Astrill VPN Review for 2026: Is Astrill VPN Good and Safe?

Astrill VPN has sold its service to users in China since 2009, and its name still comes up first when people ask which VPN works behind the Great Firewall. It isn’t one of the household names, and it doesn’t try to be. The company has built its business around one problem, getting online in censored countries, and its approach has barely changed in years.

Over the same years, Astrill has also become one of the most expensive VPNs on the market, and it doesn’t refund a purchase once it’s made. That made me curious. A VPN can charge several times what its rivals do only if it offers something they can’t, so I wanted to know whether Astrill still does.

I paid for Astrill myself to find out whether its China reputation is still deserved, and whether anything else in the subscription justifies the enormous price.

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Astrill VPN at a Glance

Starting price	About $12.50 a month on the two-year plan
Money-back guarantee	No
Protocols	WireGuard, OpenVPN, OpenWeb, StealthVPN
No-log policy	Yes, with limited connection records
Servers	142 cities in 56 countries
Double VPN/Multi-hop	Yes (VIP add-on)
Malware/ad/tracker protection	Ad blocker only (no malware protection)
Streaming and P2P	Allowed
Third-party audits	No
Supported platforms	Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and routers
Simultaneous connections	5
Customer support	24/7 live chat, email, help center

Astrill VPN Price: Why Is It So Expensive?

Astrill’s lowest price is $12.50 a month on the two-year plan, several times what most major VPNs charge. The yearly plan works out to $15 a month. Paying month to month costs $30, the highest monthly price I’ve paid for a VPN, and Astrill doesn’t offer the deep discounts its rivals use. Astrill doesn’t explain the price.

In practice, the money pays for its own anti-censorship protocols and a server network built around Asia. Beyond those, it offers less than VPNs that cost a quarter as much. The extras cost more again. A private IP address, a static IP that only you use, is $5 a month each.

The VIP add-on starts at $10 a month for 100 GB of priority traffic and adds Multi-hop, which sends your connection through two servers. Larger data packages cost more, so a VIP subscription can come close to double the base price.

For comparison, NordVPN came out ahead on most counts when I put it against Astrill VPN, at a fraction of the cost. Astrill’s value for money is poor, and the price is the main reason I hesitate to recommend it.

Payment Methods and Refunds

Astrill accepts credit and debit cards, PayPal, bank transfers, and Bitcoin, so you can pay without tying the purchase to your name. Privacy-minded buyers will appreciate that option. Refunds are the bigger problem.

Astrill doesn’t refund purchases, and its terms say fees already paid aren’t returned. I learned that the hard way when I asked for my money back after a month. So start with the monthly plan, and commit to a longer one only once Astrill works on your network.

Apps and Ease of Use

Astrill has apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android, plus router support, and installing it on my computer and phone went smoothly. Linux users have a full graphical app, which makes Astrill much easier to use there than most VPNs. One subscription covers five devices at once, and one of the five can be a router.

TV support is weaker. There’s no native app for the Fire TV Stick or Apple TV, so watching on a TV means a router setup or a VPN that supports the Fire TV Stick. Day to day, the desktop app is where Astrill falls furthest behind.

It looks the same as it did years ago, opens in a small window that can’t be resized, and felt buggy and unpolished in my use. For a VPN at this price, that’s hard to excuse. The mobile apps are simpler, and they’re easier to live with as a result.

Still, they look basic and offer fewer settings than the desktop app. If ease of use comes first, start with the best iPhone VPNs instead.

Astrill VPN Security Features

Behind the dated apps, Astrill has more security tools than most VPNs. I tested every one, and they’re the strongest part of the service.

Protocols

Astrill supports WireGuard, OpenVPN, OpenWeb, and StealthVPN. OpenWeb and StealthVPN are Astrill’s own, built to beat deep packet inspection, the filtering censors use to spot VPN traffic. StealthVPN disguises VPN traffic as ordinary web traffic and works in TCP and UDP modes.

OpenWeb connects almost instantly, so switching servers takes about a second. By default, however, it protects browser traffic only, so change that setting if you want every app covered.  In my tests, the four protocols were safe and stable, with occasional speed dips.

Most importantly, OpenWeb and StealthVPN got past censorship, the job they’re built for.

VPN Sharing

Some devices can’t install a VPN app, and a router setup is the usual fix. For beginners, though, router setups are tricky. Astrill’s VPN Sharing is a simpler option.

It turned my Windows computer into a hub: Astrill showed an IP address to enter as the gateway and DNS server on the other device, and that device then used the VPN connection. Sharing also works from macOS and Linux.

Smart Mode and Split Tunneling

Smart Mode sends local websites outside the VPN and keeps foreign ones inside it. Banks often block foreign IP addresses, and Smart Mode helped me with online banking and local shopping sites while a foreign Netflix library worked through the VPN.

For finer control, the Application Filter and site filter let you choose apps and domains to exclude by hand. That’s split tunneling, which lets selected traffic skip the VPN. If Smart Mode guesses wrong about a site, the manual filters fix it.

Kill Switch and App Guard

A kill switch cuts your internet if the VPN connection drops, and Astrill’s is one of the best I’ve used. I broke the connection on purpose, and it blocked my traffic immediately. However, it doesn’t reconnect you afterwards. I had to reconnect by hand, sometimes several times before it worked, which became tedious.

On Windows, App Guard applies the same idea to chosen apps. If the VPN drops, only those apps lose their connection, such as a torrent client, a game, or a browser, and everything else keeps working.

Leak Tests: Is Astrill VPN Safe?

Yes. Beyond the kill switch, Astrill has IP and DNS leak protection that covers IPv6 as well. I ran leak tests on browserleaks.com from Europe, and no leaks showed up on any connection.

I then disabled the kill switch and changed protocols mid-session to provoke a leak. Astrill didn’t leak on any of them, so its leak protection is as strong as any I’ve tested.

Does Astrill VPN Keep Logs?

Astrill keeps more than a strict no-logs VPN would. While you’re connected, it records your connection time, IP address, device type, and app version, and its privacy policy says this is deleted when you disconnect. It also keeps your last 20 connections, with their time, duration, country, device type, and app version, plus the total data you’ve used.

Astrill says it uses these records for support, and you can ask it to delete them at any time. It also says its server software can’t see which websites users visit. The session data exists only to enforce the five-device limit. The company is based in Liechtenstein, which is outside the Five Eyes intelligence alliance.

However, no independent audit has confirmed any of this. NordVPN and Surfshark have had their no-logs policies audited, and so have many cheaper VPNs. Still, Astrill has no scandals to its name, so I see no reason to distrust it. Its claims simply rest on its own word.

Astrill VPN Speed Tests

Astrill has enough protocols and settings to tune its performance, but speed isn’t its strength. I tested it on a Windows 11 PC over a wired 190.36 Mbps connection in Europe, using WireGuard, its fastest protocol. Over three days, I tested servers in the UK, the US, and Japan and kept the best result from each.

The UK server lost only 8.3% of download speed, so nearby servers are quick enough for 4K streaming and large downloads. Distance hit harder, as the US server lost 19.7% and the Japanese one 37.5%. Upload followed the same pattern, with losses between 18% and 36%.

	United Kingdom	United States	Japan
Download speed loss	8.3%	19.7%	37.5%
Upload speed loss	18.0%	21.7%	36.1%
Ping	56 ms	141 ms	201 ms

These are the speeds behind those losses:

	United Kingdom	United States	Japan
Download speed	174.51 Mbps	152.81 Mbps	119.00 Mbps
Upload speed	15.89 Mbps	15.16 Mbps	12.38 Mbps

On average, download speed fell by 21.8% and upload by 25.3%, a solid but unremarkable result. Astrill was slower than ExpressVPN in my tests. So if you mostly connect to servers near you, Astrill is quick, but expect a clear drop on distant ones.

Streaming and Torrenting

Speeds were enough for HD streaming, but unblocking was Astrill’s weak point. It unblocked Netflix US and Canada, BBC iPlayer, and Channel 4. However, it couldn’t unblock Netflix Japan, HBO Max, Prime Video, Pluto TV, or ITVX outside the UK, so it unblocked fewer than half of the services I tested.

Switching to OpenWeb or StealthVPN didn’t improve the results, so I wouldn’t buy Astrill for streaming. NordVPN is the better choice for that. Torrenting went much better. Every server allows P2P, and download speeds on European servers dropped very little.

Astrill also offers port forwarding, which opens a port so more peers can connect to you, and that usually speeds up downloads slightly. It’s a small trade-off in privacy, and the setup is complex, so I’d leave it off unless you’ve used it before.

Astrill VPN Server Locations

Astrill lists servers in 142 cities across 56 countries. That’s a narrow spread next to the largest VPNs, but the servers are well placed, covering every continent. Coverage leans toward Europe and Asia, with dense options around China, including Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan.

The servers themselves are strong. They use 10 Gbps ports and operate on RAM, so nothing is written to a hard drive. As a result of that Asian coverage, Astrill is also a good VPN for Japan, Singapore, and nearby countries, where local servers keep connections fast and reliable.

Does Astrill VPN Work in China in 2026?

Yes, Astrill VPN works in China, and it connects there more reliably than most VPNs. OpenWeb and StealthVPN are quick to set up and got past the Great Firewall without trouble. I used OpenWeb most often, and StealthVPN’s disguise worked just as well.

On a Hong Kong server with StealthVPN, Astrill lost 56% of its download speed, most likely the cost of the disguise. Still, Instagram’s feed and Stories worked normally. Install Astrill before you travel, since its website doesn’t load in China.

The VIP add-on targets users in China and gamers who want lower ping, with priority traffic and Multi-hop. In my tests, performance didn’t improve dramatically, so I’d call VIP half useful at best. For most users in China, Astrill’s regular Asian servers already keep ping low.

Customer Support

Support is one of Astrill’s strengths. Live chat is open 24/7, and the agents I spoke to were friendly and knew the product well. Email goes through a contact form, which suits minor problems that can wait. For fixing things yourself, Astrill has a library of how-to guides and FAQs.

Verdict

Astrill is a specialist, and it charges like one. For people in China, its ability to connect through the Great Firewall is worth a premium, and its leak protection and kill switch back that up. Even there, cheaper Astrill alternatives exist, but none has its track record.

Outside China, the case for Astrill falls apart. Streaming is unreliable, the apps feel dated, and there’s no refund if it disappoints. The best VPNs I’ve tested do more for a fraction of the price, and I’d choose NordVPN or Proton VPN before Astrill.

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