NordVPN vs Astrill VPN: Detailed Comparison for 2026

You can’t go wrong choosing Astrill VPN or NordVPN. We’re talking about two distinguished VPNs, both with a wealth of advanced features, apps for all devices, and strong security fundamentals like AES encryption and a kill switch. They’re all-arounders, so they compromise on very few things. In our Astrill VPN vs. NordVPN comparison, we found both capable of streaming, torrenting, and overcoming censorship in China, where Astrill particularly excels.

NordVPN is more modern, with a larger server fleet, more simultaneous connections, and cheaper subscription plans. Today’s comparison features eight tests, but in the end, only one can emerge victorious. Having tested Astrill VPN and NordVPN beforehand, we’re ready to share our results. Astrill VPN is significantly pricier, but as you’ll see, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the better or more capable VPN.

For those short on time, NordVPN is better in all major aspects, but Astrill VPN is superior if you need a reliable VPN for China. We recommend the former; it’s more affordable and better for fast connection speeds, streaming, privacy, compatibility, server variety, and ease of use for beginners. Let’s compare them in a table and then move to a more intricate comparison.

NordVPN allows 10, while Astrill VPN provides for only 5 simultaneous connections. The latter is also very outdated and clunky interface-wise. Its desktop apps are insultingly cluttered and very difficult to get used to. You get this tiny window with a large connection button. It feels extremely unintuitive.

Astrill VPN’s mobile apps are a tad better but still dated and lack the freshness of NordVPN. NordVPN’s apps scream modernity while simultaneously providing exceptional usability. Its apps have a nice world map, which you can use to connect to the server. If not, you can click once on the location from the server list and connect within a few seconds. In our NordVPN test, we also praised its iOS and Android apps with nearly the same features and level of polish.

In addition, NordVPN now offers a full Linux GUI instead of a CLI-based app, so it’s more usable even for beginners. So overall, based on more simultaneous connections, superior ease of use, and better compatibility, NordVPN naturally wins this round.

By far the most controversial aspect of Astrill VPN is the price. If you compare it to all other VPNs, you’ll notice just how pricey it is. To give you a better overview, we’ll put a screenshot below, which displays Astrill VPN’s ludicrous pricing. It starts at $12.50/mo for 2 years. The 2-year plan is paid up front, so right away, you’re parting with $300. At least the renewal price is the same, so it’s $300 biennially.

We then have the 1-year plan at $15/mo or $180 annually, and finally, a monthly plan at $30. At this price, you’d think Astrill VPN offers everything, but there’s more. A private IP is $5/mo per IP address, while a VPN add-on starts at $10/mo, with 100 GB to 1 TB of traffic. VIP add-ons are speed-optimized servers with reduced latency in Asia, with MultiHop for added privacy. A private IP is, however, a dedicated IP address.

NordVPN is up next, and as we see, this is a more realistic representation of typical VPN prices. NordVPN starts at just around $3.5/mo and goes up to $7.49 for the Prime plan, but this time, you get everything that the VPN offers, plus additional non-VPN tools. They include NordPass, NordLocker, and ID Theft Protection (Coveron), depending on the plan. All NordVPN plans are discounted by at least 69%, and even its annual plans have noticeable discounts for new users, which we must commend.

NordVPN has a 30-day money-back guarantee. Even if you pick a monthly plan, you have 30 days to be refunded if you don’t like the VPN. Astrill VPN doesn’t have a money-back guarantee, and it doesn’t offer a free trial, so you can’t test it.

This blatant behavior of Astrill VPN screams arrogance. If you’re spending this much, you should be able to test-drive it. Astrill VPN offers a less user-friendly environment and costs multiple times more than NordVPN. With NordVPN, you get a 3-day free trial via Android, which you can use on all other devices. With discounted prices and built-in features, we conclude that NordVPN wins the pricing round.

Astrill VPN and NordVPN are vastly different in price, but they’re actually equally secure. While that level of security is high, it speaks negatively about Astrill VPN, which just matches its rival, rather than severely overpowering it. To remind you, Astrill is about three times the cost of NordVPN per month.

The first few features work virtually the same in both VPNs. We know how a kill switch works. It disables your internet if the VPN connection breaks. And we tested it by force-closing VPNs in the Task Manager on our Windows 11. Immediately after, both kill switches were activated, and we couldn’t go online.

In NordVPN, I used its App Kill Switch, which allowed me to do the same for specific apps. Astrill VPN lacks that level of granularity and customization, which is a huge minus when you price the VPN service that high. We mentioned ad-blocking, and Astrill VPN’s capabilities are just basic. Meanwhile, NordVPN blocks ads via Threat Protection, which simultaneously shields you from malware, viruses, and tracking. Unlike Astrill VPN, NordVPN displays blocked threats, so you see the results.

As for MultiHop, again, NordVPN’s rendition is far better. You get Double VPN server pairs to encrypt all traffic twice for more privacy. I prefer this feature in Private Internet Access, where I can choose my own two servers. However, in Astrill VPN, I had to pay $10 per month for the VIP add-on to find MultiHop. I mean, it’s an advanced feature, but it’s nothing new, and it shouldn’t cost this much on top.

We haven’t mentioned features like Forward Secrecy, Private DNS, and RAM-only servers because they’re a staple of flagship-level VPNs. No doubt, Astrill VPN and NordVPN have them, and we’re thankful for that. However, we still found some differences in our NordVPN vs Astrill VPN comparison.

NordLynx is a proprietary WireGuard-powered protocol, better than other in-house solutions, including Hydra and even Lightway in ExpressVPN. NordWhisper is designed for sidestepping network filtering and is unique to NordVPN.

Its protocols, except for WireGuard, are built to overcome censorship and security. OpenWeb and Stealth are Astrill’s proprietary protocols. The former is lightweight and connectionless, so it’s set up easily and is useful for scrambling your VPN traffic to avoid DPI, making your traffic look ordinary.

StealthVPN is an obfuscation that ensures undetectability by automatic firewalls. It works in both UDP and TCP modes, uses 256-bit encryption, and is frequently used in China. This is why Astrill VPN is so popular in this country. It still works well in 2026, so it justifies its price only if that is a priority.

NordVPN and Astrill VPN have a fair bit of extras, but they target completely different users. Here is a breakdown of my favorite features:

Meshnet allows you to connect up to 60 devices and group them in a network that enables secure file sharing, remote device access, and IP routing. We explained how Meshnet can help you overcome the Netflix password-sharing ban, but that’s just one of its many abilities. It can be used for online gaming parties, accessing other devices, and so much more. Meshnet is part of NordVPN’s app, but it’s free and can be used without subscribing to NordVPN.

Its Dark Web Monitor is a lite version of ID theft protection we’ve seen in Coveron, which has recently rebranded from NordProtect. It scans the dark web and notifies you if your emails, credentials, and other PII have been exposed. Smart Mode in Astrill VPN assigns you a VPN IP address for overcoming app blocking and censorship. Enable it using the button, and Astrill will do everything for you.

There’s also VPN Sharing, which we found very interesting. It lets you share the VPN connection with other devices, including those non-VPN-friendly. It’s like a VPN hotspot, which radiates the VPN network to which you can connect as if it were a router. This is handy for using a VPN on your PS5, Firestick, and other similar devices.

During testing, neither VPN leaked our IP or DNS addresses, and both provided many advanced protocols and security features, including MultiHop, ad-blocking, and strong obfuscation. While Astrill VPN excels at bypassing censorship, NordVPN offers raw customization for power users. It’s a tie.

Neither NordVPN nor Astrill VPN stores any logs, and that’s a huge plus. NordVPN is based in Panama, and its rival is in Liechtenstein. There’s no 5 Eyes interference, and privacy laws are better than ever. With no government involvement, NordVPN and Astrill VPN have zero-log policies with no logs of:

They retain some logs to keep their services alive, but that’s not really an issue. Things like your email and a payment method are normal for your subscription. Simultaneous connections as well, for enforcing the 10- or 5-device limit.

Astrill VPN retains information about traffic to plan network expansions. However, everything it stores is deleted after the user disconnects or within 30 days, so nothing stays on the server for the long term. Now, let’s discuss audits. NordVPN has several audits on its no-log policy and infrastructure, in general. For the no-log policy, it has received SIX audits from Deloitte, even one in February 2026.

Unfortunately, we can’t say the same for Astrill VPN, which still hasn’t undergone a single third-party audit; and it’s not a young VPN, either (it was established in 2009). This is why we trust NordVPN more than Astrill VPN. You can claim all you want, but if no third-party security firm backs you up, you’re basically shooting blanks.

We tested Astrill VPN vs NordVPN multiple times and ended up impressed with their speed. Not all of their protocols are speed-oriented, so we used NordLynx and WireGuard as pretty much identical options. Also, we tested both VPNs across 3 server locations: The United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan.

All tests were repeated for 3 days in a row, 3 times a day. Important to mention is that our results will display the average speed drops and average speeds, which will be gauged in this comparison. We can’t proceed without the starting point, which is our location and non-VPN speeds. We were in Belgrade, and our speeds were 340 Mbps and 20 Mbps for downloads and uploads. Let’s look at the speed losses first:

This shows us that NordVPN is faster than Astrill VPN, but the difference isn’t as eye-piercing as you may have expected. Astrill VPN is a solid performer, which can also be seen in the next table with the best download and upload speeds.

Still, as a whole, NordVPN was faster and more stable, often with lower latency on distant locations. For a user who wants to play games online, download torrents, or simply browse the web without unexpected slowdowns, NordVPN is a far better choice, especially with NordLynx as the primary protocol.

After testing TorGuard and NordVPN, we were disappointed by the former’s streaming add-ons. At least Astrill VPN allows P2P and streaming out of the box, like NordVPN. But is it comparable, or is it just a dud?

When it comes to streaming, it’s very close. We were actually surprised by the results. No matter the choice, Astrill VPN or NordVPN, you’ll be able to enjoy more than a few Netflix libraries. I managed to access 20+ with NordVPN (here’s my NordVPN Netflix test), and with Astrill VPN, I could access only a few popular ones (the USA, the UK, Australia, and Canada). Also, I noticed that Astrill VPN struggles with iPlayer.

However, after a few tweaks and switching between different UK servers, it works well. NordVPN offers a browser extension with location spoofing, which increases its efficiency. That’s how you can unblock Tubi TV, Pluto TV, and other channels and services abroad. Additionally, there’s Smart DNS to stream content on devices that don’t natively support VPNs. Generally, both are good, but NordVPN wins by a notch.

To punch back, Astrill VPN excels in torrenting speed and security. Connect to the nearest VPN server, launch the torrent client, and enjoy. NordVPN no longer offers P2P servers, so now, it’s like Astrill VPN: All servers are P2P-friendly. I found that NordVPN offers SOCKS5, so I could directly implement it in my qBitTorrent client. Astrill VPN offers Port Forwarding, which I favor for faster P2P transfers.

When I downloaded torrents with NordVPN and Astrill VPN, I used the closest servers, and with or without SOCKS5 or Port Forwarding, the performance was pretty much on par. However, as a whole, NordVPN is just a tad more convincing, especially in streaming, which is why it takes this comparison round.

After re-examining their real-world performance, I wanted to see which VPN has more servers. And I didn’t have to look far and wide. I asked both support teams to confirm their claims on the site, and they did:

The server count is on NordVPN’s side. The number of servers is less important, but when the difference is as baffling as this, it is. You get roughly 30 times more servers in NordVPN and about 2.5 times more countries. This grants NordVPN superior server distribution because it implemented virtual servers in specific locations. You can easily change your IP to India, Bolivia, Armenia, and other exotic locations unavailable in some VPNs (including Astrill VPN).

While both have 10 Gbps server ports and RAM servers, Astrill VPN has more dedicated IP locations. For example, there are private IPs in Serbia, Turkey, South Korea, Luxembourg, the USA, and a lot more countries we didn’t expect to find. Astrill VPN’s dedicated IPs are pricier ($5/mo vs $4.19/mo). NordVPN offers more variety in dedicated servers for Onion Over VPN, Obfuscation, and Double VPN.

Despite the differences and Astrill VPN’s numerous private IPs, the provider can’t compete with NordVPN‘s sheer size, which ultimately takes the crown.

Astrill VPN has a noticeable advantage over any other VPN in China. As mentioned previously, the VPN employs two important protocols for this purpose: StealthVPN and OpenWeb. Having tested both, we were impressed at how reliable they were. Each connection to the VPN was successful, be it with OpenWeb or StealthVPN. Additionally, speeds and general stability were better than we actually expected.

Astrill VPN has these VIP add-ons, which enhance these further. You can enjoy lower ping for gaming and get so-called prioritized traffic from 100 GB to 1 TB a month if you pay $10 to $100 monthly. NordVPN works in China but not as efficiently as Astrill VPN, at least in our tests. China has strengthened its Great Firewall, so in 2026, NordVPN started to fall short occasionally. Not very often, but I noticed it.

It works approximately 8 out of 10 times, inferior to Astrill VPN’s noteworthy performance. Their performance in other countries is on par. This means you can use them in Russia, India, Turkey, Iran, and other locations. Astrill VPN takes the round, but NordVPN is the second-best VPN for overcoming censorship.

Based on our 8 tests and the final score, NordVPN is a winner. But the math alone doesn’t give us a full picture. Astrill VPN isn’t worse than NordVPN and is on par, if not better in some instances. Specifically, it works better in China and has more dedicated IP locations. NordVPN excels in important categories for most people: cost-efficiency, connection speed, streaming, compatibility, privacy, and network size.

Affordability is the primary aspect here because, for the average user, Astrill VPN is a noticeable investment. NordVPN, which won all the major rounds, costs several times less, even if you get the beefiest Prime plan. It’s smarter to spend money on NordVPN except if you specifically need a VPN for the Chinese Mainland. In that case, Astrill VPN is better. In 90% of other cases, you’ll enjoy NordVPN more.