Brave VPN vs Proton VPN: Which One Should You Use in 2026?

If you use the Brave browser, you’ve probably seen the VPN button next to the address bar, offering a free trial of Brave VPN. It’s a tempting shortcut, since you already trust Brave with your browsing and the subscription takes a couple of clicks.

Proton VPN is the other name that keeps coming up, a Swiss VPN with a free plan and a long record on privacy. I used both on the same computer and compared what each one offers for the money: protection, speed, streaming, and how much you can adjust.

One of them felt finished. The other felt like a browser add-on that still has some growing to do, and the price doesn’t reflect that.

Brave VPN and Proton VPN Side by Side

	Proton VPN	Brave VPN
Our Current Ranking	#2	TBD
Price	About $3 a month (two-year plan)	About $8 a month (yearly plan)
Money-Back Guarantee	30 days on all plans	None
Free Version / Free Trial	Free plan with unlimited data	No / 7 days
Logging / Jurisdiction	No logs, audited yearly / Switzerland	No logs, audited in 2024 / USA
Protocols	WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, Stealth	WireGuard, IKEv2
Servers	20,000+ in 149 countries	300+ in 40+ regions
Specialty Servers	Secure Core, Tor over VPN, P2P	None
Ad Blocking	Yes	Yes
Average Download Speed Loss	10.2%	29.1%
Working With Netflix	Yes	No
P2P Allowed	Yes	Yes
Simultaneous Connections	10	10

Price Comparison: Proton VPN Costs Less

A better VPN doesn’t always cost more. Brave VPN costs $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year, which works out to about $8 a month. There’s a 7-day free trial, but it requires a card and turns into a paid subscription if you don’t cancel in time.

After that, there’s no money-back guarantee, so a refund depends on Brave’s support team or the app store you paid through.

	Monthly Plan	Yearly Plan	Two-Year Plan
Proton VPN	About $10	About $4 a month	About $3 a month
Brave VPN	About $10	About $8 a month	Not offered

Proton VPN follows a more traditional structure, with monthly, yearly, and two-year plans. The two-year plan is about $3 a month, and the yearly plan is about $4, both much less than Brave’s yearly price. Every paid plan also comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee and a full refund.

On top of that, Proton VPN has a free plan you can keep using forever, with unlimited data and no ads. It assigns you a server in one of several countries instead of letting you choose, and it isn’t built for streaming. Still, as my Proton VPN review found, the free plan has more tools than Brave VPN’s paid one.

Winner: Proton VPN

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Security: Proton VPN Offers Far More Protection

What They Share

Brave VPN keeps its feature list short, so the overlap is small:

• Kill switch: it blocks all traffic the moment the VPN disconnects. Brave VPN’s is always on in Windows and just a toggle on iOS. Proton VPN’s works on every platform, and it now works alongside split tunneling, so excluded apps can’t leak traffic if the VPN disconnects.
• WireGuard: the fast, modern protocol both rely on. Brave VPN adds IKEv2 on iOS, while Proton VPN also has OpenVPN, IKEv2, and Stealth.
• Ad and tracker blocking: Proton VPN’s NetShield stops ads, trackers, and malware sites, and it caught 93% of them on my ad-blocking test. Brave VPN’s firewall does a similar job across the whole device, and it scored about the same on my ad-blocking test.
• 256-bit encryption: the industry standard on both.

I also tested both for IP and DNS leaks, and neither leaked.

Where Proton VPN Pulls Ahead

The rest of the security comparison belongs to Proton VPN. Secure Core passes your connection through two servers, entering through a Proton-owned server in a privacy-friendly country such as Switzerland.

Even if someone watched the second server, they couldn’t trace the connection back to you. It cost me only 12.1% of my speed on a US server, so it’s usable every day. Proton VPN also has split tunneling, Tor over VPN servers for visiting .onion sites safely, and port forwarding for torrent users.

You can control DNS and IPv6 leak protection yourself, and Forward Secrecy assigns every session a new encryption key. One thing it still lacks is post-quantum encryption, protection designed for future quantum computers. Brave VPN’s only extra is Smart Proxy Routing, which sends traffic to sites that block VPNs through a proxy instead.

It helps with a few stubborn sites, but it’s no match for Proton VPN’s toolkit.

Winner: Proton VPN

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Privacy: Both Are Audited, but Proton VPN Goes Further

Security and privacy often come up together, but they aren’t the same. Privacy is about what a VPN does with your data and whether it keeps any. Both VPNs promise not to store your:

• Originating IP address
• DNS requests
• Browsing destinations
• Location
• Bandwidth use

Brave VPN uses servers operated by Guardian, a US company, and Brave itself is based in the US. Brave says it can’t tell whether a subscriber has ever connected, because the VPN signs you in with a one-time credential tied only to proof of purchase.

In 2024, Assured, a Swedish security firm, audited Guardian’s apps and servers, and Brave says that work verified its no-logs policy. However, it was a one-time check, and Brave is based in the US, where authorities have more power to demand user data.

Proton VPN is based in Switzerland, where no law forces VPNs to keep user data. Securitum has audited its no-logs policy every year since 2022, and every report is public. Proton VPN skips RAM-only servers and protects its servers with full-disk encryption, keeping the keys off-site.

Both no-logs policies have outside checks behind them, but Proton VPN repeats its audit every year and has Swiss privacy law on its side.

Winner: Proton VPN

Speed: Proton VPN Is Faster

Speed is where Brave VPN’s smaller network shows. My test setup was identical for the two, with UK, US, and Japanese servers and the fastest run recorded on each.

Brave VPN lost 29.1% of my download speed on average, while Proton VPN lost 10.2%. Close to home, Brave VPN is quick enough for 4K streaming and everyday browsing. The difference grows with distance: on Brave’s Japanese server, downloads fell to about half their usual speed, against a drop of about a sixth on Proton VPN.

Server (Download / Upload)	Proton VPN	Brave VPN
UK	178.89 / 19.21 Mbps (6.0% / 0.8% loss)	162.15 / 15.29 Mbps (14.8% / 21.1% loss)
US	173.68 / 19.01 Mbps (8.8% / 1.9% loss)	144.92 / 15.12 Mbps (23.9% / 21.9% loss)
Japan	159.99 / 18.31 Mbps (16.0% / 5.5% loss)	97.77 / 10.34 Mbps (48.6% / 46.6% loss)
Average loss	10.2% / 2.7%	29.1% / 29.9%

Uploads tell the same story. Proton VPN barely touched my upload speed, but Brave VPN lost over a fifth of it on every server, enough to slow down cloud backups and file sharing. So Proton VPN takes this round on both counts.

Winner: Proton VPN

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Streaming and Torrenting: Brave VPN Falls Short

Streaming Test Results

For streaming, the two are far apart. Brave VPN couldn’t unblock Netflix or BBC iPlayer on any system I tested, even with Smart Proxy Routing enabled. US TV channels were also a problem. It unblocked only a few European channels with lighter geo-blocking.

Proton VPN unblocked BBC iPlayer, Channel 4, HBO Max, Prime Video, and the American, Canadian, and Japanese Netflix libraries. It couldn’t unblock ITVX or Pluto TV, but its streaming servers handled Ultra HD without buffering.

I also used it to watch MotoGP races on free channels abroad.

Torrenting Results

Proton VPN has dedicated P2P servers, and with VPN Accelerator, its tool for faster connections over distance, my downloads were quick. Linux Mint, a free operating system, finished downloading in moments on a nearby server.

Surprisingly, Brave VPN handles torrents well too. Downloads were steady, and because all traffic is encrypted, your P2P activity remains private.

The torrent results are even, so streaming decides the round for Proton VPN.

Winner: Proton VPN

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Apps and Ease of Use

On Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS, the two are even, with 10 devices on one subscription. Beyond those four, Brave VPN has no apps. It requires the Brave browser to be installed, and Linux is still listed as coming soon. Proton VPN goes much further.

It has a Linux app with a full graphical interface, Fire TV and Android TV apps, a native VPN app for Apple TV, router support, and browser extensions. If you mainly use one browser on one laptop, Brave’s support is enough.

For a household with a smart TV, Proton VPN wins easily.

My Experience With Their Apps

Here’s Brave VPN’s app:

As my Brave VPN review found, you already know how to use it. Click the connect button, and to change the country, click the displayed one and choose another from the list. There are no settings to adjust, which is welcome for beginners and frustrating for anyone who wants a protocol choice or split tunneling.

Proton VPN’s app is a different story:

It resembles NordVPN’s, with a world map and the server list on the left. It’s quick to connect; Secure Core and P2P servers are a click away, and deeper settings are in a well-organized menu.

The mobile apps follow the same layout, so Proton VPN manages to be advanced and beginner-friendly at once.

Winner: Proton VPN

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Server Locations: Brave VPN Is No Match

Proton VPN’s network has grown a great deal, and it now has 20,000+ servers in 149 countries, all on 10 Gbps ports, including dedicated servers for P2P and Tor over VPN. That breadth means you can find a server close to home for speed, or in less common countries for local content.

Brave VPN has 300+ servers in 40+ regions, with the US split into five regions. Guardian operates them on 10 Gbps ports, but Brave says realistic speeds are about 500 Mbps when servers are shared. There are no specialty servers and no dedicated IP addresses.

Winner: Proton VPN

Bypassing Censorship: Proton VPN Is Better Equipped

On networks that block VPNs, such as at schools, offices, or in countries with heavy censorship, the right protocol decides whether you connect. Proton VPN’s Stealth protocol disguises VPN traffic as ordinary web traffic, and it’s available on every plan, including the free one.

Its Alternative Routing also connects to Proton’s servers through other paths when the usual ones are blocked. Brave VPN has nothing similar. Smart Proxy Routing helps with sites that block VPN users, but it doesn’t hide the VPN connection from a network that looks for it.

Neither VPN is built around China specifically, so check our VPNs for China before a trip there. For China, I’d choose NordVPN or Astrill VPN instead.

Winner: Proton VPN

Conclusion

Brave VPN charges premium money for a basic service, and its main strength is convenience. If Brave is already your everyday browser and you only want one switch to protect your phone or laptop, it’s a reasonable add-on, as long as you don’t expect it to unblock Netflix.

For everyone else, Proton VPN is the easy choice, and its free plan lets you see whether its apps suit you before paying anything.

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Brave VPN vs Proton VPN FAQ