CyberGhost vs OVPN: Which VPN is Best?

Although actually using a VPN is pretty simple, it can be tough for newcomers to get over the initial hurdle of choosing a service. That’s where we come in: we’ve thoroughly researched CyberGhost and OVPN and created an easy-to-read guide that explains everything that these VPNs have to offer in layman’s terms. We’ll be covering everything from speed to encryption strength, so whatever questions you might have, you’ll find an answer below.

Without further ado, let’s jump right in. Here’s a breakdown of what we discovered when CyberGhost and OVPN went head-to-head:

Summary: CyberGhost vs OVPN

CyberGhost vs OVPN: price comparison

These services are similarly-priced if you’re signing up for one month at a time. You’ll almost always find that the price drops significantly with long-term plans, and that’s true in this case too. CyberGhost costs just over $2 per month at its cheapest, with OVPN cutting the cost by 75 percent on its three-year plan. We did like that OVPN had a wider range of subscription lengths; in contrast, CyberGhost users looking for medium-term coverage end up paying more as there’s no one-year plan.

CyberGhost and OVPN both have a money-back guarantee that allows you to try their service with no risk whatsoever. That said, OVPN’s policy seems overly restrictive. Users have just 10 days to trial the VPN, which is far less than the industry standard (30 days). CyberGhost, meanwhile, offers a 45-day guarantee, which is extremely generous.

CyberGhost vs OVPN features

The good news is that CyberGhost and OVPN both support all major platforms, including Linux. Additionally, you can manually install either service on your router, which lets you protect every device on your network while only counting as a single connection.

OVPN has done something very strange, though. Unlike CyberGhost, which has a flat seven-connection limit, it has different limits depending on how long you’ve subscribed for. Monthly subscribers can connect up to four devices, for instance, whereas those on a three-year plan can connect up to seven. This seems a little unfair since it forces customers to lock themselves into longer subscriptions just to protect a few more devices.

These VPNs have their own Chrome and Firefox extensions, with OVPN supporting Vivaldi as well. It’s worth noting that these only encrypt browser traffic and won’t let you torrent or game privately, though. CyberGhost also offers its own Smart DNS service that can help you access region-locked streaming sites on systems that don’t have full VPN support, such as games consoles. Further, it can block ads and malware automatically, which is a huge bonus.

Streaming and Netflix comparison

Just about every major streaming service region-locks its content. You may not be able to watch while traveling abroad, or the available titles might be completely different. Now, while these restrictions are usually pretty easy to sidestep, streaming platforms have also gotten very good at identifying the signs of VPN traffic. As such, it takes a really special service to access more than a handful of popular streaming apps.

CyberGhost performed flawlessly in our tests, even working with ABC, which frequently trips up even the best VPNs. There are specific servers designed for streaming, and each of these lets you know which service it’s best at accessing.

OVPN’s website claims that it works with all manner of streaming services, so initially, we had high hopes. After actually testing it, though, we were unable to use many of the apps listed. It did seem to perform better with US-based services, though. Additionally, when a platform is supported, you can use any of the region’s servers to access it, so there’s minimal fuss.

China

Visitors to China will quickly realize that services they use every day, like Google or Facebook, are blocked by the country’s Great Firewall. What’s more, in a bid to stop people from bypassing these restrictions, the government has blocked most VPN websites and stopped their apps from functioning correctly. There are still a few VPNs that work in China, however.

Unfortunately, CyberGhost and OVPN aren’t two of them. OVPN doesn’t even mention China once anywhere on its website. CyberGhost does something that’s arguably worse: offers conflicting information, first saying that if VPNs are banned where you are, they can’t do anything about it for legal reasons, then following that statement up with “Although CyberGhost offers possible workarounds for users from countries with censorship problems, the company asks [you] to not follow these instructions”.

Setup and interface

CyberGhost offers user-friendly apps that maintain a similar appearance and level of functionality across mobile and desktop platforms. It can be a little tricky to find a specific option in the settings menu but we really liked that the server list was broken up into different categories. This makes it as easy as possible to find a server suitable for torrenting, gaming, or accessing your favorite streaming platform.

OVPN’s design really couldn’t be any simpler. The main screen has a dropdown list of server locations so that you can quickly connect to the fastest one in any country (it’s also possible to choose a server manually, though). The settings are split across several tabs, and each has a question mark beside it that’ll tell you a little more about that specific option. There’s also a statistics tab that charts your bandwidth usage over the last 24 hours, though this unfortunately doesn’t record your speeds.

Servers and performance

These providers have each taken a completely different approach to infrastructure management. OVPN has kept its network small, offering access to bare-metal servers in around 30 of the most in-demand locations. These include the US, Germany, and Japan. If you sign up for six months or longer, you’ll also be able to use the multi-hop servers in these locations.

CyberGhost, meanwhile, has actively expanded its network of 11,000+ servers across 100 different countries. Theoretically, this allows users to access content from a wider range of places. Not all of these are actually located where they say they are, though. This is because it’s often too expensive, difficult, or dangerous to maintain physical hardware in certain places.

Virtual servers offer a middle ground, allowing you to get an IP address from these countries without any of the risk. They do, however, make it very difficult to tell which country’s data-retention legislation actually applies to you, since few VPNs actually say where their virtual servers are hosted.

Here’s a list of every location where these providers offer servers:

The table above reveals one of OVPN’s biggest flaws: its network is very Euro-centric, with minimal coverage across Asia and no locations in the Middle East or Africa. OVPN is far from the only service to under-represent these regions but it’s certainly an area that could be improved upon moving forward.

OVPN delivered impressive speeds, averaging just over 100 Mbps. That’s fast enough to stream 4K video on multiple screens simultaneously, and should be more than enough for any day-to-day task. CyberGhost, however, went even further. In our latest tests, it averaged 296 Mbps, making it better suited to households where a lot of people use the internet at the same time.

Security comparison

Both CyberGhost and OVPN support the OpenVPN and WireGuard protocols. These are the two main protocols used by paid providers, with the former slowly being phased out and replaced by the latter. CyberGhost also allows you to connect via IKEv2 if you’d like, but we’d suggest just allowing the app to decide which protocol to use automatically most of the time.

These services both use effectively uncrackable encryption (AES-256 on OpenVPN and ChaCha20 on WireGuard), so there’s no need to worry about having your traffic intercepted. OVPN recently added the split tunneling functionality and the ability to block LAN traffic, which are steps in the right direction although most consumer VPNs have had these for a while already.

Each of these VPNs prevents data from escaping unencrypted via WebRTC, DNS, or IPv6 leaks. A kill switch built-in will stop sending packets immediately if your internet connection drops. CyberGhost has a few interesting other features, like automatic ad and tracker-blocking, plus a tool that’ll send data over a random port (which could help beat some VPN-blocking tools). Users can also create smart rules, which govern when your VPN connects, and to which server.

Privacy

CyberGhost and OVPN are two providers that clearly care about your privacy. Neither keeps any activity logs, nor do they collect any data that could link your connection logs to you individually. They even publish regular transparency reports!

So what info do they collect? OVPN records whether a user has ever connected, while CyberGhost logs your country of origin and whether you connected successfully. CyberGhost has been independently audited to prove that it really doesn’t store anything that could identify you, but as yet, OVPN hasn’t. It has, however, had its claims tested in court, and was found to be telling the truth.

It’s also important to look at where these services are based. CyberGhost, for instance, operates out of Romania, which means you get the protection that GDPR legislation offers. OVPN is also based in Europe, although its HQ is in Sweden, which is a member of the 14 Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance. Theoretically, this means that your data could be shared with the governments of the US, the UK, or any other participating country.

In practice, though, there’s little need to worry. That’s because OVPN has gone above and beyond to make its infrastructure as secure as possible. It only uses self-owned, RAM-based servers with all write permissions disabled, meaning they’re completely wiped when they restart and have no way of keeping any data afterward. Users don’t even have to provide an email address to register (though you won’t be able to reset your password without one).

CyberGhost also uses RAM-only servers, and even offers special NoSpy servers that are physically contained within the company’s headquarters, offering true end-to-end protection. Further, a bug bounty program incentivizes hackers who find vulnerabilities in the system to get paid for revealing them to CyberGhost directlyinstead of selling them to criminals.

Customer service

Customer support is something that’s often undervalued, since nobody ever expects to need it. However, when things go wrong, having knowledgeable staff just a message away is extremely helpful.

CyberGhost takes all of the stress out of getting help. Users can take advantage of the live chat service to talk to support staff at any time, day or night. There’s also a support email address and ticket system for more complex problems. As you might expect, there’s an expansive knowledge base full of answers to commonly-asked questions, plus a YouTube channel offering step-by-step video guides.

OVPN also offers live chat, though this goes offline at the weekend. The website says that this is because it’s a startup with a smaller team, which is fair enough. You can still send staff an email during this time, though you should expect longer response times than normal.

The winner: CyberGhost

If there’s one thing that we’ve proven above, it’s that both of these services can hold their own. However, for the average user, CyberGhost comes out on top. It’s significantly faster, offers access to almost four times as many locations, and provides around the clock customer support. Not only that, it works with a huge range of streaming services and even offers servers specially designed for torrenting or enhanced privacy.

Of course, you can always try these VPNs out for yourself. They each come with a risk-free money-back guarantee, so you can cancel within the guarantee window and request a refund if you decide not to keep using the service.

Other VPN comparisons:

• CyberGhost vs ExpressVPN
• CyberGhost vs Atlas VPN
• OVPN vs PrivateVPN
• OVPN vs IPVanish

Methodology: How we compared CyberGhost and OVPN

Getting an accurate comparison of competing VPNs is actually quite tricky. Services that appear similar at first glance often vary immensely when you scratch beneath the surface. To be as fair and comprehensive as possible, we looked into every aspect of CyberGhost and OVPN’s apps, including:

• Server availability: A VPN’s server locations determine which content you can access. We’re less concerned with server count since differing configurations could theoretically allow a provider with a tiny network to outperform one with far more servers.
• Performance: Our team monitors the speeds of leading VPNs, averaging the results of nine separate tests for every provider to get the best idea of the speeds most people can expect. If a service is slower or less reliable than we’d expect, we’ll let you know.
• Versatility: A VPN that only works some of the time is no good. That’s why we test them with day-to-day tasks like streaming Netflix, using P2P networks, and playing online games. This way, even if everyone on your network uses the internet for different things, there shouldn’t be any problems.
• Security and privacy: VPNs are privacy tools, so we check for uncrackable encryption, industry-recognized protocols, and extras like tracker-blocking, a kill switch, or a stealth mode. We’ll also dig into each provider’s logging policy and audit history.
• User-friendliness: The more welcoming a VPN is to novices, the better. We’ve seen providers offer 24/7 live chat, multi-platform support, and easy-to-setup router firmware.
• Cost: If there’s a discount, money-back guarantee, or free trial available, we’ll let you know. Additionally, we’ll also inform you if there’s a better VPN at a lower price.

If you’d like to learn more about how we put VPNs to the test, read our methodology post. This breaks down our whole process in an easy-to-understand way.

CyberGhost vs OVPN: FAQs