CyberGhost VPN has a powerful server fleet spaning 100 international locations and 125 areas, an reasonably priced beginning value, and specialised servers for streaming, torrenting, and gaming. It additionally helps Home windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Android and Apple TV, and even gaming consoles.

Whereas its sophisticated firm historical past could trigger some concern, the general VPN bundle you get with CyberGhost makes it a worthy VPN selection of the 12 months.

CyberGhost VPN pricing

Whereas some VPNs supply completely different options at various value factors, CyberGhost’s pricing is easy. It offers three costs relying in your most well-liked service size — both one month, six months, or two years. The month-to-month possibility is billed each month, whereas the six-month possibility is billed each six months at $41.94 and the two-year possibility is billed for the primary two years at $56.94 then yearly thereafter.

When it comes to affordability, you’ll get probably the most out of your cash with their two-year plan. At $2.03 monthly, CyberGhost is among the most reasonably priced VPN choices out proper now. That is very true as soon as we have in mind the variety of servers you get at this value. Consider, nevertheless, that this contract locks you in for 2 years so that you gained’t have the flexibleness of having the ability to change suppliers rapidly.

For those who’re trying to take a look at out the VPN for a month, CyberGhost VPN’s $12.99 is on the pricier finish in comparison with its rivals like Proton VPN, with its one-month Plus plan presently priced at $9.99 monthly. You additionally don’t get CyberGhost VPN’s in-house NoSpy servers free of charge with the one-month plan.

With that, I do want that CyberGhost provided no less than a one-year possibility for its paid plans as an alternative of its six-month subscription. This is able to give customers extra leeway with value and fewer of the time dedication. Annual plans are additionally customary choices for many VPN suppliers. For my part, having a one-year possibility would assist CyberGhost present a greater one-to-one pitch towards its competitors.

Evaluating it to different VPNs, Surfshark’s mid-tier One subscription for one 12 months is priced at $3.39 monthly, whereas NordVPN’s Plus plan is $5.49 monthly. At $6.99 monthly for less than six months, I really feel like CyberGhost could appear to be much less of a cut price when what different VPNs have to supply.

CyberGhost VPN does have a reasonably beneficiant free trial program. For Home windows and macOS customers, you may get a 24-hour free trial with out offering any fee or bank card data. Android customers even have entry to a three-day trial, whereas iOS customers get free seven-day entry.

Whereas the 24-hour Home windows and Mac trial is brief, accessing all of the premium options with out handing off any monetary data is a worthwhile trade-off.

Is CyberGhost VPN protected?

CyberGhost VPN provides all of the industry-standard safety protocols we count on from a good VPN in 2023. It has the OpenVPN, IKEv2, and WireGuard protocols, in addition to AES-256 encryption. It additionally has a kill change, DNS leak safety, and cut up tunneling functionality.

On its web site, CyberGhost boasts that its headquarters are primarily based in Romania — a rustic with robust privateness legal guidelines. It is a huge plus for customers who’re cautious of presidency interference. Nevertheless, it’s value noting that CyberGhost is owned by Kape Applied sciences, previously Crossrider. Crossrider had previously been related to malware and adware controversies earlier than it bought CyberGhost again in 2017.

Whereas CyberGhost has maintained that it acts as an unbiased entity of Kape, the corporate historical past is necessary to say with regards to safety and privateness.

CyberGhost does have a no-logs coverage, which states that they don’t log person knowledge similar to shopping historical past, IP addresses, session durations, and the like. This no-logs coverage has been confirmed by an unbiased audit carried out by Deloitte in 2022.

In April 2024, CyberGhost accomplished a second unbiased audit of its server community and administration techniques. The evaluation was carried out by Deloitte Audit Romania, which mentioned that it discovered no proof to conclude that CyberGhost’s “configuration of IT techniques and administration of the supporting IT operations” weren’t in accordance with its No-logs Coverage No-Logging Safeguards.

I commend CyberGhost for persevering with its dedication to present process third-party audits. I particularly recognize how latest their newest audit was, offering a further layer of confidence to customers thinking about buying a CyberGhost subscription at present.

The VPN service additionally often publishes quarterly Transparency Stories that cowl police requests and malicious exercise stories they obtain. That is an admirable stage of transparency that positively provides to CyberGhost VPN’s total credibility.

With its sophisticated historical past, potential customers could also be hesitant to think about CyberGhost VPN at first. Nevertheless, I do really feel that the corporate is doing sufficient to alleviate safety issues prospects could have.

Key options of CyberGhost VPN

CyberGhost VPN offers an alluring bundle of options for its value, making it a strong selection. Let’s check out some key options one after the other.

Intensive server community

CyberGhost VPN has one of many largest server suites available in the market at present. On the time of publication, it had servers from 125 areas unfold out over 100 international locations.

The big server fleet provides customers a greater probability of getting a high-quality server expertise. Whether or not it’s having a server close to your location to get sooner speeds or having extra entry to geo-restricted content material, CyberGhost’s intensive community is certainly a beneficial characteristic.

That is very true if you buy CyberGhost with their $2 plan, providing you with a cut price bundle that’s laborious to refuse.

Specialised servers

CyberGhost VPN provides three specialised servers for a few of the commonest VPN use-cases. It categorizes servers into three teams: For Gaming, For Torrenting, and For Streaming.

I personally like the extent of element CyberGhost goes into when offering what precisely every server is finest for.

For instance, it reveals what streaming service a specific server is finest for — a small element that I feel many customers will discover extraordinarily useful. If you need a VPN that makes specialised servers easy, CyberGhost ought to be on the high of your record.

Good Guidelines panel

CyberGhost has a built-in “Good Guidelines” panel that means that you can automate completely different actions you need the VPN to do primarily based on completely different prompts.

For instance, you possibly can set CyberGhost to routinely hook up with a specific server upon boot up or have it open an app of your selection as soon as the VPN is linked. It is a highly effective useability characteristic that can be excellent for many who desire a VPN that may be tailor-made for a selected want or workflow.

RAM-only server expertise

CyberGhost VPN makes use of RAM-only servers that retailer server knowledge on random entry reminiscence as an alternative of laborious disks. Due to this, when a server is unplugged, all knowledge is totally erased.

This offers a further layer of safety that many privateness lovers will recognize, particularly since CyberGhost itself designed a system that makes it troublesome for them to retailer person knowledge. That is one other plus of CyberGhost’s no-logs coverage.

CyberGhost VPN pace and efficiency

In my testing, CyberGhost VPN carried out very well. I used to be capable of get good pace and stability with a number of Chrome tabs open, taking part in 1080p YouTube movies, and utilizing Google Suite apps for work.

The story was the identical when it got here to hurry take a look at outcomes. For uploads,  CyberGhost VPN recorded solely a 12.67% drop in pace in comparison with my web service supplier — which could be very spectacular since most VPNs wrestle with sustaining good add pace. For downloads, CyberGhost carried out even higher because it was truly 9.1% sooner than my ISP. In real-world utilization, I skilled little or no discount in pace and was completely pleased with CyberGhost’s total efficiency.

I did discover that switching from one server to a different took longer than I anticipated. Perhaps that’s a trade-off with the VPN’s huge server fleet, inflicting the longer than normal switching. Regardless of this, I might say that is extra of a private nitpick since I didn’t expertise any dropped connection at any time when I switched to a brand new server throughout my testing.

For DNS leaks, I ran CyberGhost VPN and a variety of its servers from completely different areas by way of a public DNS leak instrument. I skilled zero leaks all all through.

SEE: SMB Safety Pack (TechRepublic Premium)

CyberGhost VPN servers and areas

CyberGhost provides servers from 125 areas unfold out in 100 international locations. In the mean time, CyberGhost VPN doesn’t present the precise variety of servers it has in its server community. Nevertheless, third-party stories estimate it to have round 9,000-11,000 at any given time.

In 2023, I mentioned CyberGhost had one of many greatest server fleets accessible. Whereas that is still true in 2024, I wish to acknowledge that competing VPNs have caught up on this regard. NordVPN has elevated its server fleet from 60+ to 111 international locations in a 12 months, whereas ExpressVPN has elevated its community from 94 to 105 international locations as nicely.

That is good for customers, as extra VPN choices have a big server suite to supply. Nevertheless, it additionally signifies that competitors amongst suppliers is more durable since server fleet dimension is getting nearer and nearer.

Transferring on from its server community, CyberGhost has specialised servers for streaming, gaming, and torrenting, respectively — a characteristic that may profit customers looking out for these particular use circumstances.

Lastly, CyberGhost additionally provides NoSpy Servers, that are servers housed throughout the firm’s Romanian headquarters. Because of this the servers, and the information they carry, are protected by CyberGhost personnel themselves and can’t be accessed by third events. CyberGhost additionally says that NoSpy servers use extra premium {hardware}, present higher speeds, and have larger bandwidth.

Sadly, you do must buy no less than a six-month plan to get entry to CyberGhost’s NoSpy servers as this isn’t accessible on the one-month plan.

Whereas extra security-focused servers would spherical out CyberGhost’s VPN servers extra, there may be sufficient selection right here to fulfill lots of people’s VPN wants.

CyberGhost VPN ease of use

For person expertise, I discovered CyberGhost to be a blended bag. Whereas its app design isn’t my favourite, I had zero points with it throughout testing.

I actually recognize CyberGhost’s handy categorization of specialised servers. This makes it straightforward to seek out the very best server potential for widespread VPN use circumstances, and I imagine ought to be a typical factor finished by all VPNs.

On the opposite finish, I do suppose CyberGhost can do a greater job of organizing its different menus. Specifically, I discovered its use of a number of Settings pages a bit complicated. There’s a settings web page for the principle VPN, Common settings to your dashboard, and Privateness settings for privacy-related options. For my part, these toggles may both be grouped collectively on one web page or be extra unfold out in separate, particular person tabs in the principle dashboard for a extra intuitive expertise.

CyberGhost VPN execs

• Massive fleet of servers from 100 international locations, 125 areas.
• Specialised servers for gaming, torrenting, and streaming.
• RAM-only servers that forestall knowledge logging.
• Reasonably priced two-year subscription.
• Customizable Good Guidelines panel for automated actions.
• Free trial.
• Capacity to attach as much as seven gadgets with one subscription.
• 45-day money-back assure.
• Straightforward-to-use app.

CyberGhost VPN cons

• Difficult firm historical past.
• Lack of extra security-focused servers.
• Desktop interface might be extra intuitive.
• Dear month-to-month subscription.
• NoSpy servers unavailable in a one-month plan.

How good is CyberGhost VPN?

CyberGhost VPN’s massive server fleet will profit many customers who need flexibility by way of pace, reliability, and entry to geo-restricted content material. It’s very laborious to argue towards servers throughout 100 international locations for less than $2 a month (with their two-year plan), to not point out the truth that it’s excellent for customers who’re particularly on the lookout for a VPN to stream, torrent, or sport.

Whereas CyberGhost VPN is hampered by its controversial firm historical past, its spectacular server fleet, specialised servers, and beneficiant free trial choices make it a VPN that most individuals ought to positively think about.

CyberGhost VPN alternate options

CyberGhost VPN has a novel set of options that make it a strong VPN service. Nevertheless, these options will not be the right combination for you. We’ve listed just a few alternate options under that will suit your wants higher.

Proton VPN

If you need a VPN that prioritizes safety towards authorities interference and illegal knowledge requests, Proton VPN ought to be your best choice. Primarily based in Switzerland, Proton operates underneath strict Swiss privateness legal guidelines that add a further layer of privateness and safety to your private or confidential knowledge.

To study extra, take a look at our full Proton VPN overview.

NordVPN

For extra security-focused options, you possibly can take a look at NordVPN. It has robust third-party testing, privacy-centered server varieties, and a novel encrypted file-sharing system that may fulfill even the strictest privateness wants. It additionally has built-in anti-malware risk safety, which makes it a dependable all-around safety platform.

To study extra, take a look at our full NordVPN overview.

Surfshark

For VPN customers who need a number of gadget assist, Surfshark is among the finest. It provides a limiteless variety of simultaneous connections that gained’t have you ever worrying about exceeding a specific gadget restrict. It additionally has robust encryption and privateness options for these looking for extra safety.

To study extra, take a look at our full Surfshark VPN overview.

How I evaluated CyberGhost VPN

My overview of CyberGhost VPN concerned a complete evaluation of its options, value, and real-world efficiency. I used CyberGhost VPN hands-on with their 24-hour free trial on my private Home windows machine.

For pace, I used Ookla’s public Speedtest to measure obtain and add speeds. I additionally ran CyberGhost by way of DNSLeakTest a number of instances to test for any drops in its DNS leak safety.

Lastly, I scored CyberGhost VPN on every little thing from safety protocols to pricing primarily based on an inner algorithm to get a score of 4.3 out of 5 stars. In my scoring, I checked out CyberGhost VPN each by itself and in relation to different VPN companies accessible at present.