Should you pick Brave VPN or Proton VPN for maximum security, privacy, and speed? Based on our experience, Proton VPN wins, and not by a small margin. It’s better in nearly every aspect, and it costs less on top of that. During our Brave VPN vs Proton VPN testing, we examined both providers in depth, and after 8 rounds, one impression stuck: Brave VPN feels undercooked, while Proton VPN, despite its attractive price tag, comes very close to ideal.
Wondering how we reached that conclusion, and whether Brave VPN wins anything at all? You’ll have to read to find out. Countless testing rounds are ahead, so sit comfy, grab your drink, and follow along.
Brave VPN vs Proton VPN: A Quick Comparison
| Proton VPN 🏆 | Brave VPN | |
| 📋 Our Current Ranking | #2 | TBD |
| 🔖 Prices | Starts at $2.99 monthly | $99.99 annually |
| 💸 Money-Back Guarantee | 30 days for all plans | No |
| 🆓 Free Version/Free Trial | Free plan with unlimited data | No/7 days |
| 📓 Logging/Jurisdiction | No logging/Switzerland | No logging/USA |
| 🔐 Protocols | OpenVPN, IKEv2, WireGuard, Stealth | WireGuard, IKEv2 |
| 🌐 Servers | 20,000+ in 148 countries | 300+ in 20+ countries |
| 🔝 Specialty Servers | Dedicated IP, Tor Over VPN, Torrenting | No |
| ⛔ Ad Blocking | Yes | Yes |
| 💾 RAM-Only Servers | No | No |
| 📺 Working With Netflix | Yes (10+ catalogs) | No |
| 🔽 P2P Allowance | Yes | Yes |
| 📱 Concurrent Connections | 10 | 10 |
Applications and Ease of Use
Proton VPN and Brave VPN both run on macOS, iOS, Android, and Windows. That’s where Brave VPN’s compatibility ends, though, while Proton VPN extends to Linux, where it’s one of the best choices thanks to a nice-looking GUI. Even the most popular VPNs, including NordVPN and ExpressVPN, don’t offer a Linux GUI (NordVPN does, however), and Brave VPN doesn’t support Linux at all.
Proton VPN also covers streaming devices like the Fire TV Stick. Need a VPN for Apple TV? Covered. Routers? Same. Brave VPN’s limits make sense once you know it’s a Brave-bound service. We hope to see dedicated apps at some point, but for now, you get the browser and 10 simultaneous connections per account. Proton VPN matches that number, offering dedicated apps and browser extensions
My Experience With Their Apps
Here’s Brave VPN’s app:
You already know how to use it. Smash the connection button and connect. Want another location? Click the displayed country, pick one from the list, hit Connect. No settings, no tweaks, nothing. Brave VPN is empty. To its credit, there’s a kill switch, but only on iOS. Everywhere else, you get a bare-bones VPN that, frankly, shouldn’t cost anything given its feature set. More on that soon.
Proton VPN’s app is a different story:
It resembles NordVPN, with a high-tech world map and servers on the left. It’s smooth, responsive, and quick to connect, with easy access to dedicated servers and a kill switch, which Brave VPN misses on most platforms. Deeper settings are clicks away. The mobile apps speak the same language of simplicity. It manages to be advanced and beginner-friendly at once, thanks to well-organized apps.
🏆 Winner: Proton VPN
Price Comparison: Brave VPN vs Proton VPN
It’s not uncommon for a better VPN to cost less than a worse one, and this duel proves it. Brave VPN’s pricing is simple: $9.99 monthly or $99.99 upfront for a year, which works out to roughly $8.34 per month. The initial 7-day free trial means no immediate spending, but it requires a credit card, so forgetting to cancel means getting charged. Luckily, there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee.
| Monthly Price | Annual Price | Biennial Price | |
| Proton VPN | $9.99 | $3.99/mo | $2.99/mo |
| Brave VPN | $9.99 | $99 for a year | / |
Proton VPN follows a more traditional structure with three plans: biennial, annual, and monthly. The first two are heavily discounted, especially the biennial plan at $2.99 monthly, or $72 for the first two years. It renews at about $80 annually, still less than Brave’s $99.99. The annual plan runs $3.99 monthly.
Proton VPN also brings two advantages Brave can’t answer:
- A 100% free plan you can use forever without paying a cent
- A 30-day money-back guarantee for a refund on premium plans
We praised this generosity in our Proton VPN review. The free version offers unlimited data, 10 server locations, and more features than Brave VPN’s premium VPN. Proton VPN wins this round without breaking a sweat.
🏆 Winner: Proton VPN
Proton VPN is Way More Secure Than Brave VPN
Oh dear, Brave VPN barely has any features, and it doesn’t bode well for the orange team. Proton VPN is the opposite, offering some of the most advanced tools on the market, which I thoroughly tested here.
What They Share
We’ll address the similarities immediately because there aren’t many:
- Kill switch: Same, but not the same. Brave VPN offers it only on iOS, while Proton VPN has an automatic kill switch on all systems.
- WireGuard: Both use this fast and secure protocol. Brave VPN adds IKEv2 on iOS, while Proton VPN counters with OpenVPN, IKEv2, and Stealth for sidestepping censorship.
- Ad-blocking: Proton VPN’s NetShield blocks ads, trackers, and malicious sites. Brave VPN’s firewall does the same, but less efficiently in our tests.
- 256-bit encryption: The industry-standard foundation both VPNs share.
Proton VPN piles on more “basics” like split tunneling, torrenting servers, and Tor over VPN. It upgraded split tunneling to work alongside the kill switch too, so excluded apps no longer leak traffic if the VPN drops. We ran both providers through IP leak tests and found nothing of concern, so they’re safe.
Where Proton VPN Truly Destroys Brave VPN
Proton VPN’s advanced features push it further ahead. The star is Secure Core, essentially a double VPN that routes traffic through two servers in different countries, rendering you untraceable. The catch is that the first server is owned by Proton VPN, cutting out third-party server risk. You’re in Proton’s hands from start to finish. Alternative Routing masks your VPN traffic to look “regular,” slipping under firewalls, and macOS users get Stealth for the same job.
Interestingly, Proton VPN skips RAM-only servers, relying instead on full-disk encryption to protect your data. Perfect Forward Secrecy assigns unique keys to every connection, and the Tor over VPN servers we mentioned are essential for accessing the dark web safely. You can even manually control DNS and IPv6 leak protection for maximum customization. Brave VPN has no answer to any of this. Proton VPN wins the security round by a landslide.
🏆 Winner: Proton VPN
Brave VPN and Proton VPN Don’t Retain Any Logs
Security and privacy are often mentioned together, but they’re not the same thing. Some VPNs provide ample security without being privacy-friendly. Privacy is about how the VPN handles your data and whether it stores any. We were pleased to discover both providers hold up here in 2026.
Each runs a no-logs policy, meaning none of the following sensitive data is stored:
- Originating IP
- DNS requests/queries
- Traffic destination
- User location
- Transmitted bandwidth (not necessarily sensitive), and more
The little they do store is technical and used for troubleshooting, anonymized and removed after a while. Both also track current simultaneous connections, but only to enforce the device limit when you use a VPN on multiple devices. Where the two split is verification, or third-party audits, if you like. Proton VPN’s no-logs policy has been independently audited by Securitum every year since 2022.
The fifth consecutive audit was completed in 2026, plus a SOC 2 Type II audit in 2025, and every report is publicly downloadable. Brave VPN hasn’t faced comparable independent scrutiny yet, so you’re trusting its word. With both policies storing nothing sensitive and our own tests raising no red flags, we’re calling this round a tie, though Proton’s paper trail is the tiebreaker if verification matters.
⚖️ Winner: Tie
Proton VPN is Faster than Brave VPN in Testing
Our Proton VPN vs Brave VPN comparison takes us to the speed test. Neither VPN offers breakneck speeds, but one clearly outpaces the other. The baseline. We tested from Belgrade on a 50/10 Mbps connection:
From there, we followed our usual procedure: three days of testing, three times a day, across three server locations. We picked the UK, the USA, and Japan, emphasizing distant locations to stress speed retention, and recorded the best results. Here’s what we measured in a recent test in July.
| DL/UL Speed UK | DL/UL Speed USA | DL/UL Speed Japan | |
| Proton VPN | 46.25/9.43 Mbps | 36.79/8.73 Mbps | 29.96/7.42 Mbps |
| Brave VPN | 35.97/9.30 Mbps | 19.75/8.07 Mbps | 26.57/8.54 Mbps |
The results lean Proton VPN’s way, and retention rates make it obvious:
| Proton VPN | Brave VPN | |
| DL Speed Retention (%) | 72% | 60% |
| UL Speed Retention (%) | 85% | 76% |
Proton VPN wins downloads across the board, with Brave’s collapse on the US route (19.75 Mbps, barely 40% retention) being the ugliest number. Brave claws back uploads and even won the Japan upload run, but downloads matter most for streaming and browsing, so Proton VPN takes the round.
🏆 Winner: Proton VPN
Proton VPN vs Brave VPN Streaming and P2P
We have the results ready, but fair warning: they’re terrible for one VPN. Can you guess which? It’s Brave VPN, and here’s exactly why.
Streaming Test Results
Its streaming abilities lack the punch. We tested Netflix libraries, BBC iPlayer, and a few random foreign TV channels, and only the last group worked, with Brave VPN accessing some easy-to-unblock European region-locked channels. US TV channels posed a problem, while Netflix and BBC iPlayer wouldn’t work at all. We tested every supported system and even tried Smart Proxy Routing.
Proton VPN is a different animal. Its streaming servers unlocked at least 10 popular Netflix libraries without issues (US, UK, Japan, Australia, etc.), and iPlayer worked phenomenally through UK-based streaming servers. Proton VPN has improved its streaming prowess in 2026, streaming Ultra HD without buffering. We even used it to access a few MotoGP races on free channels.
My Torrenting Experience
Proton VPN offers dedicated torrenting servers tailored to P2P users who want extra speed, privacy, and security. Paired with VPN Accelerator, the results were fantastic. We downloaded Linux Mint, a copyright-free operating system, in the blink of an eye on the at-the-time nearby server.
You’d think Brave VPN isn’t P2P-friendly, but would you look at that:
It works well, and since all traffic is encrypted, your P2P activity stays private. Connect, download, seed, done. Verdict: torrenting is a tie, but Brave VPN’s streaming wipeout makes this Proton VPN’s round.
🏆 Winner: Proton VPN
Server Locations: Brave VPN is no Match for Proton VPN
Proton VPN’s server fleet was never its strong suit, but in the last few years the VPN clenched its fists and changed that. At the time of writing, it commands a massive fleet of 20,000+ servers in 148 countries. For reference, NordVPN has 9,500+, while ExpressVPN has 3,000+. The variety matches the size. All servers use 10 Gbps ports, with dedicated servers for P2P file transfers and Tor over VPN.
A mix of physical and virtual servers gives it a massive IP address pool. Brave VPN’s strictly physical fleet of 300+ servers in 40+ locations sounds anemic in comparison. The network is strategically organized, but distribution can’t compete. Brave also claims 10 Gbps ports yet realistically delivers 500 Mbps speeds, as proven in our Brave VPN review. No dedicated servers, no dedicated IPs, no varieties.
🏆 Winner: Proton VPN
Bypassing Censorship: Neither is Very Impressive
Can you bypass censorship with Proton VPN and Brave VPN? Yes, with a caveat. Neither VPN works in China, so if you’re there or planning a trip, choose NordVPN, Surfshark, or Astrill VPN. Elsewhere, Proton VPN offers Alternative Routing and Stealth to mask VPN traffic. Brave VPN offers nothing similar. We tested Proton’s features in the UAE, Turkey, and Qatar, and all three let us use the VPN.
Brave VPN also worked fairly well, with occasional connection drops in Turkey during political unrest. Neither is specialized for heavy censorship, but Stealth and Alternative Routing give Proton VPN the edge in specific scenarios. Don’t expect either to work in China in 2026. This list has the best options for that.
🏆 Winner: Proton VPN
Conclusion: Proton VPN Beats Brave VPN in 2026
Now that the pros, cons, features, and prices are on the table, the choice is clear. We prefer Proton VPN, and you will too. It costs less while offering more features, faster speeds, and vastly superior streaming capabilities. Spending less and getting more rarely comes around, so when it does, take it.
Brave VPN makes sense in exactly one scenario: you’re a devoted Brave browser user who wants privacy in a single click and nothing beyond that. It’s a convenience add-on, not a competitor. For everyone else, Proton VPN is the obvious pick, starting with a free plan that costs nothing to try.