Best VPN Providers for Live Streamers

NordVPN is a top-tier service provider with one of the largest server farms on the market. The platforms operates over 5000 servers in 60 countries, and is home to over 10 million users worldwide. NordVPN is headquartered in Panama, meaning it's outside the jurisdiction of the Five Eyes governmental-spying conglomerate. NordVPN offers monthly, annual, and 2-year subscriptions, on each of their three tiers: Standard, Plus, and Complete.

The Standard plan gets you the basic services you'll need as a streamer, including a high-speed VPN for up to 6 devices, malware protection, and a tool that blocks tracking and ads. Plus plan adds a password manager that generates and stores strong, alphanumeric passwords under a single master password. In addition, you'll get NordVPN's Data Breach Scanner, which looks for indications your data has been leaked to hackers on the Dark Web. The Complete program includes all of the above, as well as 1 terabyte of storage on the platform's secure cloud, and file-encryption software.

Live-streamers will benefit from NordVPN's speed. While many VPNs slow your connection by as much as 75%, NordVPN rarely reduces download speeds by more than 10%, and often the upload speeds increase. The increase in upload speeds is due to the ISP throttling your connection, which NordVPN circumvents. That's great news for streamers, since they're uploading huge amounts of data per second.

PureVPN was established in 2007, and is housed in the British Virgin Islands. The company operates over 6500 servers spanning 70 countries, and reports over 3 million users. Despite having been administered by the United Kingdom in years past, the British Virgin Islands are now autonomous, and they do not participate in the UK's intelligence-sharing program with the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (collectively known as the Five Eyes). To the contrary, the British Virgin Islands have very strict privacy laws, making it an ideal location for a VPN provider. Users can choose from 3 plans: VPN Only, Plus, and Full Suite, each of which is available with a monthly, 12-month, or 24-month subscription.

As the name suggests, the VPN Only plan offers just that, while the Plus plan includes PureKeep, a password-management tool that generates and catalogs all of your passwords. In addition, the plan includes PureEncrypt, a file-encryption tool that allows you to secure private files before saving them on your computer. Full Suite includes all of the above, as well as PureVPN's Digital Security suite. Furthermore, at checkout, you can add other services, such as a dedicated/static IP address and port forwarding. PureVPN has a 10-device limit, meaning you cannot connect to more than 10 devices at the same time.

The most important feature PureVPN offers streamers is unlimited bandwidth, meaning you can run all day in high resolution, without worrying about a cap on bandwidth or data. In addition, PureVPN is very good at working around ISP speed throttling. That means you could even see improved upload speeds while uploading your content. The system's IP Leak Protection will prevent hackers from accessing and abusing your IP address. Lastly, if you're looking for complete anonymity, you'll be happy to know that PureVPN accepts cryptocurrencies, via CoinGate.

ExpressVPN is an award-winning VPN with over 4 million users. The company hosts over 3000 servers strategically spread out over 94 countries. ExpressVPN is headquartered in the Virgin Islands, outside the jurisdiction of the Five Eyes. Furthermore, ExpressVPN proved its "no-logs" policy when the Turkish government seized a local server, as part of an investigation into the assassination of Russian Ambassador Andrey Karlov. Turkish authorities were unable to extract any useful information from the server. In their official statement, ExpressVPN wrote that the company "does not and has never possessed any customer connection logs that would enable us to know which customer was using [...] specific IPs."

ExpressVPN has only one tier, which includes the VPN, an IP Address Checker that tests for leaks, a DNS Leak Test, a WebRTC Leak Test, and a Password Generator. There are versions of the VPN available for just about every platform, including mobile devices, televisions running Android operating systems, Linux systems, Chrome, Edge, and Firefox. In addition, ExpressVPN sells a router, Aircove, with an integrated VPN, so you can simply run everything through your router and avoid the 5-device limit.

Streamers looking for extreme speeds, such as those playing Minecraft and other games with intense graphics, will enjoy ExpressVPN. The platform regularly scores at or near the top of comparative speed tests, and usually reports speed losses under 10%. ExpressVPN is also one of very few service providers that accept BitCoin. You can choose between a monthly, semi-annual, and annual plan, and there are no add-ons at checkout.

Surfshark is a popular VPN service provider, with over 3000 servers in 100 countries. The platform does not impose any device limit, making it a great option for small business or large families. There also aren't any bandwidth limits, meaning streamers can work for hours and hours without fear of interruption. The site is based in the Netherlands, which Surfshark says is a great location because "there is no obligatory data retention law, we do not have to store logs, and it makes for a perfect location for a VPN provider." Then again, the Netherlands is part of the 9-Eyes conglomerate, so it's not clear why Surfshark is quite so enthusiastic about the location.

Surfshark has several features, all of which are bundled together as Surfshark One. This suite includes the VPN, an anti-virus, an anonymous search bar, and a data-leak alerts system. The anti-virus also serves as webcam protection, which is a very important tool for streamers. The last thing and streamer wants is some hacker accessing their computer's camera. The anonymous search bar, aptly named "Search," also works as an ad blocker. The company is so certain of its efficacy that on their website the advertise it "won't show you any ads. Period." The Surfshark One bundle costs about 60% more than the Surfshark alone, when you sign up for the 2-year plan. The other options are monthly and annual, but they're far more expensive. The monthly plan plus One is nearly $12.95 per month, which simply too expensive to justify.

Streamers should consider Surfshark One for 2 reasons: First, the webcam protection is quite important. If a hacker gets ahold of your camera while you're streaming, he can sabotage your entire business. And if the hacker can open your camera during your private time, who knows what sorts of material they'll capture. Second, Surfshark is very fast. The average speed loss is a mere 15%, which is well within the industry standard. If you have a good internet connection, you're not even going to notice Surfshark is on.

ProtonVPN is part of a large cybersecurity suite designed by programmers and engineers from CERN. ProtonVPN offers access to approximately 2000 servers in 60 countries, and follows the extremely strict privacy rules. When subpoenaed to provide information, ProtonVPN often contests the requests Swiss court. In October of 2022, ProtonVPN's parent company (Proton AG) won a landmark case in the Swiss Federal Administrative Court, which agreed that emails are not "telecommunications," and do not fall under the data-retention laws imposed by the Swiss. In response to the ruling, Proton founder Andy Yen remarked, "We expect there to be further attempts to force tech companies to undermine privacy in both Switzerland and abroad, and we are committed to continuing to challenge this through both our encryption technology and through the courts."

The complete Proton suite, known as Proton Unlimited, includes a long list of features. You get 15 email addresses, 500GB of secure storage, 20 personal calendars, and access to the VPN for up to 10 devices. There is also a free version, which includes 1 email address, 1 personal calendar, 1GB of storage, and 1 VPN connection. It's not clear why Proton doesn't offer anything in between these two poles, given the paid plan is better suited to a small business than to personal use. As a matter of fact, the actual Proton Business plan offers essentially the same plan as the Proton Unlimited plan. Regardless, you can choose between a monthly, annual, and bi-annual subscription.

ProtonVPN doesn't quite have the scope that many of the larger VPN have, but it offers two very important features for streamers. First, there's the speed accelerator, which can increase download and upload speeds by as much as 400%. Second, they offer a highly-sophisticated protocol knows as Stealth, which not only hides your IP address, but hides the fact that you're on a VPN. This can help gamers frustrated by geo-restrictions and other firewall issues.

CyberGhost was founded in Romania in 2011, and quickly built up its collection of servers to well over 8000—one of the largest fleets in the business. The company reports over 7.5 million users worldwide, and because it's under Romanian juristiction, it doesn't comply with any Five Eyes or Nine Eyes spying. In fact, the company takes pride in their NoSpy servers, which they call "impenetrable." These servers are built, secured, and maintained entirely by the CyberGhost team, within their headquarters. This is a stark contrast to the many VPN providers who rent their servers from third-party data centers.

When you sign up for CyberGhost, you can opt for their security suite, which includes malware protection, an antivirus, an ID-leak crawler, a secure browser, and of course the VPN. On the other hand, you can elect to purchase the VPN only, with subscription options of 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years. You always have the option to add the security suite later. CyberGhost offers a 45-day money-back guarantee, which is longer than the average guarantee (30 days). There is a 7-device limit, but you can work around that by running the VPN through your router.

Gamers will enjoy the VPN versions available for XBOX and PlayStation. These version are excellent at circumventing geo-restrictions on games. If you run the game through it's own VPN and your streaming feed through another, you should have plenty of bandwidth and speed for both. Whether you'll get better speeds running everything through your router is difficult to predict, but you should try both configurations and see which is best.

The Swiss Government has a long history of privacy laws, whether in banking, telecommunications, or home and office. It's extremely difficult to get a warrant issued in Switzerland, and absent that it's all but impossible to look into any aspect of a Swiss citizen's personal life. That's why Ron and Carolyn Yokubaitis, the owners of Golden Frog (VyprVPN's parent company), moved their operation from the United States to Switzerland. When the Yokubaitis couple found out about the government's spying program, known as Room 641a, they filed a complaint with the FCC. When they realized the government wasn't going to work with them, they started Golden Frog, in Switzerland.

VyprVPN is Golden Frog's answer to snoopy governments. This state-of-the-art VPN offers a proprietary protocol that not only hides your IP address, but also hides the fact that you're on a VPN. Users also have the option to use WireGuard, IPSec, and OpenVPN, and can easily toggle between them. There are two subscription options: monthly and annually. There is no difference between the two plans, other than price, and since the annual plan amounts to 50% of the monthly plan, it's hard to justify the latter. Besides, they offer a 30-day money-back guarantee.

On the website's "No Third Parties" page, VyprVPN makes it very clear that no one but their engineers is involved in the acquisition, set-up, or maintenance of their servers. The claim this helps them provide better speeds, and allows them to have servers optimized for gaming. So, if you're a gamer-streamer who needs total anonymity, this might be the best fit for you. There aren't a lot of servers, but the ones there are offer great speeds from just about anywhere. There are no bandwidth limits or data caps, so you should be able to stream for hours and hours without difficulty.