Most VPNs hand you a server list and a connect button. CyberGhost hands you a server list organized by what you’re about to do: stream, game, torrent, or browse privately. It’s a small design choice that reflects its philosophy, and it makes the VPN easier to use for the users it’s targeting. Whether the performance behind those labels matches the promise is another question, and one we spent 4 weeks testing on a Windows 11 desktop and a Galaxy S26 Ultra to answer properly.
⭐ Quick Sidenote: We’ve been actively using CyberGhost for over 10 years, but extensive tests in the last 4 weeks were to confirm it’s still among the best budget VPNs on the market. Spoiler alert: It is.
CyberGhost VPN
This VPN is ultimately a great buy if you're aiming for some of the lowest monthly costs. With decent performance, support for streaming and torrenting, solid security, and strong privacy features, CyberGhost is an attractive option.
Pros
- Audited no-logging policy
- NoSpy servers for privacy
- Torrenting and streaming servers
- Affordable 24-month plan
- Dedicated IPs in 20+ locations
- Rock-solid security
Cons
- Middling speeds
- No traffic obfuscation
- Limited to 7 devices
CyberGhost VPN: Quick Look
| 💸 Starting price | $2.19 per month for 24 months |
| 🔖 Money-back guarantee | 45 days (14 days on the monthly plan) |
| 🌐 Protocols | OpenVPN, WireGuard, and IKEv2 |
| 🥸 No-log policy | Yes |
| 💾 Servers | 12,000+ in 100 countries |
| ⚡ Speeds | Good on downloads, excellent on uploads |
| ⚙️ Ease of Use | Accessible, with a cluttered desktop UI |
| ⏸️ Double VPN/Multi-hop | No |
| 🦠 Ad and tracker blocking | Yes (Block Content) |
| 📺 Streaming and P2P | Dedicated servers for both |
| 💯 Third-party audits | Yes (Deloitte 2022, 2024, 2026) |
| 💻 Supported platforms | Windows, iOS, Android, macOS, Linux, routers, browsers, and more |
| #️⃣ Simultaneous connections | 7 |
| ☎️ Customer support | 24/7 live chat, email, help center |
CyberGhost Pricing: Strong Value, Best Refund Window in the Category
The 2-year plan at $2.19 per month with 2 free months is where most people should start. It’s billed as roughly $57 upfront for the first 24 months, and price fluctuations on this plan are minor. The ceiling is $2.19 regardless of when you buy. A 6-month plan is also available for those not ready to commit to two years.
At this price, the best cheap VPN competitor is PIA, which matches CyberGhost on the 2-year rate but offers unlimited simultaneous connections against CyberGhost’s 7. The renewal price deserves a mention: after the initial term, CyberGhost renews annually. The rate varies, but budget for a meaningful jump from the introductory price.
One pricing advantage: the Security Suite for Windows adds antivirus and Privacy Guard for $1 per month on top of the subscription. It’s a good add-on price for users who want both tools under one payment, and we cover Privacy Guard in the security section.
Dedicated IP addresses are available at $2.50 per month across 21 locations, matching PIA’s dedicated IP pricing while offering more geographic options. More on that in the server section. For the latest active promotions, our CyberGhost coupons page stays updated.
Trial Options and Money-Back Guarantee
The 45-day money-back guarantee on 2-year and 6-month plans is the longest in the category. NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Surfshark, and Proton VPN all cap at 30 days. I used the guarantee on a secondary account: the refund was processed in 3 business days via live chat, with the agent asking only for a dropdown reason before confirming.
The free trial options are among the most generous on the market: 24 hours on Windows and macOS without a credit card, 3 days on Android, and 7 days on iOS, all without requiring payment upfront. Most VPNs require a credit card for trial access; CyberGhost doesn’t for the desktop version.
⭐ The combination of a 45-day money-back guarantee, a no-card 24-hour desktop trial, a 3-day Android trial, and a 7-day iOS trial makes CyberGhost the most risk-free VPN purchase in the category. If you’re undecided between CyberGhost and a competitor, the extended safety net is a reason to try this one first.
Payment Methods
Credit and debit cards, PayPal, and Bitcoin via BitPay. The Bitcoin option comes with one practical constraint worth knowing upfront: add-ons, including the Security Suite and Dedicated IP addresses, cannot be purchased with Bitcoin. If you want either, you’ll need to use PayPal or a card. PayPal is the cleanest option for refunds, regardless.
Ease of Use and User Experience
The desktop app on Windows and macOS looks premium, with a dark interface and a clean connect button front and center. Navigation becomes more complicated once you go past the main screen. Finding specific server categories requires clicking through multiple panels, and the settings menu has grown denser with each update.
It’s not confusing in the way PIA’s protocol customization panel can be, but it’s not the one-click simplicity of ExpressVPN either. Connection times varied depending on the protocol. On WireGuard, we averaged 2.4 seconds from a cold launch, which is slightly slower than NordVPN’s 1.8 seconds but in reasonable territory.
OpenVPN, which the Auto protocol selector chose on a handful of sessions, stretched that to 5 to 6 seconds per connection. Manually setting WireGuard rather than leaving it on Auto eliminates that inconsistency. The mobile apps are cleaner and faster to navigate than the desktop versions, though they sacrifice some customization in exchange.
On Android, we had access to app-level split tunneling, which is an omission on desktop that we’ll address in the security section. The iOS app works well but is locked to WireGuard and IKEv2, with no OpenVPN option, which is Apple’s network architecture limitation rather than a CyberGhost decision.
📱 Compatibility: Our Findings
Platform coverage is broad:
- Windows, macOS, and Linux (command-line only, no GUI)
- Android and iOS
- TVs: Smart TV, Fire TV, Android TV, Nvidia Shield, and others
- Routers: DD-WRT, TomatoUSB, Raspberry Pi, Synology NAS, and others
- Gaming consoles via router or Smart DNS
T CyberGhost on Linux is command-line only. Proton VPN has a full GUI for Linux. If Linux is your primary system and you’re not comfortable with CLI tools, CyberGhost is the wrong choice. The simultaneous connection capacity of 7 devices is the most glaring competitive weakness in 2026.
NordVPN allows 10, ExpressVPN allows 12 on its Advanced plan, and both PIA and Surfshark offer unlimited connections at similar or lower price points. Smart DNS is available across several countries, including the US, Germany, the Netherlands, and Japan, a considerable advantage over ExpressVPN’s MediaStreamer, which covers only the US.
Smart DNS lets you route streaming traffic on devices that can’t run a VPN app directly, and broader geographic coverage means more flexibility on which libraries you can access from a smart TV or console.
Security Features
Basic VPN Features
- 256-bit AES-GCM encryption. Standard for OpenVPN sessions; WireGuard uses ChaCha20-Poly1305. Both are sound choices and consistent with what NordVPN and ExpressVPN ship.
- Kill Switch. We tested the kill switch by killing the CyberGhost process from Task Manager and by pulling the Ethernet cable. Both triggered a clean disconnection within 600ms, measured alongside the sessions via packet capture. The network dropped immediately with no IP exposed during either test.
- DNS Leak Protection. CyberGhost runs its own proprietary DNS resolvers. Our Wireshark captures across seven server locations showed zero DNS queries leaving the tunnel. IPv6 was also handled cleanly on our ISP, which runs IPv6 by default.
- Block Content. DNS-level blocking for ads, trackers, and malware. We tested it against 160 known malicious and tracker URLs over 3 days: it blocked 138 of them, a reasonable 86% hit rate. The gap compared to NordVPN’s Threat Protection Pro is the absence of any visible blocking counter in the UI.
- Split Tunneling. App-level split tunneling is available on Android only. On Windows and macOS, CyberGhost offers domain and IP-level Exceptions through the Smart Rules menu, which lets you exclude specific websites from the tunnel but not specific applications. If you want to keep your Slack client outside the VPN while routing everything else through it, you cannot do that on a desktop.
- Perfect Forward Secrecy. Unique encryption keys are generated per session and discarded on disconnect. Standard practice for serious VPNs and verified in our testing.
Advanced Security Features
NoSpy Servers
NoSpy servers are CyberGhost’s most distinctive privacy feature, and they deserve more attention. Rather than renting server space from third-party data centers, CyberGhost owns and operates these servers physically in Romania. That eliminates the third-party data center as a potential attack surface: no hosting provider can access or monitor the hardware, and no government can approach a landlord instead of CyberGhost directly.
The architecture is conceptually similar to Proton VPN’s Secure Core servers, which are also on owned hardware in privacy-favorable jurisdictions. The difference is that NoSpy servers are single-hop rather than double-hop, which means no speed penalty from a second encryption layer. In our tests, NoSpy servers in Romania produced a download loss of around 11% compared to our baseline, versus 29% for standard CyberGhost UK servers.
That gap reflects geographic proximity as much as architecture, but the point stands: NoSpy servers are fast enough for daily use, not just for high-paranoia scenarios.
⭐ NoSpy servers are the right answer for users who want reduced third-party exposure without the speed penalty of multi-hop routing. They are not a substitute for Secure Core or Double VPN in terms of anonymization depth, but for infrastructure integrity, the owned-hardware model is stronger than rented servers.
Protocols
CyberGhost offers WireGuard, OpenVPN (TCP and UDP), and IKEv2. WireGuard is the right default for most users: fastest connection times, best throughput, and a codebase small enough to be auditable. OpenVPN TCP performed better on a hotel network we tested, where WireGuard was being throttled, which is the scenario it’s designed for. IKEv2 is primarily a mobile protocol and holds up well on networks that switch frequently between WiFi and cellular.
The Auto protocol selector sometimes chose OpenVPN over WireGuard during our testing, which is the primary explanation for the 5 to 6 second connection times we observed on those sessions. Manually setting WireGuard resolves this immediately. We’d recommend doing so unless you have a specific reason to use OpenVPN.
The Gaming mode in the protocol settings deserves a mention. It adjusts MTU size and internal routing parameters to reduce latency on gaming sessions. We measured a latency improvement of around 8ms on the UK server when Gaming mode was on versus standard WireGuard, which is modest but consistent across multiple tests. It won’t transform a slow connection, but it’s a good addition that no other major consumer VPN offers.
Smart Rules
Smart Rules is CyberGhost’s automation system, and it covers three distinct behaviors: WiFi Protection (auto-connect on open networks), Exceptions (domain and IP-based split tunneling), and App Rules (connect automatically when a specified application launches).
The App Rules feature is the most useful. We configured it to launch a connection to a UK gaming server whenever we opened a specific game, and it worked cleanly on every test without requiring manual intervention. It’s a convenience feature more than a security one, but for users who want the VPN to behave intelligently rather than needing to remember to toggle it, it streamlines the experience.
What Smart Rules doesn’t replicate is app-level split tunneling. Excluding a domain from the tunnel and excluding an app from the tunnel are different operations, and the Exceptions feature only handles the former on desktop. That limitation should be stated clearly rather than presented as a full substitute.
Privacy Guard
Privacy Guard is a Windows-only tool bundled in the Security Suite add-on that blocks specific Windows telemetry and system behaviors. It lets us disable Microsoft Store app auto-updates (useful on a machine with limited bandwidth), prevent camera and mic access from background processes, and block typing-habit data collection. Each category has presets with individual toggles for more granular control.
It’s a Windows-only tool by necessity rather than oversight. The equivalent level of system access on macOS requires elevated permissions that Apple’s sandboxing model restricts, and mobile platforms would require root or jailbreak access. For Windows users who want OS-level privacy hardening alongside their VPN, it adds value. For everyone else, it’s not a factor.
RAM-Only Servers
All 12,000-plus servers run on RAM-only architecture. Every reboot wipes the slate. This is now the standard expectation for serious VPN providers, matching NordVPN, ExpressVPN, and Surfshark. The practical security implication is that server seizure yields nothing useful, which matters in the context of CyberGhost’s Romanian jurisdiction, where data retention obligations are less stringent than in many EU countries.
IP and DNS Leak Test Results
We tested CyberGhost on several server locations, including the US, as displayed below. The test rig was a Windows 11 desktop. After running dozens of extensive tests on ipleak.net and browserleaks.com, the results were expectedly good.
Zero IP leaks, zero DNS leaks, clean WebRTC across all locations on ipleak.net. Our home IP did not appear on any check, including the IPv6 test. The Wireshark capture on the US session showed zero DNS queries leaving the tunnel over a 29-minute window.
Browserleaks.com confirmed the same results across all locations. The NoSpy Romania server produced identical leak test results to standard servers, which confirms that the owned-hardware architecture doesn’t introduce any routing anomaly that could expose traffic.
CyberGhost Privacy Review: No-Log Policy and Audit Track Record
CyberGhost is headquartered in Romania, an EU member state with privacy-friendly data retention laws compared to countries like the Netherlands or the UK. Romania does not impose mandatory VPN logging requirements, and the jurisdiction sits outside the 5 Eyes and 9 Eyes alliances. It is within the 14 Eyes, however. A sufficiently motivated EU-level legal request could reach CyberGhost in a way that a request directed at Proton VPN in Switzerland could not. The no-log policy and RAM-only architecture are the practical defenses against that scenario.
The parent company is Kape Technologies, which also owns ExpressVPN and Private Internet Access. Kape’s prior identity as Crossrider involved adware distribution, a fact that surfaces regularly in VPN discussions and is worth acknowledging directly. The Kape of 2026 operates under a different model, and the audit record across all three owned VPNs supports that assessment. But the history exists, and users who want a secure VPN with no corporate history concerns should look at Mullvad or Proton instead.
CyberGhost’s Privacy Policy
The policy is concise and written in plain language. CyberGhost explicitly does not store:
- Browsing history
- Traffic destination and data content
- Search history
- Connection logs
- IP addresses (originating or VPN-assigned)
- Connection timestamps
- Credit card information
What it does store: your email address, anonymized troubleshooting data (browser type, OS version, battery charge) used for product improvement, and aggregate service metrics. None of this data links to individual sessions or browsing activity. The policy is notably free of the vague language that characterizes weaker privacy policies, and reading it takes under five minutes.
CyberGhost publishes transparency reports four times a year, documenting legal requests received and responses given. This practice predates its formal audit program and has continued alongside it, which is more transparency than most providers offer.
Third-Party Audits
Deloitte has audited CyberGhost three times: the no-log policy in 2022, system management and server infrastructure in May 2024, and VPN configuration along with dedicated IP address token management in February 2026. Three Deloitte audits in four years is a solid commitment, and the scope of the 2026 audit, which specifically covered the dedicated IP architecture, is more operationally specific than the standard no-log confirmation most providers commission.
The audit history is shorter than NordVPN’s six-audit trail and less deep than Proton VPN’s combination of audits and open-source code. But three Deloitte audits covering different aspects of the infrastructure, combined with quarterly transparency reports, produce a solid and verifiable privacy foundation for a provider at this price.
CyberGhost Review: Speed Test Results
Our speed tests ran on a 342 Mbps network, Ethernet-connected, Windows 11 desktop, from Serbia. We tested at 09:00, 14:00, and 20:00 local time for 3 consecutive days per location, using the Auto protocol selection. The baseline without the VPN is below.
UK Speed Test Results:
US Speed Test Results:
Japan Speed Test Results:
| UK Server | US Server | Japan Server | |
| 📥 DL Speed Loss | 29% | 47% | 55% |
| 📤 UL Speed Loss | 6% | 7% | 14% |
The download figures are workable but trail NordVPN, the best VPN, which produced a 5% loss to the UK in our tests, and ExpressVPN, which came in under 10% on the same route. A 29% download loss to a close server is the headline weakness here. It’s partly explained by the Auto selector choosing OpenVPN over WireGuard on several of our sessions.
When we locked the protocol to WireGuard, UK download loss dropped to around 18% across those same sessions. The averages in the table above reflect the mixed protocol sessions. The upload story is the reverse. A 6% upload loss to the UK and 7% to the US is excellent, better than Surfshark (23.8% to the UK) and far better than PIA (82% to the UK).
| No VPN | UK Server | US Server | Japan Server | |
| ⏱️ Latency | 10 ms | 46 ms | 116 ms | 288 ms |
For content creators, remote workers uploading large files, or anyone on a symmetric fiber line who wants to preserve both directions, CyberGhost’s upload performance is a practical advantage that doesn’t get enough attention. Latency on the UK server at 46ms is solid and keeps CyberGhost viable for gaming on European servers, especially with Gaming mode. The US at 116ms works for less latency-sensitive online play. Japan at 288ms makes competitive gaming a horror.
Streaming and Torrenting
Streaming
CyberGhost’s dedicated streaming servers are the centerpiece of its pitch to casual users, and they deliver well on the major platforms. For this review, we tested Netflix US, UK, Canada, and Australia. The US and Canada worked reliably on every attempt. The UK required switching servers once during the second week when a labeled “Netflix UK” server returned a proxy error, which cleared on an alternative UK streaming server. Australia worked on the first attempt every time.
There is a known pattern with CyberGhost’s streaming-labeled servers that this review should address. A server labeled “Netflix UK optimized” can be blocked by Netflix without warning, requiring a switch to an alternative. CyberGhost’s labeled system makes it easy to find alternatives, but it also raises expectations that a label can’t always fulfill. In our Junetesting, three labeled Netflix UK servers failed before a fourth worked. NordVPN’s UK pool worked on the first attempt every time in testing.
| Netflix US | BBC iPlayer | Disney+ US | Hulu US | Prime Video US | HBO Max US |
| ✅ Works | ✅ Works | ✅ Works | ✅ Works | ❌ Blocked | ✅ Works |
BBC iPlayer worked cleanly on the UK streaming servers we found. Disney+ connected on the first attempt. Hulu worked with no issues. Prime Video was blocked on every attempt across three different US server options, which is consistent with what we’ve seen from PIA on the same service.
Torrenting
Dedicated P2P servers are available in more than 70 countries, and they performed well throughout our testing. We ran qBittorrent on a UK P2P server, downloading Linux Mint (1.9 GB, 14-plus active seeders). Sustained download averaged 29 MB/s with a peak at 38 MB/s. That’s comparable to Surfshark’s P2P performance on the same route and better than PIA without port forwarding enabled.
CyberGhost does not offer port forwarding, which is a gap for private tracker users who need to maintain upload ratios (still, this VPN is very fast). PIA and Proton VPN both support port forwarding; CyberGhost does not. For general downloading from public trackers, that gap is irrelevant.
Server Network: 12,000-Plus Servers With Dedicated Categories
12,000-plus servers in 100 countries across 126 locations give CyberGhost a larger fleet than ExpressVPN (around 3,000 servers) and a more structured one than PIA (30,000 servers but without the same categorical organization). Every server runs on a 10 Gbps infrastructure and a RAM-only architecture.
The dedicated server categories are distinct. Streaming servers labeled by service and country, gaming servers with Gaming mode support, P2P servers in 70-plus countries, and NoSpy servers in Romania. CyberGhost is the only major consumer VPN that labels gaming-specific servers in the app, simplifying server selection for optimized latency without having to identify the nearest low-latency server manually.
Dedicated IP addresses at $2.50 per month are available across 21 locations, including Canada, Switzerland, Australia, France, the UK, the US (6 cities), and Japan. That pricing matches PIA’s dedicated IP rate while offering more options, and it undercuts NordVPN’s $4.19 per month and Surfshark’s $3.75 per month. If a dedicated IP is on your requirements list, CyberGhost is the most cost-effective way to get one with broad location choice.
Smart DNS addresses are available in the US, Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, and other locations. ExpressVPN’s MediaStreamer covers only the US. CyberGhost’s broader Smart DNS coverage means more options for unblocking geo-restricted content on devices that can’t run a VPN app directly.
Bypassing Censorship: Honest About Its Limits
CyberGhost does not offer obfuscation. There is no Stealth protocol, no Shadowsocks, no NoBorders mode. On a network with deep packet inspection, plain WireGuard or OpenVPN will be identified and blocked. That rules out China, and to a lesser extent, Russia and Iran, for any user who needs a working connection in those environments.
We didn’t test CyberGhost in China for this review. A contributor spent 8 days in Guangzhou in June 2026, testing on a standard residential connection with both WireGuard and OpenVPN TCP. Out of 20 connection attempts over the eight days, two connected briefly before dropping within minutes, and the remaining 18 failed to establish a tunnel at all. That is a functional failure rate, not a “sometimes works” situation.
CyberGhost is upfront about this on its own site, which is appreciated. For censored countries, NordVPN’s obfuscated servers or Surfshark’s NoBorders mode are the appropriate tools. CyberGhost is a strong choice for uncensored markets and light network filtering scenarios, such as school or workplace blocks, where plain WireGuard is typically sufficient.
Customer Support
The support experience is one of the better ones in the category. Live chat is available 24/7 and accessible directly from the main website without the Help Center detour that Surfshark requires. Response times in our testing averaged 60 seconds during business hours and under 3 minutes on a weekend evening. Agents were knowledgeable and handled a protocol-specific question without escalation on the first try.
A multilingual support team covering English, German, and French is a differentiator that few VPNs match. For non-English speakers in those languages, the ability to troubleshoot in your native language without falling back on translated responses matters.
The Help Center is well-organized with illustrated setup guides for every supported device and platform. Each guide uses screenshots and step-by-step instructions at a level of detail that covers beginner and intermediate configurations. We found clear documentation for router setup, Smart Rules configuration, and streaming server troubleshooting, which are the three most common support queries based on community forum patterns.
CyberGhost VPN: Final Verdict
CyberGhost is a well-built VPN for a specific profile of users. It’s not for everyone, and for the price, you’ll find better options (say Private Internet Access or Surfshark).
✅ Buy CyberGhost if: dedicated streaming servers and a gaming mode matter to your use case, you want the most generous trial and refund window in the category, you need affordable dedicated IPs across many locations, your upload speed is as important as your download speed, or you’re a German or French speaker who values native-language support.
❌ Look elsewhere if: you need obfuscation for China or other censored environments, you require multi-hop or double VPN, you need more than 7 simultaneous connections, app-level split tunneling on desktop is important to you, or you want a VPN with a cleaner, more straightforward interface.
At $2.19 per month on the 2-year plan, CyberGhost is a strong buy for users on a budget not willing to skimp on their online privacy, security, and streaming prowess. Start by testing it for free using one of its many free trial options.
Frequently Asked Questions
❓ What are CyberGhost NoSpy servers?
CyberGhost NoSpy servers are in-house servers that CyberGhost owns and operates. They're based in Romania and offer the best privacy because no third party can interact with them. Since each NoSpy server is under CyberGhost's watchful eye, and the VPN operates on a no-log policy, privacy is guaranteed.
❓ Where is CyberGhost VPN based?
CyberGhost is based in Romania, a European country far from the 5, 9, or 14 Eyes' reach. It's one of the best jurisdictions for a VPN due to the lack of data retention laws, which we often see in the US, the UK, Canada, and other Western countries.
❓ Is CyberGhost safe?
Yes, CyberGhost is safe and very good for your privacy. While it isn't as advanced as some of its rivals, say NordVPN, it has all the essentials and a few advanced features covered. Plus, it has a verified no-log policy, so it doesn't store or sell your data.
❓ Is CyberGhost good?
Yes, CyberGhost is good and is a solid all-arounder that doesn't cost much. It's a powerful VPN that holds its own against similarly-priced providers. For reference, CyberGhost holds up well against Surfshark, which costs even a bit less.
❓ Is CyberGhost available on Linux?
Yes, there's a CyberGhost Linux app that you can use on Ubuntu, CentOS, Fedora, Linux Mint, Kali Linux, and Pop!_OS. It's worth noting that the VPN doesn't offer a GUI on Linux, so you must rely on its CLI application.