Best VPN for iPhone 2025: Privacy Protection on the Go

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Surfshark is the overall best VPN for iPhones. We like that Surfshark offers split tunneling on iOS and MacOS, not just on Windows and Android -- a rarity among VPN providers. Beyond that, it doesn't compromise on features, like advanced privacy settings or speed. You can also use Surfshark on as many devices as you want simultaneously, which is great if you have a household full of devices you want to protect.

ExpressVPN is the best iPhone VPN for beginners, thanks to its excellent privacy protection and simple, user-friendly mobile interface on iOS and iPadOS (as well as Android, for that matter). It's a great overall VPN, though you'll pay more for that excellence.

NordVPN is the fastest VPN for iPhones, delivering blazing-fast speeds that are perfect for 4K video streaming or online mobile gaming. Plus, NordVPN’s track record with unblocking streams is among the best out there, especially considering it offers a global roster of locations to connect to in 118 countries.

ProtonVPN is the most versatile iPhone VPN, offering an impressive server network alongside customizable settings and features that are great for power users. Proton is privacy-focused, open-source, and it performed well in our latest speed tests, trailing only NordVPN.

Using a VPN on your iPhone and other devices is a great way to protect your privacy, because a VPN encrypts your online traffic and masks your public IP address. Apple's iPhone has a reputation for privacy, but using a VPN for your iPhone can boost your privacy, whether you're at home or on the go. With a VPN, enabled, your ISP or mobile carrier won't be able to see what websites and apps you're using. By the same token, apps and websites you use can't tell where you're really connecting from because your public IP address is hidden, instead showing the public IP address of the VPN server you're connecting through -- which can be in an entirely different geographic location.

A VPN can make apps and websites think you're in a different city, state or even country, letting you unblock region-restricted content like foreign Netflix libraries, as well as shows and movies on Amazon Prime Video and Disney Plus that would otherwise be unavailable in your region. If your carrier throttles your video streaming quality on mobile data, you may even experience faster speeds when streaming video on your phone using a VPN.

Our team of experts at CNET has rigorously tested dozens of the top VPN providers across multiple platforms, including iOS and iPadOS. We evaluate each service based on a host of factors, including privacy features, speed performance, ease of use and overall value for money. During our iPhone VPN app evaluations, we were impressed with how responsively and intuitively each of our top picks performed on iPhone -- each being just as easy to use as basically any other VPN you'd install on your iOS device. We were also impressed with the seamlessness and stability of the connections, especially when switching between various Wi-Fi and mobile networks. Whether you want to avoid mobile traffic-shaping, need to unblock region-restricted streaming content or are traveling internationally for the summer but need access to content from your home country, one of our top picks for iPhone VPNs is a great addition to your app arsenal to bolster your privacy and entertainment needs.

Downloading a VPN app, creating an account, choosing a plan and connecting to your VPN shouldn't take longer than a minute or so.

Nelson Aguilar/CNET

With so many iPhone VPN apps available, it can be difficult to choose the right one. Based on our extensive research and hands-on testing of VPNs over the years, these are the factors to look out for when choosing the best VPN for iPhone:

Privacy

The most important factor to consider with any VPN is privacy. You should never use a VPN provider if you can’t trust that it's taking your privacy seriously. Every VPN worth its salt should provide AES 256-bit encryption over either OpenVPN or IKEv2 VPN protocols at the bare minimum. If it also offers ChaCha20 over WireGuard, you’ll get all the protection you expect plus a nice speed boost over most other protocols.

Your VPN should also have basic privacy features such as a kill switch, which protects you if your VPN connection unexpectedly goes down, DNS leak protection to stop your ISP from reading your website requests and a solid no-logs policy that is regularly audited. We recommend checking any provider’s privacy policy and reading its audit reports closely, as it’ll give you a good understanding of whether a VPN provider is serious about your privacy. If you notice a mention of data collection or sharing practices in a VPN's privacy policy that don't sit well with you, then it's best to trust your gut and look for a different provider.

If your privacy needs are critical, then you’ll need to look for a provider that goes above and beyond the standard privacy considerations. Your VPN should be based in a jurisdiction that has strong privacy laws that don't mandate data retention or logging. Choosing a provider that offers obfuscation is also necessary if you’re in a region or network that restricts or bans VPN use outright, because it can help hide the fact that you're using a VPN in the first place. Many of the best VPNs are also rolling out post-quantum protections that help protect against potential future threats from quantum computers, which is essential for privacy-critical users now and moving forward. Finally, your provider should offer either a RAM-only server infrastructure or employ full-disk encryption on its hard drives, both of which can help ensure that your data remains secure. There are also some other privacy features that aren’t as vital but still useful, such as ad-blockers, Tor over VPN and multi-hop connections. 

Speed

Your VPN's connection speeds can have a major influence on the quality of your streaming, downloading, video conferencing, gaming and general web-browsing activities. All VPNs slow down your internet somewhat, simply by nature of encrypting your traffic and routing it through one or more remote servers. To keep things running as smoothly as possible, you'll want a VPN that will have as minimal an impact on your regular internet speeds as possible. Generally, we've found that the best VPNs for iPhone only drop your internet download speed by an average of 25% or less. In our testing, we've seen as low as an average 3% internet download speed loss. For bandwidth-demanding applications like competitive gaming or video streaming, you'll want a fast VPN.

Usability

A good VPN for iPhone should run smoothly and be easy to use, regardless of your technical expertise. It should have all of the features you need easily accessible with a tap of your finger. Many of the best iPhone VPN apps also include an easy way to get in touch with support directly from the device, which can be helpful if you need assistance on the go. Basically, your VPN app should be as easy for you to use as your iPhone itself. It should have a large network of servers around the world so you can connect easily and reliably from wherever you may be traveling, and be able to help you access geo-restricted content from various regions. 

Cost

Depending on your budget, you may want to take into account the cost and overall value of your iPhone VPN before making a purchase. VPN pricing can vary greatly from provider to provider, but you can typically expect to spend about $5 to $15 per month for a monthly VPN subscription plan. If you want to save some money, you can opt for an annual subscription, where prices can range from roughly $30 to $100 per year.

You'll want to be careful with free VPNs because you may end up risking your privacy instead of protecting it with a free VPN Many free VPNs have slow speeds or have unreliable connections that frequently drop because of overloaded servers. Some even actively degrade your privacy, logging any internet activity through the VPN for sale to third parties or injecting ads into your browsing sessions. Even paid VPNs have varying degrees of usability, privacy protections, speeds and streaming capabilities. Proton VPN is currently the only free VPN that CNET recommends.

Most premium VPNs offer a money-back guarantee anywhere from a week to 45 days. You can also get a seven-day free trial with many VPNs when you sign up through Apple's App Store, so you have options to try various iPhone VPNs risk-free before you decide whether to fully invest in one.   

Device support

While you'll want an VPN for iPhone that works well on iOS, you may have other devices that you want to run a VPN on. Most VPNs work on Windows, MacOS, Linux PCs and Android devices. While Android TV and Fire TV apps are common for use on streaming devices, Apple TV apps are still on the rise. Providers like NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Proton VPN, Surfshark, PIA and IPVanish offer Apple TV VPN apps. (Disclosure: IPVanish is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.) Think about the devices you want to install a VPN app on and make sure your desired VPN provider supports those gadgets.

James Martin/CNET

PIA's apps offer a lot of options for customization.

PIA/Screenshot by CNET

When we evaluate the best iPhone VPNs, we spend weeks testing the features offered on each VPN's iPhone app to see how they compare to the competition. We carefully consider the look and feel of the app and the overall usability of the software, including how easy it is to establish a connection, bearing in mind the generally smooth user experience iPhone users are accustomed to.

We test the performance and reliability of the VPN connection on each of the protocols available in the provider's iPhone app, while paying special attention to how the app performs when switching between Wi-Fi and a mobile network. We test for leaks and ensure each service's kill switch is working as it should, in addition to testing the functionality of every other feature available on the VPN's iPhone app. If a provider offers unique features (or includes a rare-to-iPhone feature like split-tunneling) we make sure to call them out and document our experience using them.

Many VPNs also offer easy access to customer support directly from their iPhone app, so we test that functionality and evaluate how seamlessly the app is able to connect the user with a support agent as well as the general effectiveness of the support itself.

We test each VPN's ability to circumvent geographical restrictions and access content on popular streaming sites on the iPhone, while taking into account previously-tested speed performance and noting any issues with buffering or stream quality. Finally, we evaluate each provider's pricing to determine the service's overall value.  

PIA

Private Internet Access is a decent cheap VPN that undercuts most of its rivals at $12 per month, $40 for the first year (renewing at $50 annually) or $79 every three years. We like its customizable apps and privacy-forward design that includes open-source apps as well as a reader-friendly privacy policy. PIA is one of the few VPN providers that offers split tunneling on MacOS, so Apple aficionados may appreciate the flexibility to route some apps but not others through a VPN. 

However, PIA’s high 49% average speed loss is about double what you can typically expect from a fast VPN, making it a tough sell for folks with slow or unreliable internet connections. Additionally, we experienced many CAPTCHAs with PIA when trying to access websites like Google. And its app design, while mostly user-friendly, felt outdated compared to most of the competition. While PIA is a good budget VPN, for a little bit more money, you can get a lot more value with a VPN like Surfshark or Proton VPN.

Read our PIA review.

IPVanish

IPVanish's iPhone app is fairly easy to use and includes a prominent "Connect" button on the home screen that'll get you connected quickly. If you navigate to the "locations" screen to select a specific server, you can either connect to the "optimal location" or choose from a list of servers. However, after you've connected, there's no indication of whether you're connected or not unless you navigate back to the home screen. Even if you connect to the optimal location, the Connect button on the locations screen still says "Connect" -- which can lead to some confusion. 

Although IPVanish's iPhone app isn't as streamlined as the others on this list, it includes split tunneling functionality -- a feature most VPNs don't offer with their iPhone apps. Even so, it's difficult to enthusiastically recommend IPVanish to iPhone users considering that far superior services are available for the same price or cheaper. IPVanish costs $13 per month, $40 for the first year or $53 for the first two years combined. However (as this information is not made sufficiently clear on IPVanish's pricing page), be advised that the price of the annual plan more than doubles to $90 after the initial term, and the two-year subscription renews at $180 every two years after the first two years. Also, IPVanish's 30-day money-back guarantee only applies to the annual and two-year subscription plans, not the monthly plan. (Disclosure: IPVanish is owned by CNET's parent company, Ziff Davis.)  

Read our IPVanish review.