AirVPN Review 2026: Strong Privacy, Weak Streaming

In February 2024, AirVPN stopped selling to people who live in Italy, the country where the company is registered. Italy’s Piracy Shield rules would have forced it to block sites on demand, so AirVPN gave up its home market instead of building a blocklist into a privacy-oriented VPN.

That choice says more about the company than its slogan, “the air to breathe the real internet,” ever could. I used AirVPN for a few months on a Windows PC and an Android phone, and tested its speed, leak protection, streaming, and torrenting. The privacy side impressed me.

Whether that’s enough depends on what else you want from a VPN, because the apps, the streaming results, and the server map tell a less flattering story.

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AirVPN Pricing: Is It Affordable?

Unlike Proton VPN, AirVPN has no free plan and no free trial. If you’d like to test a VPN without paying, Proton VPN’s free plan never expires. AirVPN’s closest equivalent is a paid three-day pass.

Prices are in euros because the company is Italian. As a result, the dollar cost moves a little with the exchange rate. Here are the regular prices:

• Three days: €2
• One month: €7
• Three months: about €5 a month
• Six months: just under €5 a month
• One year: about €4 a month
• Two years: about €3.30 a month
• Three years: about €2.75 a month, roughly $3

Every plan has the same tools and servers, so the only difference is the term. On top of that, seasonal sales cut the longer plans by about a third, which brings the three-year plan down to roughly $2 a month.

At the regular price, the three-year plan costs about the same per month as NordVPN’s cheapest two-year plan. By contrast, CyberGhost VPN costs less on its long plan.

Payment Methods and Refund Policy

AirVPN accepts PayPal and Amazon Pay. It also takes Bitcoin, Litecoin, Bitcoin Cash, Dogecoin, and Monero directly, with no payment company in between. That’s useful for anyone who’d rather not link a VPN subscription to a bank card.

The pricing page doesn’t mention refunds, so at first I assumed there weren’t any. In fact, AirVPN’s terms promise a full refund if you ask within 30 days of paying. That’s a better deal than TunnelBear, which doesn’t advertise a money-back guarantee.

Device Compatibility and Ease of Use

One AirVPN account covers 5 simultaneous connections, which is low today. For comparison, NordVPN and Proton VPN allow 10, and Private Internet Access sets no limit. AirVPN’s own app, called Eddie, runs on:

• Windows
• Linux
• macOS
• Android, including Android TV
• ChromeOS, through the Android app
• Routers (DD-WRT, Tomato, AsusWRT, pfSense), through manual setup

iPhones and iPads aren’t on that list because AirVPN doesn’t develop an iOS app. Instead, you download a profile from AirVPN’s config generator and import it into the official WireGuard or OpenVPN Connect app. That works, but it’s a manual job for something most VPNs handle with one download.

Similarly, Fire TV owners have to sideload the Android app, and Apple TV isn’t supported. AirVPN’s Linux support, on the other hand, is excellent. Eddie has a GUI version for Ubuntu and Debian, and Hummingbird is a lightweight command-line client for anyone who prefers a terminal. The design is a different matter: Eddie looks dated on every system.

I mostly used this VPN on my Windows PC, and the macOS and Android versions share the same dense layout. I disliked the cluttered, unpolished interface. The Settings menu reads like a network administrator’s toolbox, with dozens of technical options and little explanation.

Next to NordVPN, Proton VPN, or Surfshark, AirVPN also feels sluggish, so it’s not beginner-friendly. Still, the raw data has a purpose: server loads, ping, and connection details are all on screen. The Android version follows the same look, but I didn’t hit a single bug or crash on any device, and once set up, it connected reliably.

AirVPN Security Review: Fewer Tools, More Control

AirVPN doesn’t sell extras such as double-hop servers or malware blocking, which NordVPN and Proton VPN include. Instead, it covers the essentials and lets you configure almost every one of them:

• AES-256-GCM and ChaCha20 encryption
• Automatic kill switch (Network Lock)
• Split tunneling by IP address or hostname
• OpenVPN and WireGuard protocols, plus AmneziaWG on Android
• Perfect Forward Secrecy
• Its own DNS servers

In my tests, quality made up for the short list. The encryption matches what the biggest VPNs use, and Network Lock is one of the most configurable kill switches I’ve tested.

How Does the Kill Switch Work?

A kill switch in a VPN usually cuts your internet if the VPN connection fails. Network Lock does that, and it can also block all traffic until you connect to a VPN server. So after a reboot or on a new Wi-Fi network, nothing leaves your device unprotected.

You can also adjust how strict it is. For example, you can block incoming traffic while allowing outgoing, allow ping and DHCP, or let specific IP addresses through the lock. That last option keeps a network printer or a home media server reachable while everything else stays locked.

Protocol Selection Analysis

AirVPN offers two major protocols, OpenVPN and WireGuard, and Android users also have AmneziaWG, a WireGuard variant that disguises the VPN handshake.

That looks basic until you open the port list. Each protocol works over several ports, and the port changes how the connection behaves. For instance, WireGuard on UDP port 1637 is the light, efficient choice for everyday use.

OpenVPN over SSL or SSH, on ports such as 443 and 22, does a different job. It makes the VPN harder to identify, which helps on networks that block standard VPN connections. By combining ports and protocols, you can get past heavy censorship with AirVPN, even on networks that block most VPNs.

Other AirVPN Features

AirVPN also supports proxies, so you can connect through HTTP, SOCKS, or Tor before the VPN tunnel starts. You set the proxy up by hand, which experienced users won’t mind. Some protections work in the background.

Perfect Forward Secrecy, for example, creates a new encryption key for each session, so a key stolen later can’t unlock earlier traffic. Meanwhile, AirVPN’s own DNS servers keep your lookups away from third-party DNS companies, and they fall under the same no-logs policy.

For experts, a setting called OpenVPN Directives lets you edit the final OpenVPN config file and tune the connection yourself.

IP and DNS Leak Tests: Is AirVPN Safe in 2026?

With that much control over the connection, I expected AirVPN to pass its leak tests, and it did. For this review, I connected to one server in every country AirVPN offered and ran IP and DNS leak tests on two websites:

• ipleak.net, which AirVPN itself operates
• browserleaks.com

I tested from Europe, and no test showed my real IP address or my ISP’s DNS servers. Here’s one of the results.

On the US server, the IP address and the DNS servers were both American, with no trace of my location in Europe. The second site showed the same result on that server.

Does AirVPN Store Logs?

No, and the company behind it explains why it takes that stance. A group of activists founded AirVPN in 2010, and it’s still registered in Perugia, Italy. It doesn’t publish a full list of owners, but its staff speaks openly for the company, and spokesperson Paolo Brini explained the Piracy Shield decision in public.

Italy’s EU membership prompts fair questions about government data requests. Even so, I don’t think a VPN’s country decides much by itself. A VPN in Italy, the UK, or the US that keeps no data has nothing to hand over. Besides, AirVPN has already shown it will leave a market before it adds blocking to its servers.

Privacy Policy Analysis

That brings me to the policy itself. It’s short, and I’ve highlighted the key sentence in the screenshot. AirVPN says it keeps no IP addresses, visited websites, browsing history, original locations, DNS requests, or timestamps.

That sounds good, but no independent firm has audited it. On top of that, AirVPN only disclosed a 2015 server seizure years later, in 2023. An audit isn’t essential, but it’s the strongest proof a VPN can offer.

NordVPN has had its no-logs policy audited several times, which is one reason it comes out ahead in the AirVPN vs NordVPN comparison. In AirVPN’s favor, its apps are open source, so anyone can read the code, and it has a bug bounty program.

AirVPN Speed Tests: Is It Fast and Reliable?

A private connection still has to be quick enough for daily use. Before testing AirVPN’s speed, I recorded my native speeds:

• Download: 50 Mbps
• Upload: 10 Mbps
• Ping: 7 ms

I ran three tests a day for three days in a row from Europe, on servers in the UK, the US, and Japan. Two of those locations are distant on purpose, since they show how much speed a VPN keeps over long distances. I left the protocol on Automatic.

Here are AirVPN’s speed test results on each server:

Server	Download	Upload	Ping	Download Speed Loss
No VPN (baseline)	50 Mbps	10 Mbps	7 ms	None
UK (Manchester)	28.49 Mbps	9.41 Mbps	68 ms	43.0%
US (Miami)	39.91 Mbps	9.23 Mbps	140 ms	20.2%
Japan (Tokyo)	32.15 Mbps	8.98 Mbps	294 ms	35.7%

Surprisingly, the UK server was the weakest of the three, well behind the other two, even though it’s the closest. So if you’re after a faster VPN with UK servers, NordVPN or Proton VPN is a better choice. The US server gave me the best results, despite a higher ping than the UK.

Across all three locations, AirVPN averaged a 32% download speed loss and a 7% upload speed loss. That’s middling: NordVPN averaged a 17% download speed loss in the same tests.

Streaming and Torrenting With AirVPN

Speed was acceptable, but streaming is where AirVPN falls apart. Torrenting, by contrast, is one of its strongest points.

Streaming: Not Worth Trying

AirVPN couldn’t unblock Netflix, BBC iPlayer, or Hulu, and the other major streaming services I tested blocked it as well. If streaming is a priority, start with the best VPNs for Netflix instead. That result shouldn’t surprise anyone, since AirVPN doesn’t advertise streaming on its site.

It does unblock a few free TV channels from European countries. For instance, you can use one to stream the Tour de France live on a free broadcaster, but don’t expect much more. If streaming is a deal breaker, I strongly suggest NordVPN or Proton VPN instead.

Both unblocked Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, and Netflix US in my tests, and they also work with services like Discovery Plus.

Torrenting: Excellent Results

Torrenting was a relief, because everything worked as intended.

AirVPN allows P2P on every server, so I connected to a nearby European server and started a download. Linux Mint, a free operating system, finished in a few minutes, which is a good result on a 50 Mbps connection.

Port forwarding is the bigger draw. Few large VPNs offer it now: NordVPN doesn’t, while Proton VPN includes it on paid plans. With a forwarded port, more peers can connect to your torrent client, so downloads and seeding are faster, and the no-logs policy keeps that activity away from your ISP.

Server Locations

AirVPN has 250 servers in 23 countries, a small network by current standards. A small network isn’t a problem as long as its servers don’t get overcrowded, and AirVPN publishes the live load of every server, so I could see that for myself.

For example, American servers were at a load of around 29%, and Romanian servers were at 71% but still performed well. Coverage is the bigger weakness. Asia has only Japan, Singapore, and Taiwan; South America has a single server in Brazil, and Africa has none.

Japan has eight servers. Meanwhile, the one Brazilian server was at 56% load around midday, so expect slowdowns there during the evening.

Does AirVPN Work in China?

AirVPN was built to get around censorship, and it has the right tools for China. OpenVPN over SSL or SSH disguises the connection as ordinary encrypted web traffic, and on Android, AmneziaWG hides the WireGuard handshake that firewalls look for.

As a result, AirVPN has a better chance in China than VPNs without obfuscation. Speed is the trade-off. The Great Firewall slows foreign connections, so an obfuscated connection in China will be noticeably slower than at home.

It’s still enough for messaging and calls, and AirVPN can unblock WhatsApp in China once you find a port that gets through. The same settings help in other countries that filter the internet, such as the UAE, Qatar, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

Customer Support: Is It Efficient?

AirVPN’s support is basic, but within those limits, it works. There’s no live chat. Instead, you open a support ticket and get an email reply, and most users turn to the community forum first.

The forum surprised me. It’s very active, and one section, Other VPN Competitors or Features, invites users to discuss rival VPNs openly. That shows how relaxed AirVPN is about criticism.

Conclusion: Should You Buy AirVPN in 2026?

AirVPN does a few things very well and skips most of what a typical VPN user wants. It keeps no identifying logs, didn’t leak once in my tests, and still offers port forwarding, which makes it one of the better choices for torrenting.

It’s also among the few VPNs that let you configure every port and protocol, so it suits Linux users and anyone on a censored network. Everyone else has better options at the same price. It couldn’t unblock any major streaming service, there’s no iOS app, Eddie is hard going for beginners, and the server map leaves out much of the world.

On balance, I’d recommend AirVPN to experienced users with a specific need, and to almost no one else. NordVPN is priced similarly on a long plan and covers streaming, apps, and audits. If privacy and port forwarding drew you to AirVPN, Proton VPN offers both with far easier apps.

If price comes first, Private Internet Access and Surfshark are cheaper still and include far more, plus a 30-day money-back guarantee on all plans.

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