These two aren’t competing for the same buyer. Mullvad is a privacy tool that happens to be a VPN, sold at a flat rate to people who pay in cash and never give it an email. ExpressVPN is a general-purpose service built to be quick and unblock things. ExpressVPN wins five rounds to two, with one tie. Both are quick enough to sit near the top of the field, and Mullvad’s two victories are substantial rather than token. Here’s the full account.
Mullvad VPN vs ExpressVPN: Quick Comparison
| Mullvad VPN | ExpressVPN 🏆 | |
| 📋 Our Current Ranking | TBD | #3 |
| 🔖 Prices | Flat, €5 monthly | Starts at $3.49 monthly |
| 💸 Money-Back Guarantee | 14 days | 30 days |
| 🆓 Free Version/Free Trial | No | No/3 days on Android |
| 📓 Logging/Jurisdiction | No, no email required/Sweden | No logging/British Virgin Islands |
| 📝 Third-Party Audits | 10+, plus a police raid | 20+, including KPMG on no-log policy |
| 🔐 Protocols | WireGuard only | WireGuard, Lightway, Lightway Turbo, OpenVPN |
| 🧬 Post-Quantum Encryption | Yes | Yes |
| 🌐 Servers | 700 in 49 countries | 3,000+ in 113 countries |
| 🔝 Specialty Servers | MultiHop, DAITA | Dedicated IP |
| ⛔ Ad Blocking | Yes, DNS-level filtering | Yes, Advanced Protection |
| 💾 RAM-Only Servers | Yes, all servers | Yes, all servers |
| 📺 Working With Netflix | Netflix US, little else | Yes, all major catalogs |
| 🔽 P2P Allowance | Yes | Yes, all servers |
| 📱 Concurrent Connections | 5 | 10-14 |
Compatibility and Apps Comparison
Both keep their interfaces spare, and both mirror the desktop layout on mobile, so there’s no relearning. ExpressVPN connects in a second and hides its complexity behind one button. Platform coverage is where it separates: Smart TVs, tvOS, Fire TV Stick, routers, and consoles on top of the usual five systems. Mullvad supports Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android.
No televisions, no streaming boxes, no console support. Our Mullvad review rated the apps highly and found its Settings menu harder to move around than it needs to be, with several options buried deeper than expected. Connection allowances differ sharply: Mullvad permits 5 devices, ExpressVPN 10 to 14 depending on tier.
Winner: ExpressVPN ✅
Twice the devices and a great deal more hardware to install. Mullvad’s app is fine; its reach isn’t, and it’s why ExpressVPN clearly takes it.
Price Comparison: Both Offer Good Value for Money
Mullvad charges a flat €5 a month, roughly $5.43, and has done since 2009. There are no tiers, no discounts for committing longer, and no renewal increase ever. Pay for one month or twenty-four; the monthly figure doesn’t move. ExpressVPN takes the conventional route. Its Basic plan on the 2 -year term costs $3.49/mo at 73% off with 4 bonus months, around $98 up front.
Advanced and Express Pro sit above it. The arithmetic favours each of them at different points. Across the first two years, ExpressVPN is around $30 cheaper. From year three onward, it renews at $99.95 annually, close to $8.33 monthly, while Mullvad stays at €5 indefinitely. Refund terms differ more than the prices do.
ExpressVPN gives you 30 days on any payment method plus a 3-day mobile trial. Mullvad allows 14 days, halved from 30 in January 2025 so it would hold less customer data, and cash, cryptocurrency. Those anonymous payment routes are the ones no budget provider matches, and choosing them forfeits the refund.
Winner: Tie ⚖️
ExpressVPN is cheaper while the promotion lasts and gives you twice as long to change your mind. Mullvad is cheaper from year three onward, and it never asks who you are. You decide what matters to you.
Mullvad Wins in Security With More Advanced Features
Here’s why Mullvad VPN takes ExpressVPN.
Shared Features
AES-256 encryption, a kill switch, split tunneling, RAM-only servers, private DNS, and IPv6 and DNS leak protection appear on both. Each blocks ads, trackers, and malicious domains: ExpressVPN through Advanced Protection and Mullvad through its own DNS filtering, and both can screen adult content, which doubles as parental control if that’s your reason for reading.
Both also carry post-quantum protection, though implemented differently. ExpressVPN switches it on by default inside Lightway. Mullvad applies it across its entire fleet with no server restrictions.
Unique Features: Mullvad Takes the Lead
Protocols. This changed in January 2026, when Mullvad removed OpenVPN entirely and moved to WireGuard alone. It reasoned that WireGuard’s codebase is around 4,000 lines against OpenVPN’s 70,000, so it’s easier to audit and less likely to hide a flaw. Mullvad now builds its own WireGuard, GotaTun, written in Rust for battery efficiency and steadier throughput.
ExpressVPN went the other way, offering Lightway and its multi-lane Turbo variant, plus WireGuard and OpenVPN. WireGuard beats OpenVPN on most measures, and Lightway has its own audit behind it.
DAITA is Mullvad’s exclusive, and nothing else on the market has it. Defence Against AI-guided Traffic Analysis injects synthetic traffic into the tunnel so an observer watching packet timing and size at ISP level can’t infer what you’re doing from the shape of the flow. It sits on 40+ servers across 23 locations in 15 countries.
Multihop is the other gap. Mullvad sends traffic via two servers you select individually, as Surfshark also permits. ExpressVPN offers no equivalent at all. Against that, ExpressVPN offers Smart DNS for hardware that won’t take a VPN app, and dedicated IP addresses Mullvad doesn’t sell.
Winner: Mullvad ✅
DAITA has no competitor, and Multihop covers a hole ExpressVPN has never filled. Smart DNS is the better everyday tool; these are the better privacy ones.
Logging: Why Mullvad VPN is Better for Privacy
Neither VPN retains browsing records, addresses, DNS lookups, or session times. Both hold minimal operational data, such as concurrent session counts, which is what enforces the device limits. ExpressVPN’s case is built on scale. More than twenty independent audits, KPMG among them (mid-2025), cover its apps, the Lightway protocol, and the no-logs policy itself.
The British Virgin Islands impose no retention duty. Its RAM-only architecture wipes on every restart. Mullvad’s case is built on having nothing to give up. Sign-up requires no email address, only a random 16-digit number, and you can pay in cash posted in an envelope. Its clients are open-source; more than ten firms, including Cure53 and Assured AB, have audited it.
In 2023, Swedish police searched its offices and left with nothing, because there was nothing to take, making Mullvad VPN genuinely impressive.
Winner: Mullvad ✅
A police search that came up empty outranks any certificate. ExpressVPN has more audits and a friendlier jurisdiction. Mullvad has a system where your identity was never collected to begin with.
ExpressVPN is Faster Than Mullvad VPN: Speed Tests
Testing took place in Southeastern Europe across 3 consecutive days, 3 sessions daily, using UK, US, and Japanese servers with each provider on its quickest protocol (WireGuard was used in Mullvad, Lightway Turbo in ExpressVPN).
The British results were within a whisker of each other. Distance told the story: ExpressVPN held 52 Mbps more on the Japanese server. Mullvad returned the better upload figure by two points, which almost nobody will notice.
| Download Speed Loss | Upload Speed Loss | |
| Mullvad | 34% | 7% |
| ExpressVPN | 24% | 9% |
We re-tested Mullvad with its GotaTun engine and WireGuard (these are actually those results), which indeed improved its speed, explaining why it’s much closer to ExpressVPN now. Still, Lightway Turbo is superior for speed, making it better for gaming or activities that require lower latency.
| UK (Download/Upload) | US (Download/Upload) | Japan (Download/Upload) | |
| Mullvad | 298.61/18.69 Mbps | 215.32/18.39 Mbps | 154.37/17.80 Mbps |
| ExpressVPN | 298.82/18.50 Mbps | 274.61/18.35 Mbps | 206.33/16.73 Mbps |
Winner: ExpressVPN ✅
The math says it all: 10% faster than Mullvad on downloads, and only 2% slower on upload than its rival. Downloads matter more, and ExpressVPN is faster on distant servers, making it a clear winner.
ExpressVPN Beats Mullvad in P2P and Streaming
Streaming has never been Mullvad’s purpose, and it shows. Netflix US works, BBC iPlayer usually does, and the platforms with tougher detection refuse. When a connection does go through, playback is smooth, since throughput was never the issue. ExpressVPN unblocks 15+ Netflix libraries, Hulu, Prime Video, and the rest.
Its browser add-on falsifies your location for platforms that verify it a second way. Its Smart DNS tool extends that to consoles and televisions Mullvad simply cannot serve. That combination makes it far better at getting past blocks. Torrenting comes out even. Neither provider walls P2P off onto special locations, and no IP and DNS leaks appeared during our testing.
Mullvad’s port forwarding was withdrawn some time ago, so ExpressVPN’s lack of it costs nothing here. Stay on a nearby server either way.
Winner: ExpressVPN ✅
ExpressVPN wins in streaming decisively, though torrenting is identical in terms of speed and allowance; on distant servers, ExpressVPN offers faster transfers.
ExpressVPN Has More Server Locations Than Mullvad
ExpressVPN has 3,000+ servers across 113 countries and 214 locations on 10 Gbps ports, blending physical and virtual hosting so it can hand out IPs from countries where owning racks isn’t realistic, India among them.
Dedicated IPs are available separately. Mullvad operates 700+ servers in 49 countries, owning the hardware in Germany, France, Finland, and Sweden rather than leasing it. That’s a genuine privacy argument attached to a small network, 64 countries short of ExpressVPN and with no dedicated IPs.
Winner: ExpressVPN ✅
Five times the servers across more than double the countries. Mullvad’s owned-hardware approach is principled, and it can’t cover the map.
Bypassing Censorship: ExpressVPN is a Tad Better
Dropping OpenVPN cost Mullvad something here. Bridge mode went with it, and DAITA disguises traffic patterns rather than the protocol itself, so a system looking specifically for WireGuard signatures still sees WireGuard. Connections from China were inconsistent in our checks.
ExpressVPN disguises traffic on all of its servers without asking you to enable anything, and it beat the Great Firewall on about 8 tries out of 10. Elsewhere, both perform and will unblock WhatsApp calls in the UAE or handle Turkey, Qatar, and Russia. Check where VPNs are legal before using one abroad.
Winner: ExpressVPN ✅
It offers stronger obfuscation, which is enabled automatically and stays consistent across all of the tested regions. In my tests in 2026, it was more reliable in China, which often detects WireGuard signatures.
Summary: ExpressVPN Wins Against Mullvad VPN
These two are built for different people, and the score captures only part of why. ExpressVPN is quicker over distance, reaches 113 countries against 49, covers 10 to 14 devices against 5, installs on TV and consoles Mullvad ignores, opens 15 Netflix libraries against one, and gets through in China.
Mullvad’s two wins: DAITA exists nowhere else, Multihop covers a gap ExpressVPN has left open, and a privacy model where no email is ever collected and a police raid produced nothing is the strongest evidence a VPN can offer. Its flat €5 also beats ExpressVPN’s renewal from year three.
Buy Mullvad if anonymity is the product you want. Buy ExpressVPN if you want a VPN that also streams, travels, and covers the TV. Our Mullvad against NordVPN comparison is worth a look if neither fits, and TunnelBear sits nearby among the free options.