The best VPNs for streaming in 2025, tested

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As streaming catalogs become increasingly fractured, the use of VPNs for streaming has become commonplace. The right VPN solution enables users to appear as if they are in any number of countries, maximizing the value of their subscription.

The kicker is that using a VPN in this manner is against the terms of service of some streaming platforms. When they detect a VPN, most either block streaming entirely or limit their catalog to content for which they have global rights.

Successfully using a VPN for streaming, therefore, requires finding a provider that puts a great deal of effort into ensuring their servers aren't blocked. This isn't as easy as you might think.  Many providers claim to be suitable for streaming when they aren't, and third-party lists are often filled with paid placements and affiliate links.

This guide looks to address that. BitLaunch has personally tested six of the most recommended VPNs for streaming. We make no money from affiliate links, sponsorship, or any other deals with the companies on this list. Though BitLaunch offers its own VPN service, it is in beta. We have provided an honest assessment of its capabilities for streaming at the end of the article.

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Do you need a VPN for streaming?

Before we start, a lot of providers will tell you that VPN is essential for streaming in 2025. In reality, you only need a VPN for streaming in one of two circumstances:

  1. You aren't content with your existing streaming catalogs and want to get more value out of your subscriptions.
  2. Your access to a streaming service is restricted in your region/network, whether that's due to censorship, adult content, or the company not operating in your country.

It's important to note that most decent VPNs for streaming will cost you in the region of $5-15/month. You make an assessment on what will provide you with more value: paying for a VPN, or just signing up for another streaming service.

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Our testing methodology

To limit this article to a reasonable scope, we excluded VPNs that were widely reported to be unsuitable for streaming. For each VPN, we tested BBC iPlayer, Disney+, Netflix, and HBO Max. We used titles specific to each region, where possible, to ensure country-specific catalogs were available. Streaming services were tested using servers in Australia, Canada, France, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Singapore, Sweden, the UK, and the USA.

When servers or protocols were marked as suitable for streaming in the VPN client, we used them. However, we did not seek out the best servers via support channels, as we believe this does not represent a reasonable use case. We considered a VPN a failure if it was unable to stream after three randomly selected servers in a region.

Some providers offer browser extensions that they claim help to unblock streaming services. We did not find a major difference in our limited testing and do not believe that VPNs should be assessed for streaming under these conditions. Many users stream content on a mobile device or tablet, where such extensions are not available.

For speed tests, we kept it simple. We measured on a 3.1 gigabit connection using fast.com, which tests the speed of the connection to servers operated by Netflix. Due to time constraints, we tested this time in three regions: the Netherlands, the USA, and Korea. For the US, the most popular VPN streaming region, we took the average of tests across New York, LA, and Texas servers. Bear in mind that speeds will be limited by your home connection. If you get 30 Mbit on your home connection, for example, you aren't getting more than that with a VPN (other than in edge cases where your ISP is throttling you). The speeds noted in this guide are simply an indication of VPN providers' investment in high-capacity infrastructure.

What are the best VPNs for streaming overall?

The best overall VPNs for streaming need to score high on the following criteria:

  • Speed
  • Latency
  • Lack of blocking
  • Ease 0f use
  • Value

After assessing dozens of options, we believe there is one that stands out above the rest.

ExpressVPN: The best overall VPN for streaming

ExpressVPN is not perfect, but it's the only option on this list that allowed us to stream Disney+, Netflix, HBO, and iPlayer across all regions without needing to try multiple servers. The fact that "it just works" makes it an easy recommendation for a wide variety of users, even if you can get better value elsewhere.

So, what about those speeds? Express VPN is admittedly a little slower than rivals. This was particularly true for Korea, where we measured a dismal ~25 Mbps. In all other tested regions, however, we achieved speeds of 600—1000.  This is more than sufficient for streaming a wide variety of content, provided your base connection isn't really slow. The overall user experience with ExpressVPN was also good. Although a little dated, its UI is no-nonsense and loads fast. You'll quickly find what you're looking for with minimal fuss.

We found latency to be comparable to that of other providers for distant servers and exceptional for those located close by. In one test, we measured just 9ms when we allowed ExpressVPN to auto-select our closest available server. This makes it quite suitable for streaming live sports and Twitch if you choose your server well.

Surfshark VPN: An excellent value alternative

At just $2/month on a bi-yearly plan, we weren't expecting much from Surfshark when it comes to streaming. We were pleasantly surprised. In our testing, Surfshark worked almost perfectly across all regions on Disney+, Netflix, HBO Max, and Player. The only hiccup we had was using it for Disney+ on French servers, where it took a few reconnects to get going.

This standalone hiccup was, however, offset by Surfshark's speed. Our closest server reached 1.9 Gbps on a 3.1 Gbps connection, the fastest of any VPN we tested. Latency was also very reasonable at 43ms. Speeds in other regions fared well too, reaching around the 1 Gbps mark in every tested country but Korea, which fell to 300 Mbps. Latency across the board was about on par with other VPN services, considering run-to-run variance.

Moreover, Surfshark has a modern interface with good UX. It displays important, detailed information without being obtrusive and makes it easy to adjust settings and server locations.

Proton VPN: The best streaming VPN for cloud junkies

ProtonVPN experienced issues in two regions with Disney+, but ultimately never exceeded our threshold of requiring more than three reconnects to access a streaming service. Further, speeds and particularly latency were good across the board and Proton massively outperformed its rivals in more distant regions such as Korea.

Proton has a beautiful UI that's easy and intuitive to use and is a good "all-around" VPN. Support for port forwarding for faster P2P downloads, as well as split tunneling and a LAN toggle, makes it easy to get working with any setup.

In our opinion, though, the real reason to choose ProtonVPN is not for its VPN at all, which is on the pricier side.  As you may or may not know, Proton offers a suite of excellent cloud and email services. Purchasing Proton's $8/month unlimited plan gets you not just its VPN, but also its email, cloud storage, cloud document, calendar, wallet, and password manager. If you're in the market for any of those already, it makes Proton an outstanding value proposition.

Windscribe: For open source supporters

If we're being honest, the main reason to choose Windscribe is to support open-source, since it's the only one on this list to have its code viewable on GitHub. That said, we did find it to be a good VPN for streaming. Windscribe performed slightly better than Proton our blocking tests, requiring three reconnects in the UK and one in France to access Disney+. Otherwise, it worked the first time with all of the streaming services we tested.

Windscribe also has an excellent feature set with lots of advanced settings, but while we found its UI to be visually pleasing, the UX was a little frustrating. Needing to maximize the "Locations" dropdown every time we wanted to select a server got a bit tiring. Additionally, the VPN network settings take up far too much of the VPN client's limited screen real estate, and using icons for the settings tabs makes finding what you're looking for unintuitive.

Ultimately, these are minor niggles if you aren't switching servers frequently for testing like we were. However, we also found that Windscribe's speeds weren't as good as other options on this list. While download speeds in New York were great at 1 gbps, they dropped to 570 Mbps on the East Coast and 490 Mbps in Texas. This was plenty fast enough for streaming in our test setup, but the significant drop-off for remote locations doesn't inspire as much confidence as other options. We were never able to reach the 10 gbps advertised on some servers, even when testing against high-capacity servers from Cloudflare or Speedtest.net.

At a minimum of $5.75 per month for all servers, Windscribe is one of the worst value VPNs on this list, especially given its relatively few servers (154 cities across 69+ countries). However, it's one of the few VPNs on the market that allows you to build a plan with only the countries you need. Selecting the minimum of two locations knocks the price down to $3/month. This could make it a decent way to unlock US catalogs without breaking the bank. Bear in mind, however, that Surfshark offers all of its servers for just $2/month, provided you pay for two years in advance.

The 💩 list: Don't buy these VPNs for streaming

We found two commonly recommended streaming VPNs that we consider not fit for purpose.  Both Private Internet Access (PIA) and NordVPN offered a subpar streaming experience due to frequent blocks.

NordVPN was close to passing our tests, but its Australia servers let it down, with an inability to connect to both Disney+ and HBO after more than three reconnects. Add to this the need to reconnect several times in Mexico, Korea, Canada, and the Netherlands regions, and it becomes a bit too finicky to recommend as a streaming VPN exclusively.

PIA worked perfectly with Netflix and HBO, but Disney+'s more robust anti-VPN controls proved a step too far. It failed Disney+ tests in every region but the USA, where it was still sluggish and inconsistent. Speeds were also quite poor. The maximum download speed the VPN achieved was 400 Mbps from its closest server. Speeds for US servers barely broke 100 Mbps in the best case scenario and sat at 18 Mbits in the worst. While users who don't use Disney+ may find PIA acceptable, we think that Surfshark at a similar price point is just a better deal.

Best VPN for streaming UK TV

Another popular use of VPNs is to gain access to the UK's host of free "catch-up" TV services from abroad. We tested the VPNs on BBC iPlayer, ITVX, and Channel 4 to determine whether they could bypass the blocks.

In short, other than PIA, every VPN we tested was suitable for streaming UK content. We were able to watch both live and catch-up content across channels. The only other VPN where we had to switch servers a few times was Windscribe. Which VPN is best, therefore, essentially comes down to the speed and latency of UK servers, user-friendliness, and value for money.

Surfshark: The best value VPN for UK streaming

Surfshark came first in our UK speed tests and third in ping tests. We measured almost 2 Gigabits at its maximum, though this number naturally decreases for users located in the US and other regions due to distance. Surfshark has a clear UI that presents the right amount of information in the right places. More importantly, though, it has highly competitive pricing for the feature set it delivers. Its starter plan, which includes everything you need for streaming, can be as low as £1.47 per month if you commit to a two-year term. Additionally, Surfshark allows you to connect from an unlimited number of devices, which makes subscription sharing feasible.

Express VPN: Old reliable

Express VPN is more expensive than Surfshark at £2.64 per month on its cheapest plan. However, we are more confident that UK sites will remain unblocked for the long term due to Express' long track record and flawless performance across all streaming sites in our testing. That's an important factor when you are committing to a two-year plan — if a VPN stops working for what you bought it for, you've essentially wasted your money.

Express was a little slower than Surfshark in our experience, even with its "Lightway" protocol. However, we don't believe that the average user would even notice the difference when streaming content. Its user experience was also a little worse, and the maximum number of simultaneous connections is capped at 10–14 devices, depending on the plan.

Proton VPN: The best package deal

We don't believe Proton VPN is worth the extra price premium (£3.59/month) compared to the other options if you are just using it to stream UK content. While it has great UK speeds, good ping, and arguably the best UX, these things are more "nice to haves".

Proton, however, becomes a much better value proposition if you are interested in any of its other services. The company also offers a bundle with its VPN, premium email, wallet, password manager, calendar, cloud storage, and docs for £6.59/month. For reference, 500 GB of encrypted cloud storage alone will set you back £4-5 from most providers.

Nord VPN: Hard to justify

Nord VPN is a perfectly fine VPN for UK streaming. In our testing, it didn't buffer or block UK channels. It had better speeds than Express VPN for nearby and remote servers, even if its ping was worse. Using the VPN was pleasant and intuitive, and our brief experience with the Nord support team was positive.

The problem for us is the lack of versatility. Though Nord did not run into issues with blocking on UK servers in our testing, it did on several others. That doesn't fill us with confidence that UK content will remain unblocked, and just makes it less useful for streaming overall. Despite this, Nord costs about the same as Express VPN. As a result, we would only recommend Nord at this time if you are mostly interested in UK streaming and want one of its supplementary features, such as the Nord password manager.

Windscribe: Good for one-offs

Windscribe is overpriced for the functionality it offers at around £4.30/month for its yearly plan. For that, you only get six different UK data center locations, which isn't a lot. We also had to switch servers once for Disney+ in the UK and several times to access iPlayer.

To reduce the price, users can instead build a custom plan that includes just the UK and one other country. This knocks the price down to just £2.25 per month with unlimited data. While that's about the same price as ExpressVPN, the advantage here is that you don't need to commit to a two-year plan to get that deal. As a result, we can recommend Windscribe to users who need to access UK content only occasionally or as a one-off.

The best VPNs for streaming sports

VPNs are a popular way to watch live sports, since they can enable access to streaming services for other regions where a subscription to watch Premier League content is much more affordable. They are also used in combination with IPTV services to avoid throttling and other issues.

A good VPN for streaming sports needs to have low latency and high speeds to avoid buffering. It also needs to avoid whatever blocking the streaming services have in place.

Three mainstream streaming providers offer sports packages: Amazon Video, Disney+, and HBO Max. In the US, Paramount+ is also popular. Due to time constraints, we have currently based our assessment on results from HBO Max and Disney+.

Proton


Proton is our top pick VPN for sports streaming.  Its combination of low latency, fast speeds, and block avoidance makes it an excellent pick for live content. Though you may need to switch servers more frequently than ExpressVPN, we found Proton's speeds to be more consistent across the regions we tested. Live content was high-quality and without buffering in our experience.

Surfshark

Surfshark had excellent speeds and latency in almost every region we tested and decent unblocking capabilities. The exception was Korea, which is unlikely to be a common destination for sports streaming anyway.

Express VPN

Express VPN is lower down this list solely because it has slower speeds than the other options. We tested an average speed of 619 Mbit across all regions, with 970 Mbit from the closest server but just 25 Mbit from the farthest in Korea. In other words, Express VPN speeds can vary significantly from region to region, and this may cause issues streaming live content in select regions. However, it still makes the list due to respectable speeds in the "core" regions of the Americas and Europe, great block avoidance, and good ping. Indeed, Express measured just 9ms ping in our closest region, which is exceptional.

Windscribe


Windscribe wouldn't be our first pick for streaming due to its relatively slow average speeds across regions. Its average speeds were lower than Express, even if it managed a little faster on Korean servers at 83 Mbps. Ping was also higher across the board, and we encountered more issues with blocking. If you're looking for a good overall VPN that will also stream sports, Windscribe will do well enough, though its overpriced. However, if you're using a VPN purely for sports, there are better options here.

Nord VPN


Nord VPN had respectable speeds and ping, but we faced too much blocking when trying to stream sports content. That said, it may still be worth taking advantage of its money-back policy to give it a try. Providers often update their servers to avoid blocking, and it's possible we used the VPN during a rough period.

Choosing your VPN


Hopefully, our guidance will at least provide you with a shortlist of VPNs that suit your needs. However, which VPN you should commit to will ultimately depend on what you value. We recommend asking yourself the following questions:

  • Can I put up with needing to reconnect occasionally for a cheaper price? In that case, Surfshark should be at the top of your list.
  • Am I interested in other services beyond VPNs? If you're also after cloud storage, email, wallet, docs, or a password manager, ProtonVPN and NordVPN are worth a look.
  • Am I ready to commit to a yearly or bi-yearly subscription? Pricing for many VPNs drops dramatically if you pay for a year or two years in advance. This can be a great way to save money if you're confident in a VPN, and a great way to waste money if you aren't. Surfshark, Express VPN, and Nord VPN lose most of their value proposition.
  • How important is privacy to you? We've focused on streaming-specific features here, but many people also use VPNs to mask their internet activity. Regardless, it might be important to you to know that your VPN provider is not keeping logs and is storing your data securely.

    All of the providers listed here claim to keep no logs, but the only way you can know for certain this is true is if they have had a third-party audit or had logs requested in court.  We found audit or court information that supports a no-log policy for Windscribe, Express, Nord, Proton, and Surfshark. PIAs audit confirmed that their "configurations are not designed to identify a particular user and cannot be exploited to pinpoint specific online activity".
  • How many devices do you need? The device limits for the various VPNs we discussed are as follows:
    - Surfshark: Unlimited devices
    - Windscribe: Unlimited devices (for personal use)
    - PIA: Unlimited devices
    - Express VPN: 12–14 devices (depending on plan)
    - Nord VPN: 10 devices
    - Proton VPN: 10 devices
  • Do you care about open source? If it's important for you to be able to read the underlying code of your VPN app, only one on this list meets that criterion – Windscribe.

Ultimately, while we can point you in the right direction, the best way to decide on a VPN is to try it for yourself. Experiences can vary dramatically based on your location, internet speed, and when the provider last rotated its IP addresses. For this reason, we recommend making liberal use of VPNs' free trials and money-back guarantee policies to perform your own tests.

At the time of writing, all the VPNs on this list except Windscribe offer this option. We did not experience issues with any of the support teams in getting our refund, though it's never a bad idea to pay with Klarna, PayPal, or a credit card for additional protection.

Can I use BitLaunch VPN for streaming?

Those who have been following our blog will know that BitLaunch recently launched its own VPN product in beta. BitLaunch does things a bit differently from other major VPN providers. Our relay architecture and cryptocurrency payment system allows you to quickly launch (and delete) a VPN in chosen regions without needing to hand over payment information or have implicit trust in a VPN provider.

During this beta phase of BitLaunch VPN our focus is not on streaming compatibility — it's on delivering unparalleled privacy, visibility, and control. While you are likely to experience more consistent speeds and lower ping than other VPNs, you may encounter more blocking. We will continue to improve our VPN product over the coming months and years, so stay tuned to our blog for updates!

If you found this guide helpful, consider signing up to BitLaunch to support us. Our privacy-respecting service enables users to launch Windows or Linux VPS servers and pay with their favorite cryptocurrency. Contact our support team to begin your free trial and start hosting websites, Plex servers, proxies, apps, generative AI, game servers, and beyond.