This NordVPN vs Private Internet Access duel will help if you’ve narrowed your choice to these two. Both are secure, with some of the best no-log policies. PIA and NordVPN have vast server fleets, with dedicated servers and 10 Gbps ports. They’re very similar on paper, even sharing many in-app security features.
Furthermore, their affordable prices make the choice harder. You’re likely wondering if choosing NordVPN or Private Internet Access, both under $3.20 a month, is better. We understand you. Today’s PIA vs NordVPN comparison provides a definitive answer. Scroll down and learn more about both VPN services.
PIA vs NordVPN: Overview
Want the short version? In that case, NordVPN has come out ahead of Private Internet Access, and we recommend it if you’re unsure which one to choose. We’ve highlighted their most notable features in the table below, but for more information, we strongly recommend reading the entire PIA vs NordVPN comparison.
| NordVPN 🏆 | Private Internet Access | |
| 📋 Our Current Ranking | #1 | #3 |
| 🔖 Prices | Starts at $3.09 monthly | Starts at $2.19 monthly |
| 💸 Money-Back Guarantee | 30 days for all plans | 30 days for all plans |
| 🆓 Free Version/Free Trial | No/7 days | No/7 days |
| 📓 Logging/Jurisdiction | No logging/Panama | No logging/USA |
| 🔐 Protocols | NordLynx, NordWhisper, IKEv2, OpenVPN | WireGuard, IKEv2, OpenVPN |
| 🌐 Servers | 8,400+ in 125+ countries | 30,000+ in 90+ countries |
| 🔝 Specialty Servers | Dedicated IP, Onion Over VPN, P2P, Obfuscated, Double VPN | Multi-hop, Dedicated IP, Streaming |
| ⛔ Ad Blocking | Yes | Yes |
| 💾 RAM-Only Servers | Yes | Yes |
| 📺 Working With Netflix | Yes (25+ catalogs) | Yes (5-10 catalogs) |
| 🔽 P2P Allowance | Yes | Yes |
| 📱 Concurrent Connections | 10 | Unlimited |
Applications & Ease of Use
The warm-up round isn’t the most relevant for many, but useful. We’ll gauge these VPNs’ apps, compatibility, and ease of use. Right off the bat, PIA and NordVPN support major platforms and systems, including all mobile and desktop devices. You’ll find additional apps for other devices and systems.
Fire TV Stick, Apple TV, Android Smart TV, routers, and others are on that list. However, Private Internet Access lacks a native Fire TV Stick app, a shame given that pretty much all premium providers offer it. NordVPN is no exception. PIA looks and feels premium on all devices, something we always like.
Noteworthy is that its Windows app seems to be on the clunkier side and a tad confusing at first. It’s sluggish and not the most optimized. On the flip side, it’s easy to connect to the server in a few seconds.
NordVPN looks two worlds above PIA. The Windows VPN app is stunningly beautiful, with the world map in the background and all settings easily accessible. This trend continues on mobile devices, where NordVPN resembles the same great aesthetics.
It’s worth noting that the experience was consistent in our NordVPN test, while PIA’s experience was far better on our iOS and Android phones than on Windows and macOS computers. In terms of simultaneous connections, PIA is better than NordVPN. It supports unlimited, while NordVPN is locked to ten.
Winner: Tie 🟰
NordVPN has slightly better compatibility, primarily due to native Fire TV Stick apps, but Private Internet Access strikes back with unlimited simultaneous connections. As a whole, we went with a tie, as each VPN has its own strengths.
Private Internet Access vs NordVPN: Price Comparison
Flagship VPNs don’t have to cost much, as proven in our low-cost VPN guide. As it turns out, NordVPN and Private Internet Access are some of the least costly options you’ll find. You’ll pay roughly two to three bucks a month, and this is a silly price.
Private Internet Access Prices
Starting with PIA, the provider isn’t overly flexible, offering only three plans. However, these are enough because you’ll immediately spot the best one. There’s a 2-year plan with two to four free months at around $2.19 a month. This is a huge 83% discount.
To be clear, you’ll pay only around $57 for the first two years and yearly thereafter, an overwhelmingly impressive deal. Granted, PIA’s monthly and 6-month plans are more expensive, but most people pick the longest one for the best savings either way. This provider also has a 30-day money-back guarantee.
In addition, you can purchase optional extras, such as its antivirus, which can be bought for as low as $1.45 per month on top. Dedicated IPs are also here, and they start at $2.50 per month per IP, a lot less than NordVPN’s dedicated IP addresses.
NordVPN Prices
NordVPN has a more complex but flexible pricing structure. Again, its 2-year plans yield the best savings, as you’ll pay around $3.09 a month for the Basic plan (73% off). The other three plans offer more options, and while the Basic plan is cheap, it lacks advanced security features you’ll inevitably want.
However, if you want to save as much money, the Basic plan should be your go-to pick. If not, the next plan is the best overall deal, as it includes Threat Protection Pro, Double VPN (we explained this feature here), and NordPass. Complete and Prime plans add NordLocker (1 TB) and NordProtect for more variety.
NordVPN also has annual options. They’re pricier per month but allow for shorter commitments. NordVPN’s monthly plans are more expensive, so we’d stick to 2-year and 1-year plans instead. Its prices are volatile, which means they’ll cost differently during specific parts of the year, thanks to discounts.
Sometimes, you’ll be given three free months, as it is today. One thing is certain: NordVPN is never as affordable as Private Internet Access. Even its dedicated IP addresses are way more expensive, at about $4.19 per IP. With a 30-day money-back guarantee, the provider is risk-free, just like Private Internet Access.
Winner: Private Internet Access 🏆
PIA VPN takes this one as a cheaper VPN, both in its introductory deal and when you renew your subscription. At about $2.19, which also comes down to $2.03 for special discounts, PIA VPN is the right pick for users on a shoestring budget.
NordVPN vs Private Internet Access Features
To determine the value of these providers, we must evaluate their features and see what they offer. VPNs work the same in their essence, so some features are shared while others are unique to each provider. All are compared below.
Shared Features
Being some of the safest options to use in 2026, you’ll find ample similarities between Private Internet Access and NordVPN. They share the following features:
- 256-bit GCM encryption. The highest encryption level you can get. PIA offers the option to use 128-bit encryption if you want to prioritize speed. Our tests of Private Internet Access imply there’s no feasible difference, so pick 256-bit.
- Kill switch. Both options have advanced kill switches to keep IP and data leaks out of your way. This applies to blocking internet connections when the VPN is off. NordVPN’s kill switch also works on a per-app basis, which you won’t find in PIA.
- Ad-Blocking. NordVPN’s Web Protection and PIA’s MACE can block ads. We found the former slightly more effective, as it’s accompanied by other unique features. More about them in a minute.
- WireGuard support. You’ll find WireGuard in both choices, with NordVPN’s NordLynx being the better variant. NordLynx is an improved WireGuard version with better speeds and, in our book, stronger anonymity and privacy.
- Split Tunneling. This one is handy for routing specific apps through the tunnel. You can exclude the ones you don’t want to benefit from added VPN protection.
- Multi-hop/Double VPN. Another fantastic feature usable for gaining two encryption layers. It routes your traffic through two servers, making you untraceable. PIA has an edge because it lets you choose these servers, while NordVPN has pre-built server pairs.
Unique Features
We’ve pretty much listed all of the most important features of Private Internet Access and NordVPN. Let’s check out their differences and see which provider prevails.
Dedicated Servers
Both providers have some dedicated servers. The American one (Private Internet Access) relies only on streaming servers, however. NordVPN has the following:
- Double VPN for encrypting your traffic twice
- Onion Over VPN for VPN + Tor connections
- Obfuscated for masking your VPN connection in censored regions
- P2P for downloading torrents and P2P transfers
As you can see, the server variety is a bit better, plus, most of these are focused on your privacy and security. Obfuscated servers are amazing, as they make the VPN work in China. We’ll tackle this topic later in the NordVPN vs PIA battle.
Obfuscation
While discussing obfuscation, both providers have it. However, they do it differently. NordVPN applies obfuscation to your connection by making it look like a regular connection, beating deep-packet inspection in censored countries. It also uses NordWhisper, a protocol designed to sidestep network filtering.
Private Internet Access combines Multi-hop with obfuscation. The latter comes in the form of Shadowsocks or SOCKS5 Proxy. Shadowsocks is easy to use. You enable it and select the country that you’ll use for your exit server. What happens next?
When you connect to a VPN server, your connection will flow through it first and then be obfuscated with the Shadowsocks country you selected. Another method is to use SOCKS5, which needs a manual configuration, plus Shadowsocks works better.
Meshnet
Meshnet is unique to NordVPN’s apps. It’s free and can be used simply by downloading the app to your device. It has many purposes, including:
- Remote device access
- File sharing (remote)
- Connection routing
We’ve used it many times for quickly sending files or bypassing various IP bans and geo-restrictions. Such a feature can be used to unblock sites or even circumvent Netflix’s account-sharing restriction. PIA offers nothing similar, so it’s out of the game.
Threat Protection Pro
Threat Protection is a key feature that keeps your device’s security top-notch. Mobile users can enjoy Threat Protection Lite. Web Protection is just a part that blocks ads and trackers. However, there’s also File Protection that scans your files for malware and prevents malicious downloads.
On top of that, Advanced Browsing Protection blocks malicious websites and informs you how many it has blocked for a better overview. Its rival’s MACE feature blocks only trackers and ads.
Winner: NordVPN 🏆
Both VPNs are secure, with no IP leaks and other inconveniences in our tests. Still, we must give this one to NordVPN because it offers more features and has unique options like Meshnet and malware protection.
Do NordVPN and PIA Store Logs?
Logging is what most people will be concerned with, but let’s put your disturbed minds at rest – none of them keep logs. We’ll examine their no-log policies, but in this Private Internet Access vs NordVPN comparison, we first must see where they’re based. PIA is in the USA. NordVPN is in Panama.
Panama is a bit better privacy-wise, as the USA is the founding member of the Five Eyes. Despite its US roots, the former has a no-log policy proven in court, where the authorities couldn’t extract a single bit of information, indicating its validity.
The provider keeps no logs of your browsing history, user IP, connection timestamps, bandwidth logs, DNS queries, and so on. It also relies on RAM servers for added privacy, on top of which, it has an audit from Deloitte on this very green-letter policy.
We can say the same for NordVPN, whose minimal logging makes it a very trustworthy VPN. Like its rival, the Panamanian giant doesn’t keep any data regarding your IP address, location, visited websites, timestamps, or other personally identifiable information. Don’t think the provider lacks third-party audits.
It has a few, from Deloitte and PriceWaterhouseCoopers. We know NordVPN’s jurisdiction is better, but honestly, PIA’s jurisdiction has never been an obstacle. You have fantastic VPNs in the USA that take extreme measures to avoid logging and keep things private. This is one of them.
Winner: Tie 🟰
Both VPNs have proven not to store sensitive logs, making them great for anonymity and privacy on public WiFi or home networks. Whichever VPN you choose, you can relax knowing your data is safe and sound.
Which VPN Is Faster: PIA or NordVPN?
Speed-wise, we’ll immediately tell you the American provider isn’t Usain Bolt or Lewis Hamilton during their prime. Before we divulge our test results, we’ll first show you our native internet speeds. At the time, we were in Belgrade, with the following non-VPN internet performance:
Having done this test, we right away proceeded to our VPN testing. We did three tests daily for three days in a row, using three server locations. They included the UK, the USA, and Japan. The protocol selection remained automatic in both cases to minimize the margin of error. We focused primarily on speed loss percentages.
The table below displays the average speed loss percentages for download and upload speeds, based on all the tests we performed during a couple of days. Let’s see who is faster:
| Download Speed Loss 🔽 | Upload Speed Loss 🔼 | |
| Private Internet Access | 26% | 24% |
| NordVPN | 18% | 7% |
According to the averages, NordVPN is faster than Private Internet Access. There’s a distinction of 8% for the former in download speeds. The Panamanian provider solidifies its victory in upload speeds, where it’s a whopping 17% faster. If you want speed test results from our tests for a direct comparison, refer to the table below.
| UK (Download/Upload) | US (Download/Upload) | Japan (Download/Upload) | |
| Private Internet Access | 298.69/17.42 Mbps | 261.93/12.84 Mbps | 197.89/14.31 Mbps |
| NordVPN | 324.25/18.68 Mbps | 292.75/18.31 Mbps | 223.54/17.85 Mbps |
Winner: NordVPN 🏆
This is a no-brainer. While Private Internet Access was a formidable competitor, the blue team won by preserving download and upload speeds more efficiently on both nearby and distant servers.
Streaming & Torrenting
For many, it’s not all about security and privacy. If you just want to have fun downloading torrents or streaming, you’ll be asking which provider is better – NordVPN or PIA. It will be NordVPN, but hang tight as we explain why.
Streaming
First of all, NordVPN is faster, so expect better streaming performance. Second, it’s way more efficient at unblocking streaming services. Compared to PIA’s five or so unblockable Netflix catalogs, NordVPN’s 25 is more impressive. It has a VPN extension that will work on Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave, and other browsers.
With its location spoofing feature, accessing ESPN Plus abroad is a piece of cake. We noticed PIA doesn’t always work with it, making it less reliable. In fact, it’s less reliable overall. NordVPN will unblock even harder-to-access platforms like Prime Video, Hulu, HBO Max, and others.
While PIA can do the same, it takes a bit of trickery, such as using its dedicated streaming servers, switching them around, and sometimes picking OpenVPN. We don’t say Private Internet Access isn’t suitable for streaming. It is and will unblock Netflix US if you want. When pinned against NordVPN, it’s underwhelming.
Torrenting
In the torrenting field, these punch equally hard. Both have P2P support on all servers, with NordVPN having P2P-specific servers in some locations. After testing them, we found both are fast and secure, ensuring anonymity throughout the process.
Torrenting tools like SOCKS5 and port forwarding are there. While NordVPN has SOCKS5, the other provider offers both. Port forwarding is handy for performance boosts, but in reality, it’s not great for anonymity. Nice of PIA to include it.
When torrenting, it’s great to use a nearby server to maximize performance. We had to do that with PIA because of its higher speed reductions. NordVPN’s performance was preserved with ease, no matter what we did.
Winner: NordVPN 🏆
NordVPN’s streaming and torrenting results were more convincing. Apart from unblocking more Netflix libraries, it worked with other streamers reliably. Its P2P speeds were also higher, providing faster downloads even on distant servers.
PIA vs NordVPN: Server Locations
If you thought the American provider had run out of playing cards, think again. NordVPN’s jaw-dropping server network of 8,400+ servers in 130+ countries sounds mighty, and it’s not just the numbers. NordVPN’s server distribution is impeccable, with dedicated servers that spike the variety.
Private Internet Access has around 90 countries, but has around 30,000 servers globally. This is a stark difference, as the provider packs roughly four times (slightly less) as much. In practice, there’s no difference, and the country spread seems to have more effect on the overall experience in this case.
Besides, NordVPN has more dedicated servers, even introducing Onion over VPN servers to visit the dark web privately. However, PIA seems to have an edge in the USA, where it offers servers in all states. NordVPN doesn’t, but it offers over 3,000 servers on American soil, all relying on fast 10 Gbps ports.
Winner: NordVPN 🏆
We give this round to NordVPN, which surely has fewer servers, but offers a better spread (130 vs. 90 countries) and more dedicated servers. Private Internet Access has imposing numbers, which don’t contribute to top-tier performance in practice.
Bypassing Censorship: Which VPN Does It Better?
While both offer obfuscation, our testers in China found NordVPN way more useful. It connects without problems using pretty much all obfuscated servers. Shadowsocks can be a great solution. On a few occasions, they managed to make PIA work well, but not as often as its competitor.
If you choose SOCKS5 as your obfuscation method, the provider won’t work. NordVPN’s obfuscated servers are effective at circumventing many internet restrictions. We’re not talking only about China. People use this provider in Turkey, Russia, Iran, and many other regions without issues.
No doubt, Private Internet Access will also work there and bypass firewalls in schools, workplaces, and other institutions. If you need a VPN for China, NordVPN is superior to Private Internet Access. If not, you can get away with Private Internet Access, which will work in all other censored regions.
Winner: NordVPN 🏆
Pick NordVPN for its reliable performance in China, as the most heavily censored country. Private Internet Access displayed less convincing performance in China, but still worked in other less censored countries like NordVPN.
NordVPN vs Private Internet Access: Final Verdict
We don’t have to do the math to see who is the winner. After this exhausting NordVPN vs Private Internet Access comparison, NordVPN emerges victorious. This isn’t so strange considering its superiority over all of its competitors, including ExpressVPN. Private Internet Access is cheaper, if that matters to you.
It has customizable Multi-hop and unlimited simultaneous connections. NordVPN has more intuitive apps, superior compatibility, numerous security features, and superior streaming and torrenting abilities. The provider also took the censorship round, cementing its place as the winner of this duel.
As we’ve already examined and compared all of their features, one question remains – which provider has better value for money? We must say it’s NordVPN again, despite its higher price. You’ll pay about a dollar more per month. At this price, you get a considerably better provider – otherwise, we would recommend PIA.