which is better IPVanish or ExpressVPN
If you’re looking for a fast VPN for streaming and torrenting, your options may have been limited to IPVanish and ExpressVPN. And now you’re stuck deciding which VPN service to use.
Fortunately, I’m here to assist you in making an informed decision. In terms of speed, security, logging, streaming capabilities, pricing, ease of use, and customer support, I compared IPVanish to ExpressVPN. This will allow you to determine which VPN is best for your specific needs.
| Features | IP Vanish VPN | Express VPN |
| Speed | NO | YES |
| Features | NO | YES |
| Privacy | NO | YES |
| Streaming | NO | YES |
| Torrenting | YES | YES |
| Price | YES | NO |
| Server Locations | NO | YES |
| Ease of Use | NO | YES |
| Customer Support | YES | YES |
Plans and Pricing
Pricing is an important consideration in the IPvanish vs ExpressVPN comparison. Because none of the VPN services offer a free version, a price that is prohibitively expensive for those on a tight budget can be a deal-breaker.
IPVanish’s pricing structure is a little complicated. Depending on the plan you choose, you will pay a different price for the first month or year of the subscription. If you purchase a one-month plan, you will pay $3.49 for the first month and $9.99 for each subsequent month. The one-year plan is slightly less expensive. You’ll pay $31.49 for the first year (or $2.62 per month) and $89.99 for the following year (or $7.45 per month).
You can also get one of IPVanish’s SugarSync bundles, which include 500 GB of cloud storage for secure backup and cost an extra dollar per month. IPVanish’s plans all allow for 10 simultaneous connections and only long-term subscriptions allow you to use the money-back guarantee. Consider this before making a purchase.
The various ExpressVPN subscription plans are now much more straightforward. A one-month plan costs $12.95, a six-month plan costs $59.95 ($9.99 per month), and a one-year plan costs $99.95 ($8.32 per month).
Currently, the one-year plan includes three months free, bringing the monthly price down to $6.67. It’s also worth noting that ExpressVPN supports 5 simultaneous connections and accepts Bitcoin payments.
It is difficult to determine which VPN offers the best value. On the one hand, ExpressVPN’s current special offer (which gives you three months free when you buy a one-year subscription) costs $6.67 per month, which is less than the price of IPVanish’s second year.
IPVanish, on the other hand, provides an additional low-cost option of $2.62 per month for the first year of the subscription. After the first year, the price rises to $7.45 per month.
User Interface
| IP Vanish VPN | Express VPN | |
| Supported OS | Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS. | Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS. |
| Other Devices | Android TV, Fire Devices, Routers | Android TV, Fire devices, Routers |
| Browser Extensions | None | Chrome, Firefox |
| Simultaneous Connections | 10 | 5 |
Whatever device you use, you should be able to find the IPVanish or ExpressVPN app you require. Both services offer a large number of applications and supported devices.
However, only ExpressVPN has released browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox: no extensions are available for IPVanish customers. IPVanish, on the other hand, provides 10 simultaneous connections, which is twice as many as ExpressVPN. Nonetheless, I chose ExpressVPN as the winner in this category simply because its applications are more feature-consistent. Furthermore, ExpressVPN’s MediaStreamer feature makes it compatible with devices that would not otherwise support a VPN (like consoles or Apple TV).
Take a look at the main screen of IPVanish’s Windows and macOS apps, and you’ll find everything you need in one place. There’s a map (you can also select a list view), a settings tab, and lots of information about the connection. Some users, on the other hand, may find the application a little clunky.
ExpressVPN, unlike IPVanish, took a more minimalist approach. The main window of both Windows and Mac applications is quite small, with a large button taking up the majority of the available space. If you want to change a setting or two, you must open the Settings window, which appears dated to me.
There is also no map, but this isn’t a big deal because there’s a handy country filter that lets you easily browse through servers. Also, I like that the ExpressVPN Windows and Mac apps support split tunneling, which is only available on the IPVanish Android app.
The mobile version of IPVanish differs from the desktop version. It’s much more compact and less cluttered because it’s designed to fit a mobile screen. Keep in mind that the IPVanish Android app is superior to the iOS app because it has more features such as split tunneling and obfuscation toggle.
The mobile version of ExpressVPN now resembles the desktop version almost exactly. ExpressVPN’s Android app, like IPVanish’s, is superior, with more features such as split tunneling and a kill switch.
Customer Support
Your customer support options will be similar whether you use IPVanish or ExpressVPN. Both services provide a knowledge center (complete with FAQs and a variety of topics), email tickets, and live chat support.
Server Location
Despite the fact that both VPN services provide a very broad network of servers, ExpressVPN has nearly double the number of servers that IPVanish currently offers.
Furthermore, because it offers a larger number of countries across multiple continents, ExpressVPN gives you more freedom in selecting the country that you require.
ExpressVPN does not own any of its servers, whereas IPVanish does. This gives IPVanish a slight advantage because owning your network (rather than relying on third parties) improves overall security.ExpressVPN’s servers, on the other hand, are all RAM-only, which means they can’t store data in any case.
Streaming and Download
When selecting a VPN service, the ability to unblock streaming services is critical. After all, this is what most people think of when they hear the term “VPN.” Fortunately, IPVanish and ExpressVPN are both excellent options for those looking to unblock geo-restricted content. IPVanish unblocked US Netflix without any glitches or changes in video quality when we tested it. Furthermore, the VPN had no trouble unblocking a variety of YouTube videos that were previously blocked in my country. However, not everything was perfect: when we tried to access the BBC iPlayer, we received an error message stating that we were using a proxy. We also had no luck with DAZN, so sports fans may want to use ExpressVPN instead.
Why? Because ExpressVPN was able to unblock all of the content we desired, including DAZN. Furthermore, it worked flawlessly with Netflix US, BBC iPlayer, and, of course, YouTube. It’s also worth noting that ExpressVPN’s MediaStreamer feature is extremely useful for watching geo-blocked content on smart TVs or gaming consoles.
As you can see, while IPVanish can unblock certain websites, ExpressVPN is a better option for streaming VPNs. We didn’t even need to use its specialized streaming servers because the regular ones worked perfectly.
If you want a secure VPN for torrenting, it doesn’t matter whether you use IPVanish or ExpressVPN because both services provide excellent torrent support.
First, let’s take a look at IPVanish. Because it lacks specialized torrenting servers, simply use one of its regular torrenting servers (Switzerland, for example) – the speed will not disappoint. In our case, it consistently stayed at 7-8MB/s, which is faster than many other VPN providers.
ExpressVPN, on the other hand, allows torrenting on all of its servers. However, during our tests, the speed was less consistent than with IPVanish: it fluctuated between 6 and 15 MB/s. Keep in mind that these speeds are affected by a variety of factors and will most likely differ for you.
Overall, we can’t declare a clear winner in this category because, while ExpressVPN may offer faster speeds, they may also be highly inconsistent.
Jurisdiction
When it comes to jurisdiction, ExpressVPN comes out on top. This is due to the fact that this VPN service is based in the British Virgin Islands, whereas IPVanish is based in the United States.
What’s the distinction? In terms of privacy, the United States does not have a good track record. Its government is well-known for spying on businesses, requesting access to private user data, and engaging in other nefarious activities. The United States is also a member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. Meanwhile, the British Virgin Islands is a much more privacy-friendly territory.
Safety and Protection
When it comes to security, IPVanish and ExpressVPN are very similar. To begin, both services employ the current industry standard, military-grade AES-256 encryption. No brute-force attack has been able to break it because it could take millions of years.
Second, for authentication, both VPN services use the SHA-512 hash function. This is a step above most other VPN tools in the industry, as most VPN tools still use SHA-256.
It’s also worth noting that IPVanish and ExpressVPN both support perfect forward secrecy. This means that a portion of the encryption keys changes on a regular basis, rendering your previous data inaccessible in the event of a security breach. One difference between IPVanish and ExpressVPN is that ExpressVPN allows you to use ChaCha20/Poly1305 encryption when using the Lightway protocol. This type of encryption performs better on less powerful devices than AES-256.
It’s also worth noting that ExpressVPN’s stealth servers protect your privacy even further by not allowing anyone to detect that you’re using a VPN at all.
Network Speed
It appears highly unfair to compare ExpressVPN’s in-house tunneling protocol Lightway (which is similar to WireGuard) to any of IPVanish’s standard protocols. Using Lightway, my download speed usually exceeded 250 Mbps during my tests, which is very impressive. IPVanish, on the other hand, outperformed most other tunneling protocols.
Finally, I award it to ExpressVPN because it performs admirably in both download and upload. Meanwhile, IPVanish lacks that – some protocols have excellent Download and Upload speeds, while others are only mediocre in both.
Both IPVanish and ExpressVPN support OpenVPN UDP, a protocol that combines high security with fast performance. When it comes to IPVanish vs ExpressVPN, the latter clearly wins: it reduced my original download speed by 45 percent on average, while IPVanish reduced it by 55 percent.
OpenVPN TCP is the slower version of OpenVPN that offers more stability than UDP. Surprisingly, IPVanish achieved better results with this protocol than with its faster counterpart. Only 45 percent of the download speed was reduced, while 65 percent of the upload speed was reduced.
When it came to ExpressVPN, the download speed dropped by 65% while the upload speed dropped by 67%.
IKEv2 is a very fast protocol that is also very secure, making it an ideal choice for most VPN users. As shown in the table below, IPVanish and ExpressVPN provide comparable download speeds when using IKEv2.
When we used IPVanish, my download speed decreased by only 21% on average, whereas ExpressVPN reduced my download speed by 30%. Surprisingly, both VPN services performed significantly worse in terms of upload speed.
Features
Both IPVanish and ExpressVPN include basic VPN features such as a kill switch and split tunneling. However, there are some distinctions: IPVanish provides a SOCKS5 proxy, whereas ExpressVPN supports smart DNS.
What we like best about ExpressVPN is that it allows for split tunneling on multiple devices, not just Android smartphones. This VPN provides RAM-only servers, stealth servers, and port forwarding.
Conclusion
Even though it was difficult to choose a winner (as both VPN services are quite good), ExpressVPN wins in terms of privacy, features, streaming capabilities, and server locations.
However, IPVanish offers a significantly lower price for the first year of service. So, if you don’t mind that this VPN doesn’t unblock BBC iPlayer and DAZN, has fewer server locations, and is based in a Five Eyes country, you should consider signing up for IPVanish.
In terms of logging, there are significant differences between IPVanish and ExpressVPN. Both services state in their privacy policies that they do not keep logs such as activity logs, browsing history, connection logs, and similar data. Both VPNs, however, collect your email address and payment method. Although IPVanish has since been acquired by a different company, ExpressVPN’s privacy record remains noticeably superior. Furthermore, the fact that ExpressVPN uses RAM-only servers demonstrates that this VPN will not leak your data simply because it is wiped out each time a server is rebooted.