are impacted by a natural disaster, such as a hurricane or earthquake, or a geopolitical issue, such as a national coup, you’re able to connect through servers elsewhere in the world.

3. Performance How fast the VPN services are, including download speeds, and how many devices you can connect at the same time may be important factors to consider. You may also want to consider whether there are monthly download caps.

4. Price Finally, obviously the price is a factor. You can often save money by committing to a year or more of service and paying for it up front.

ExpressVPN vs IPVanish Comparison

We spent more than 10 hours researching these two companies and have presented a breakdown of the results below. Start here when you’re trying to determine whether ExpressVPN or IPVanish might be the right option for you.

Security and Privacy

A few years ago, IPVanish was caught in a bit of a scandal within the VPN community. It went like this: IPVanish said it had a no-log policy, which meant it didn’t log what you were doing online if you used the service. But then IPVanish cooperated with a request from a government agency to provide data logs regarding a specific user’s activities. That proves that the company was logging something. Since that time, IPVanish was purchased, and the new company guarantees no logging. IPVanish also encrypts data with AES 256-bit encryption and provides a kill switch. It also has more than 40,000 IP addresses to be cycled through, making it highly unlikely you’ll ever be tracked.

ExpressVPN also has a kill switch feature, operates with AES 256-bit encryption and has a no-log policy. A kill switch shuts down your internet connection if your VPN stops working. That means you aren’t out on the web unprotected if your VPN goes down for any reason and you don’t realize it. ExpressVPN uses IP masking. This means that your IP isn’t revealed to sites as you interact with them when you go through the VPN server. Instead, a faux IP is used to mask yours. You can also use VPN split tunneling, routing some of your traffic through VPN and using a regular connection for other activities.

Server Coverage

IPVanish has more than 1,500 servers, and they’re located throughout the world to ensure you have access to a connection when you need it. In North America alone, the company has more than 800 servers. They’re located throughout the United States, Canada and Mexico, In the United States, servers are available in cities such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Chicago and many other places. Other areas of the world where IPVanish has servers include many nations in Europe, South America, Oceania and Africa.

ExpressVPN has more than 3,000 servers in 94 counties across the globe. Those servers are spread out in 160 different locations, including many in areas such as the United States, Europe, Asia and South America. Just a few countries where ExpressVPN servers reside include Chile, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Peru, Norway, Poland, Laos, Mongolia, India and Japan.

Overall, these two companies both have fairly robust server coverage. Servers are located all across the globe, and there are thousands to choose from. Whatever choice you make between these two, server access shouldn’t be an issue for you.

Performance

IPVanish offers a number of VPN protocols, including IKEv2, OpenVPN, L2TP, IPSec and PPTP. If you’re not experienced with VPN, you don’t have to worry and can rely mostly on OpenVPN. But knowing that there are numerous options can be good. You get unlimited bandwidth, which means that you don’t get halfway through the month and run out of priority data or see your access limited or speeds tank. The service is generally fast enough for torrenting. And IPVanish is one of the few services that offers unlimited connections. That means you can connect an unlimited number of devices via your VPN, which means everyone in your home can have a protected mobile wireless connection while also running laptops, SmartTV streaming and other devices. It also makes this an option for use in small-business environments.

ExpressVPN offers a number of VPN protocols as well, though which are available depends on which server you use. Options include OpenVPN UDP, OpenVPN TCP, L2TP, IPSec, IKEv2 and PPTP. ExpressVPN also offers unlimited bandwidth as well as apps for all your devices. ExpressVPN automatically chooses the best and fastest server for you to connect to so you don’t have to play guessing games with manual set ups. However, you can only connect up to five devices at a time, so if you have a large family, a number of personal devices or a small-business office, this might not be the ideal choice.

Price

In general, you’ll save money when you opt to pay for longer terms at once, and this is true for both companies. IPVanish comes out just a bit cheaper all around, but there’s not a huge difference price wise between the two.

Overview: ExpressVPN vs IPVanish

Both ExpressVPN and IPVanish are solid choices that offer reliable VPN services and have enough servers across the globe to keep up with demand. But what makes a VPN the right choice for you might be different from what makes a service the right choice for someone else. We’ve provided a more detailed breakdown below that offers some specific details about each company to help you make your choice. For example, you might prefer a company you can call when you need support, and ExpressVPN offers support through live chat only. IPVanish, then, might be a better option for you personally.

ExpressVPN vs IPVanish Comparison Table