A VPN for gaming may seem a bit unnecessary, but the truth is that it can greatly improve not only your gaming experience, but also your online security.
The best gaming VPNs, such as NordVPN, will provide you with superior protection against DDoS and other network attacks and malware. By changing your IP address, you can also browse game servers, get better matchups, and even access geo-restricted games. In some cases, a quality VPN can also improve your ping and overall connection speed, especially if you have ISP restrictions.
To make the choice easier, we’ve compiled a comprehensive list of the best VPNs for gaming. Take a look, get familiar, and choose the one that best suits your gaming needs.
Surfshark
Surfshark is a super effective cheap VPN that is perfect as a gaming VPN, and our Surfshark review found the cheap providers to be very impressive in many areas.
Surfshark hasn’t historically been as fast as NordVPN or ExpressVPN, but in our last round of testing it surpassed both – and you can certainly count on it to slow down your Wi-Fi speeds.
Its network of 3,200 servers is very adequate, but the biggest draw is the unlimited connections plus a price tag of less than $2.50. Both are virtually unheard of in the VPN industry, and the combination is absolutely unbeatable. Surfshark is the best way to get a gaming VPN on the cheap.
No, these apps aren’t as configurable as others, and yes, the support system is slightly slower, but if you’re happy to stick to the recommended settings, avoid throttling, access the massive Netflix library, etc., then this is the best value method.
NordVPN
It’s close between Surfshark and NordVPN (opens in a new tab), but with its unlimited devices, lower price and lower ping, the one with the teeth pretty much wins. However, if download and upload speeds are the be-all and end-all of your PC experience, NordVPN is the high-performance option. It offered one of the highest relative download speeds in my tests compared to untouched connections and the absolute highest upload speeds.
This seems to be where many VPN services fall down as they consume your upload connection. My upload speed was already 10x slower than my download speed, so I couldn’t afford to lose any more. But NordVPN still provides about 85% of the connections, while private Internet access actually drops to 35%.
If you find that torrenting is your preferred method of accessing content online, this is also your best option. Surfshark seems to have stopped everything in my experience, making Nord the next best thing.
The service also provides impressive ping performance, approaching my unrestricted ping scores and consistently exceeding my gaming ping scores as well. NordVPN is using the latest WireGuard VPN protocol, which it calls NordLynx. it is reportedly the fastest and does seem to help it work consistently well.
Private Internet Access
If you want servers, servers and more servers, then Private Internet Access is the way to go. PIA currently has about 10,000 servers and its speeds ranked in the top 10 in our tests. upload speeds are lower than NordVPN and ExpressVPN, but they are still stable enough for gaming. PIA doesn’t have a ton of extra features, but it’s the best choice when you need a lot of fast servers.
CyberGhost
In terms of numbers, CyberGhost beats the competition. How many devices can it run on? Everything. Number of servers? Up to 6,900 (and growing). Countries available? A good 90. It even has a 45-day annual subscription trial, which is a little longer than the 30-day money-back guarantees of ExpressVPN and NordVPN.
It’s a premium service, unless you opt for its three-year annual plan, which can be a bit overpriced. It’s disappointing that some servers aren’t as fast as others on this list. While this isn’t a problem for accessing the PlayStation Store in different regions or just playing single-player games, it can slow down Internet speeds to the point where I lost my connection while playing Watch Dogs games.
Though, the ability to easily navigate its thousands of servers means that if one server can’t provide consistent speeds, the next one certainly can. If you want it all, CyberGhost won’t let you down.
IPVanish
As one of the most secure VPNs on the market, it’s no wonder IPVanish is one of the best VPNs for gaming. It provides users with privacy features to block gaming competitors, nosy ISPs and censorship firewalls, so your connection is neither slowed down nor compromised when it matters most.
ISPs often use packet inspection to monitor your online activity and limit your bandwidth in the name of “network congestion”. IPVanish uses AES 256-bit encryption via WireGuard, OpenVPN or L2TP/IPsec VPN protocols to prevent any snooping. WireGuard is usually the best protocol for gamers because it is lighter and therefore faster.
Its network also contains over 2,000 servers and more than 40,000 dynamic IP addresses, so you can easily and quickly switch between them to find a stable connection and access global content.
IPVanish subscriptions are not data-limited and come with unlimited simultaneous connections. This is ideal for gamers who rely on fast speeds and a variety of devices and platforms.