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NordVPN vs IPVanish is a fight between two of the best VPNs in the game, but which is most worthy of your time and money? We won't keep you waiting – IPVanish is the better tool for advanced users, while NordVPN is the better VPN for anyone seeking a simple, secure VPN for an affordable price.
If pricing is your priority, be sure to check out NordVPN's New Year's deals, which will allow you to save up to 63% on NordVPN 2-year plans. One plan includes a password manager and encrypted cloud storage for just $5.99 per month. If you just want the VPN on its own, that's now just $3.49 per month for a 2-year subscription.
Both NordVPN and IPVanish make privacy a priority, letting you select from a wide range of servers worldwide. Both also offer advanced options like a killswitch, which will stop any online activity dead should the VPN lose connection. We pitch NordVPN and IPVanish against each other and tell you where each one excels.
NordVPN vs IPVanish: Head-to-Head
We independently test VPNs to make our recommendations. Our assessments include ease of use, depth of features, privacy tests and measured speed tests across both local and international VPN connections.
Both NordVPN and IPVanish excelled in our tests – they're two of the best VPNs around. Still, there's enough to pull the two apart:
In This Guide:
- IPVanish for Remote Work vs NordLayer
- NordVPN vs IPVanish - Which VPN is Best?
- NordVPN Highlights, Pros and Cons
- IPVanish Highlights, Pros and Cons
- Best Features: IPVanish
- Best for Privacy Settings: NordVPN
- Best Range of Servers: NordVPN
- Best for Speed: IPVanish
- Final Verdict
- Frequently Asked Questions
| Test Score Our scoring is based on independent tests and assessments of features, privacy settings, ease of use and value. | Price From Lowest price for single month subscription to cheapest paid tier. Other plans are available. | Verdict | No. of Devices | No. of Servers | Zero Data Logging | Kill switch | Email Support | Live Chat | Ease of Use | Features | Privacy | Speed | Help & Support | Value for Money | Free Trial | Try Click to find the latest offers, deals and discounts from the VPN provider | ||
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| BEST ON TEST  |  | |||||||||||||||||
| 4.8 | 4.2 | |||||||||||||||||
| $3.99 /month | ||||||||||||||||||
| Fast, effective, low-cost and simple – the best VPN we've tested, with risk-free money-back guarantee | Powerful features and security, but a bit technical. Some massive savings currently available. | |||||||||||||||||
| 6 | Unlimited | |||||||||||||||||
| 5,400+ (60+ countries) | 1,300+ (55+ countries) | |||||||||||||||||
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| ★★★★★ | ★★★★☆ | |||||||||||||||||
| ★★★★★ | ★★★★☆ | |||||||||||||||||
| ★★★★★ | ★★★★☆ | |||||||||||||||||
| ★★★★★ | ★★★★☆ | |||||||||||||||||
| ★★★★☆ | ★★★★★ | |||||||||||||||||
| ★★★★☆ | ★★★★☆ | |||||||||||||||||
| 30-day money-back guarantee | | |||||||||||||||||
NordLayer vs IPVanish for Remote Work
In 2023, when security breaches and remote work have become mainstays of the business world, it's hard to argue about the value of a good VPN. While personal usage is certainly up, the reality is that VPNs are more geared toward professional use in hopes of adding an added layer of security and peace of mind to your company security protocol.
Fortunately, IPVanish is a good option for businesses, and NordVPN actually has a business-facing plan, called Nordlayer, that can help you take your security to the next level. Here's how they match up against each other:
- Nordlayer has more business features than IPVanish
- IPVanish allows for unlimited devices, NordLayer does not
- NordLayer is more affordable for businesses than IPVanish
In so many words, NordLayer is a clear choice for businesses, as it offers business-specific features and offers some very competitive pricing.
NordLayer Pricing
NordVPN Team offers three different pricing plans. The first is the Basic plan, which cost $7 per user per month and adds all the business features you'd expect, like a control panel, centralized billing, and advanced security features like kill switches and two-factor authentication. You'll also get access to 24/7 support, which is also a perk.
Next up, we've got the Advanced plan, which in earnest doesn't add too much. It costs $9 per user per month, and you'll get a few more server locations and priority support. You'll also be allowed to add dedicated IP addresses for an additional $40 per month.
Finally, NordLayer has an Enterprise plan as well, although publicly available pricing is not available. It adds a lot though, including API access, active directory functionality, customer features, and branding opportunities throughout the platform. With all that though, it's safe to assume it's going to cost you quite a bit.
IPVanish for Remote Work Pricing
IPVanish does not actually have specific pricing for businesses. Instead, they encourage users to simply utilize its standard IPVanish VPN for remote work, allowing for employees to access company data without fear of compromising it.
For standard IPVanish pricing, the VPN will cost you $10.99 per month if you opt for the monthly plan, or only $3.20 per month if you opt for the yearly plan. However, that discount only lasts for a year, in which cause you'll be paying $10.99 per month after that.
NordVPN or IPVanish – Which VPN is Best for Personal Use?
Both NordVPN and IPVanish are top-notch VPNs. However, in our testing, it was IPVanish which just edged over the finish line first, thanks to its fast international speeds and the level of control it offers the user.
- IPVanish offers the fastest transatlantic speeds
- When it comes to value, NordVPN is the cheapest
- NordVPN has a risk-free money-back guarantee and lots of deals
- NordVPN has the strongest set of privacy features
- Both NordVPN and IPVanish offer a killswitch function for protection
In recent years, the VPN has managed to shake off its unjustified shady image, and many of us are now using one on a daily basis to protect ourselves from online hackers, protect our identity, and access content in other territories which would otherwise be closed off to us.
If you're flipping a coin between NordVPN or IPVanish, then rest assured that you can't really put a foot wrong with either of them. Both go out of their way to protect your identity, and for a few bucks, a month can seriously elevate your internet experience.
NordVPN – Summary
- Wide range of servers
- Offers ad-blocking and malware-blocking features
- Has a more tolerant approach to torrenting than other VPNs
- Offers live chat support
NordVPN is one of the most established VPNs out there, and for good reason. It's fast, relatively easy to use, and offers great privacy features that mean others can't snoop on you when you're online. Plus, an excellent risk-free money-back guarantee for NordVPN let's you try before you buy.
NordVPN is pleasingly fast – whether you're uploading or downloading – and although all VPNs take a speed hit compared to the pace of your standard ISP, with NordVPN, it's minimal. When accessing a transatlantic server, you can expect a connection around 50% of your normal speed. That might not sound great, but its actually far more impressive than most other VPNs.
NordVPN is also one of the few VPNs that takes a permissive view on peer to peer filesharing, and will allow you to use its service to protect yourself when torrenting. It's an unusual feature, although it will only allow you to connect to specific servers.
NordVPN server choices and streaming
If there's one place that NordVPN excels, its with its choice of servers to connect to. Operating in 59 countries and with over 5,363 servers, it has a much wider reach than many of its competitors, and you're unlikely to run into any congestion problems.
A word of warning if you're after a VPN to access Netflix – the video streaming giant rumbled us when we used IPVanish, and wouldn't let us access any content. The same isn't true of NordVPN though, which does allow for Netflix streaming. If that's what you're mainly interested in, we have a guide to the best VPNs for Netflix.
For the full lowdown, read our NordVPN Review
Pros:
- Risk-free money-back guarantee
- Excellent mobile app for iOS
- Lightning-quick connection speeds
- Packed with useful security features
- Excellent value for money
Cons:
- Couldn't unblock some streaming services when tested
- Roughly half of the server network is located in the USA
- Assumes some technical knowledge for advanced features
- From $4.19/month
- VPN + Password Manager + Cloud Storage $6.69/month
IPVanish – Summary
- Owns all of its servers
- One of the fastest VPNs tested
- Feature-packed Windows app
- Live chat support
IPVanish is one of the largest commercial VPNs. It owns all of its 1,000+ servers in 60 countries, rather than simply leasing them from third party data centers, like some of its rivals do.
While NordVPN may have some of the fastest upload and download speeds in the business, IPVanish has it licked, really going all out to ensure that your connection doesn't take too much of a hit when you connect to a server. This is especially true when connecting to transatlantic servers, where we found that it was one of our fastest VPNs during testing.
IPVanish VPN features and settings
If you're the sort of person who enjoys taking a deep-dive into your VPN options, the Windows app has you sorted, stuffed with more features than you could conceivably need. If you want to change the level of leak protection, hide your VPN usage from a site, or fiddle with the Killswitch settings, IPVanish will let you do all this and more.
While there's plenty of depth there for the initiated, newcomers can also use IPVanish fairly easily, especially if they avoid some of the more advanced features. It also also a live chat function, in case you really come unstuck, or simply need a helping hand.
Pros:
- Great Savings: Up to 64% Off
- Controls the entirety of its Tier-1 server network
- Strong privacy and security features
- Decent speeds
Cons
- Slightly intimidating user interface
- Hasn't made the switch to RAM servers
- Priced above some rivals
- $4 per month
Best Features: NordVPN
Most paid-for VPNs will offer a large suite of features, which can be appealing to those who have some experience using VPNs, but rather daunting to those who don't. The best will allow for plenty of customization, without confusing the user, and both NordVPN and IPVanish both manage to walk this line skilfully.
IPVanish has great advanced features
In a direct comparison of features, though, it's IPVanish which offers the broadest range of options, giving the user plenty of tools to tinker with (if they want to). The Windows app lets you take a deep dive into the options, including the ability to be able to change the VPN protocol or enable various levels of leak protection to really sew up your privacy. You can also obfuscate traffic, tricking sites into thinking you're not using a VPN.
If you want absolute control over your VPN, and like to tweak the settings until they're just right, IPVanish is the one for you.
NordVPN Still Comes out on Top
NordVPN isn't just more feature-rich than IP Vanish, it's possibly the most feature-rich VPN on the market. NordVPN has diskless servers, which means no user data is ever written to hard drives, and they're obfuscated too, which essentially just means the fact you're using a VPN is masked by NordVPN.
There are other useful functions, such as Threat Protection, which will help you avoid malware and adverts whilst online and scan any files you download onto your computer. A “Double Protection” option is also provided for anyone seriously concerned they might be being watched (it'll reroute your connection through two servers, making it even harder to trace).
NordVPN has a variety of other settings like Split tunneling (which lets you reroute a proportion of your traffic through a VPN server whilst leaving the rest alone) that really improve the user experience. New features are being brought out all the time too – just recently NordVPN updated their software to give users a Security Score – expressed as a percentage – to show just how many features you're taking advantage of.
Another new feature is a scanner that will crawl the dark web for mentions of the email address you used to sign up to NordVPN – so you know quickly whether you've been affected in a data breach.
Best for Privacy settings: NordVPN
Both IPVanish and NordVPN offer up excellent privacy options, and there's a reason for this. Any VPN worth its salt knows that people use their services for protecting their data and identity online, and you'll find that paid-for VPNs take this seriously. Neither IPVanish or NordVPN carry out the practice of data logging, which means that they don't collect or retain any information about you or your online session.
Extra VPN privacy tools
Both also have a killswitch feature, a handy tool that kicks in should your VPN fail, stopping your internet access dead. You might think that it's preferable to fall back on your standard ISP in these cases, but as this is unlikely to offer you the same degree of online anonymity, a killswitch means that your own internet provider (and anyone else) is unable to snoop on you should the VPN cease to work.
NordVPN has the slight edge over IPVanish as it has a function to block cookies and targeted adverts, allowing you to browse the internet in peace.
Best Range of Servers: NordVPN
A good VPN will offer you a wide range of servers. The more servers, the more choice – especially if they're located in a wide variety of countries, from which you can access your preferred content.
While both NordVPN and IPVanish have a presence in a similar number of countries (60 and 62, respectively), in terms of server numbers, NordVPN takes the crown, offering up 5,363 servers compared to IPVanish's 1,000+. In real terms, this means that NordVPN's servers are more likely to be free, meaning faster speeds and less congestion for the user – although it's worth noting that both offer a huge number of servers compared to most of their competitors.
Best for Speed: IPVanish
When using a VPN, speed is a key factor, which can depend heavily on the service being used and the location of the server. No matter which VPN you're using, your speed will always take a slight hit compared to your standard ISP, as your traffic is being re-routed. The good news is that both NordVPN and IPVanish performed brilliantly in our tests, with each able to deliver decent speeds.
IPVanish wins over long distances
NordVPN has the slight advantage locally, achieving slightly higher speeds than IPVanish when accessing servers within the same country. However, when accessing international servers, it was IPVanish that managed to achieve the faster speeds, both when uploading and downloading. Given that one of the big draws of using a VPN is accessing servers in a different country, this round has to go to IPVanish.
NordVPN vs IPVanish – the Verdict
Let's make one thing clear – whether you end up going with IPVanish or NordVPN, you'll be more than satisfied, with each delivering an excellent package that protects you online with a wrapper that is easy to understand and navigate.
As IPVanish has a larger selection of options, plus slightly faster speeds when accessing international servers, we declare it to be the victor. NordVPN is a worthy runner-up, though, and shouldn't be overlooked – especially given that it is slightly cheaper at $3.49 per month for the Standard VPN plan and has New Year's offers on at the moment that can save you up to 63% on plans that include password managers as well as a VPN.
When it comes to VPNs, you're spoilt for choice, but few are as comprehensive and efficient as these two. There's a reason NordVPN and IPVanish both top our rankings, and you'll struggle to find better options out there.
Frequently Asked Questions
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