Why You Can Trust CNET ExpressVPN vs. Surfshark: Two VPN Juggernauts Go Head-to-Head
Trying to decide between ExpressVPN and Surfshark? Your choice may depend on your budget or the level of privacy you require.
ExpressVPN and Surfshark are two of the best VPNs available right now. CNET’s VPN ratings have the two separated by a razor-thin margin, with ExpressVPN scoring an 8.8 overall and Surfshark an 8.7. I’ll help you make an informed decision between the two VPNs, but know that either one will get you to where you need to be. Your choice mostly depends on what specific features you need and how much you’re willing to spend.
Surfshark is slightly faster, unless you’re a Mac user connecting through ExpressVPN’s Lightway protocol. Surfshark is easier on the pocketbook, even after its introductory pricing period has lapsed. Both are excellent for streaming, but I ran into a few bumps in the road with ExpressVPN’s Apple TV app when trying to stream Netflix, and with Surfshark’s iOS and MacOS apps when trying to stream Hulu. If you’ve got critical privacy needs, then ExpressVPN has the edge thanks to its TrustedServer technology, post-quantum protections, privacy-friendly jurisdiction and unmatched transparency. However, Surfshark has some cool privacy-boosting features that ExpressVPN doesn’t, like Dynamic MultiHop and IP Rotator. Both have excellent apps for basically any platform.
This comparison is based on extensive, rigorous testing of both VPN providers across various devices and operating systems. I would recommend both VPNs in a heartbeat, but Express edges Surfshark by a hair in this head-to-head matchup.
Read more: Best VPN Services of 2023
ExpressVPN vs. Surfshark compared
| ExpressVPN | Surfshark | |
| Cost | $13 per month, $60 per 6 months, $100 per year | $11 per month, $48 for the first year (then $60 annually) |
| Avg. Speed Loss | 25% | 17% |
| Server Network | 3,000 servers in 105 countries | 3,200-plus servers in 100 countries |
| Encryption | AES 256-bit | AES 256-bit |
| VPN Protocols Available | OpenVPN, Lightway, IKEv2 | OpenVPN, WireGuard, IKEv2/IPSec |
| Jurisdiction | British Virgin Islands | Netherlands |
| Simultaneous Connections | 8 | Unlimited |
| Compatibility | Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Fire TV, Apple TV, routers, browser extensions | MacOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, Fire TV, routers, browser extensions |
ExpressVPN is a veteran VPN provider based in the British Virgin Islands, a privacy-friendly jurisdiction outside of intelligence-sharing alliances and without mandatory data retention laws. The VPN currently holds CNET’s Editors’ Choice designation as the best overall VPN, thanks to its forward-thinking privacy features, unmatched transparency, top-notch streaming capabilities and excellent app performance across platforms. ExpressVPN forgoes gimmicky features and instead focuses on delivering a solid VPN package that simply gets the job done on all fronts better than most other VPNs on the planet. You’ll get access to one of the most extensive VPN server networks in the industry, spanning 105 different countries.
In my latest round of testing, I uncovered DNS leaks, which were a major concern. But ExpressVPN’s immediate action to resolve the issue and its transparency notifying the public put me at ease and convinced me of the company’s commitment to privacy and transparency. ExpressVPN is considerably more expensive than Surfshark, but the overall quality of the product makes the higher price worth it. Express costs $13 per month, $60 every six months or $100 per year -- and all plans include a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Surfshark is a Netherlands-based VPN provider that delivers excellent speeds and a premium VPN experience at a budget-friendly price. Surfshark’s Netherlands jurisdiction might be a dealbreaker for the most privacy-conscious users due to it being part of the 14-Eyes data-sharing alliance. Surfshark’s monthly plan costs $11 per month, which is cheaper than most other VPNs’ monthly subscriptions, including ExpressVPN. You can also take advantage of Surfshark’s favorable pricing with its yearly plan, which costs $48 for the first year, then $60 per year afterwards. A two-year plan costs $60 for the first 24 months combined, then $60 annually -- though I generally recommend against signing on with a single provider for more than a year at a time, given how quickly things tend to shift in the VPN industry. VPNs companies can change ownership, performance and reliability can fluctuate, features come and go and terms of service and privacy policies may change. Surfshark’s $60 annual price is significantly cheaper than ExpressVPN’s $100 annual cost, so it’s a great option for budget-conscious VPN users.
I like how Surfshark packs a ton of cool features and exceptional performance into a rather inexpensive package. You’ll get neat features like Dynamic MultiHop and IP Rotator, in addition to other privacy protections like a kill switch, obfuscation, ad blocking, malware protection and DNS leak protection. It’s also a great option for streaming Netflix content because it can unblock tons of different Netflix regional libraries worldwide. Surfshark doesn’t offer quite as many server locations as Express, but you’ll still be able to connect an unlimited number of devices at once to any of its 100 server locations. Like ExpressVPN, Surfshark offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on all subscription plans.
Speed winner: Surfshark (but ExpressVPN’s Lightway protocol speeds edge past Surfshark’s WireGuard)
Many VPNs can slow your regular internet speeds by 50% or more, but with a fast VPN like Surfshark or ExpressVPN, your speed loss could be 25% or less. VPN speeds can fluctuate from one testing cycle to the next, so a VPN that’s faster than one of its competitors now may be slower than that same competitor in the next round of testing, or vice versa.
In our most recent speed tests, Surfshark registered an average internet download speed loss of 17%, making it the second-fastest VPN behind NordVPN (11% speed loss). ExpressVPN was somewhat slower on average than Surfshark, registering a 25% speed loss in our latest tests. ExpressVPN averaged an amazing 2% speed loss just two years ago, but its speeds have seesawed back and forth quite dramatically over the years. Surfshark’s speeds, on the other hand, have remained remarkably consistent, with a speed loss hovering around 17% to 19% over the past four years. That said, in our experience, we’ve noticed that Surfshark’s speeds tended to be more volatile during a single round of speed tests, whereas ExpressVPN’s speeds remained largely consistent.
But here’s where the situation gets even more muddled: Even though Surfshark registered faster speeds on average than ExpressVPN in our tests, we saw the fastest speeds through ExpressVPN’s Lightway protocol -- which registered a marginally faster 7% speed loss on MacOS, compared to Surfshark’s 9% speed loss through WireGuard on MacOS. So if you’re a Mac user looking for pure speed, then ExpressVPN is probably the better bet, as long as you use Lightway. However, if you’re a Windows user, then Surfshark may be the way to go because we calculated better speeds with Surfshark on Windows through both WireGuard and OpenVPN than we did with ExpressVPN through Lightway and OpenVPN.
We recommend using OpenVPN if you have critical privacy needs because the protocol is extremely secure, has stood the test of time and is highly adept at bypassing firewalls. However, OpenVPN tends to be markedly slower than newer, leaner protocols like WireGuard and Lightway. But when it comes to OpenVPN speeds, Surfshark is the clear winner, averaging a 19% speed loss on MacOS and a 28% speed loss on Windows -- compared to 29% MacOS speed loss and 48% Windows speed loss we calculated with ExpressVPN.
Bear in mind that it’s impossible to conduct a perfect speed test and that your experience may vary. That said, we do our best to replicate the conditions under which the typical VPN user would be connecting, so hopefully our results largely mirror what you would experience. Both providers offer a 30-day money-back guarantee, so you can try both and see which one’s faster for you.
Cost winner: Surfshark, but don't get caught off guard by sneaky pricing
Surfshark offers arguably the most overall value for your money out of any VPN on the market. Although Surfshark is relatively easy on the wallet compared to most of the competition, know that the cost of the yearly and two-year plans increase considerably after the first term -- a fact Surfshark doesn’t make sufficiently clear on its pricing page. While the monthly plan remains static at $11 per month, the annual plan costs $48 for the first year, then $60 per year thereafter. Surfshark’s two-year plan costs $60 for the first two years combined, then renews at $60 per year afterwards. To access the pertinent renewal information, you need to first select one of the packages under the annual or two-year plans. Then, only once you get to the checkout page, you need to click on an inconspicuous drop-down menu located at the bottom of the page. From there, you’ll need to locate the appropriate link within the “Renewal price” section to take you to Surfshark’s Subscription Renewal Prices page. Instead of disclosing essential renewal and pricing information on the pricing page -- or even the checkout page -- Surfshark’s site requires folks to navigate a multistep process to learn how much they’ll be paying after the introductory pricing period lapses.
If you’d rather avoid Surfshark’s pricing shenanigans altogether, you can go with ExpressVPN, which offers refreshingly transparent pricing that’s free of furtive price hikes. The catch is that ExpressVPN’s $100 annual plan is considerably more expensive than Surfshark’s regular $60 annual subscription price. ExpressVPN’s monthly plan costs $13 per month, which is slightly more expensive than Surfshark’s monthly price. ExpressVPN also offers a biannual plan that costs $60 every six months, which is equal to what Surfshark charges for a year.
Ultimately, both Surfshark and ExpressVPN offer excellent value for the overall quality each provider delivers. Choosing one will depend largely on what you’re willing to spend. ExpressVPN is more expensive, but you’ll get one of the most polished, streamlined VPN experiences on the planet, not to mention more straightforward pricing. If price is your main concern, then Surfshark is an exceptional choice that offers premium features for a great price (even after the price hikes on the lengthier subscription plans).
Privacy and security winner: ExpressVPN’s forward-thinking privacy protections are unmatched
I detected DNS leaks with ExpressVPN in my latest tests when I had the split tunneling feature enabled on my Windows machine -- but ExpressVPN still beats Surfshark for privacy and security in my evaluation. ExpressVPN’s immediate action to resolve the issue and its transparency in communicating it to the public was impressive, and demonstrated that the company took the situation seriously even though it affected a small percentage of users. I alerted ExpressVPN to the issue, and company engineers immediately disabled the split tunneling feature on the Windows app while they worked on a permanent fix (which was deployed two weeks later). ExpressVPN estimated that the bug affected less than 1% of its user base and concluded that part of the issue could have been caused by other VPN apps installed on the same computer. The leaks were seemingly confined to certain edge cases, and while having DNS leaks affecting even a single user is one too many, Express’s quick, transparent response is why I continue recommending it as the best overall VPN.
ExpressVPN is one of the most transparent VPN providers in the industry. The company regularly undergoes independent audits (including 12 in 2022 alone) and has recently published its first biannual transparency report, which informs the public about the number of legal requests the VPN has received and how the company has handled them. By comparison, Surfshark hasn’t yet published a transparency report and has only undergone a total of three independent audits since 2018. While that’s better than what many other VPNs have done, it’s not in the same league as ExpressVPN in terms of transparency.
Both Surfshark and ExpressVPN have strict no-logging policies, which means that they shouldn’t be keeping logs of your online activity while connected to their servers and that they would have no useful data to hand over to authorities should the company be served with a warrant or subpoena. A no-logs policy is one of the most critical promises that a VPN company can make, but it’s one that’s also impossible to verify with absolute certainty. Independent audits are important because while they only represent a snapshot in time of how the VPN operated during the course of the audit, they send an important trust signal that the VPN is really doing what it claims.
Surfshark and ExpressVPN both also offer standard VPN privacy protections like AES 256-bit encryption, a kill switch, DNS leak protection and a RAM-only diskless server infrastructure. However, ExpressVPN’s TrustedServer technology takes the diskless server concept a step beyond just wiping servers by reinstalling the entire software stack with each server reboot. This helps minimize potential risks that may result from misconfiguration. ExpressVPN has also been busy implementing some pretty ambitious, forward-looking enhancements to its Lightway protocol. Lightway now comes with post-quantum protection, which helps protect users against threats from quantum computers in the future.
Surfshark has also implemented some neat innovations with its Nexus network technology, which has helped the VPN roll out features like its Dynamic MultiHop and IP Rotator. Surfshark’s Dynamic MultiHop goes above and beyond what most double-VPN features offer. Instead of limiting you to a handful of preset double-hop location pairs, Dynamic MultiHop lets you choose any two server locations from its global network to tunnel through. This way, you can potentially achieve better speeds while giving your privacy an extra layer of protection. IP Rotator does exactly what the name suggests -- it rotates your IP address and swaps it out for a new one every few minutes without breaking the tunnel, making it more difficult to track you online. ExpressVPN doesn’t offer either feature, so I’d recommend going with Surfshark if you want those additional ways to boost your privacy.
If you have critical privacy needs and need a VPN that’s based in a privacy-friendly jurisdiction, then ExpressVPN is the choice for you because it’s based in the British Virgin Islands. Surfshark, on the other hand, is based in the Netherlands, which is part of the 14 Eyes data-sharing alliance. Although if Surfshark doesn’t collect logs, it shouldn’t really be an issue. But if the 14-Eyes jurisdiction is a privacy deal breaker, then it’s important to consider.
Usability winner: ExpressVPN’s apps are approachable and deliver the most consistently outstanding performance across platforms
Both ExpressVPN and Surfshark are incredibly simple to use, whether you’re a seasoned VPN user or a total newbie. Both VPN providers offer apps for Windows, MacOS, iOS, Android and Fire TV, and deliver a consistent experience across platforms. Surfshark includes a full graphical user interface (GUI) for Linux, while ExpressVPN users need to connect via the command line interface (CLI) on Linux. While either option works for seasoned Linux users, beginners may prefer a more intuitive Linux GUI app. ExpressVPN offers an Apple TV app, while Surfshark hasn’t released one yet. So Linux users who prefer using a full GUI may be better off with Surfshark, but TVOS users who want to stream content on their Apple TVs may opt instead for ExpressVPN.
If you’re looking for more of a streamlined, minimalist app experience, then ExpressVPN is a great bet because its app is uncluttered, with a prominent button right in the middle to connect and disconnect. It’s easy to locate and connect to servers, and the app settings are accessible from the settings menu that’s neatly tucked away in the corner of the screen. But if you prefer working with an interface that includes more information at your fingertips like the protocol you’re using, time of connection and IP address, along with easy access to multihop locations and static IPs, then Surfshark would be your best bet.
However, in my experience, ExpressVPN performed considerably better than Surfshark in overall usability and app performance. One of the most notable differences I noticed between the two providers is that ExpressVPN’s apps will consistently connect immediately to a server, whereas Surfshark’s apps often struggle to connect on the first few tries. In my Surfshark testing, it can take several attempts and about half a minute before the app is successful in establishing a connection -- and sometimes it even times out and fails completely. Sure, 30 seconds isn’t much in the grand scheme of things, but we expect today’s technology to respond to our commands instantaneously, and Surfshark consistently falls short in that regard.
Both VPNs are great options for streaming. In my experience, ExpressVPN was a little better than Surfshark because I rarely ran into issues streaming content on sites like Netflix, Disney Plus, Hulu and Amazon Prime Video. I ran into a few hiccups streaming certain Netflix titles on various ExpressVPN servers on its Apple TV app, but was able to work around those roadblocks by switching servers. Surfshark is one of the best for unblocking Netflix content and is a breeze to use with most other streaming platforms, but it struggled considerably with Hulu on iOS and MacOS.
Bottom line
ExpressVPN and Surfshark are two of CNET’s top VPNs for a reason: They’re both well-rounded VPNs and each is a solid choice for most any online activity. Surfshark exhibited better speed performance than ExpressVPN overall, but ExpressVPN’s Lightway protocol demonstrated slightly faster speeds on MacOS devices. If you’re looking for the most transparency, the best for privacy and the most user-friendly, then ExpressVPN is tops. But if you’re seeking a cheaper option that delivers excellent performance and cool features, then Surfshark is a great way to go. Both are great for streaming, even if ExpressVPN has a slight edge there. If you’re still on the fence, I’d suggest trying them both out side-by-side for a month, then continuing with the one you like better and getting a refund for the other.