ExpressVPN vs NordVPN: Which one works best in 2024?

NordVPN and ExpressVPN are two of the best-known providers on the market. However, while they have similarities, they differ in several crucial ways. We’ve personally tested both services and created an exhaustive ExpressVPN vs NordVPN head-to-head comparison to help you understand exactly what you’re paying for. Whether you’re interested in learning which VPN is faster or want to know which is better for privacy, you’ll find answers below.

ExpressVPN vs NordVPN: which service wins?

Our analysis suggests that NordVPN has a slight edge over ExpressVPN, making it the better choice for most people. To be clear, ExpressVPN is a high-quality service with impressive performance and a strong focus on security. That said, NordVPN is the cheaper option while being just as secure overall. It also offers advanced functionality, task-specific servers, and a slightly higher connection limit.

Summary: NordVPN and ExpressVPN at a glance

ExpressVPN Fast enough for any day-to-day task First-class support for routers Capable of unblocking most major streaming platforms High degree of security with minimal setup required Obfuscates traffic as required

NordVPN Offers servers in more than 110 locations Customizable privacy features Lots of ways for users to sign up anonymosuly Consistently fast and reliable performance Allows users to securely access their other devices remotely

Methodology: How we tested these two VPNs

Determining the “best” of two VPNs would always be tricky. After all, everything hinges on how you plan to use the service. For instance, a VPN with slower speeds but greater security might be the better choice if you’re concerned about privacy. To get an accurate idea of what NordVPN and ExpressVPN offer, we created a comprehensive testing methodology that can be broken up into six distinct categories. You’ll find more about these below:

• Speed: How fast your connection is depends on your distance to the chosen server, how well these are optimized, and even the time of day. We run speed tests on servers in 13 countries and average the results to get the most accurate idea of the speeds you can expect. Note that these tests are performed using a home broadband connection with an average speed of 48.52 Mbps.
• Network scale: Server count isn’t all that important. We’re more concerned with the number of locations you can choose from. The US is a big place, for example, so if the only server is in New York, users in California would be forced to put up with slower speeds than those on the East Coast. We also consider how many locations ExpressVPN offers that NordVPN doesn’t, and vice versa.
• Security and privacy: The main purpose of a VPN is to shield your activities from snoopers. To make this possible, they must use unbreakable encryption and prevent data from leaking out (whether over DNS, IPv6 or after an unexpected disconnection). We also dig deep into each VPN’s logging policy to ensure they don’t keep records of what you get up to online.
• Streaming ability: Most streaming services are regionally restricted and can only be accessed from specific countries—unless your VPN can sidestep their location-detection systems. Our team tested NordVPN and ExpressVPN against a gauntlet of the most stubborn services to see how many they supported and how reliably they worked.
• Value for money: Nobody wants to spend more than they have to. At the same time, the cheapest VPNs aren’t necessarily of the same quality. To ensure you’re getting a good deal, we examine each provider’s cost relative to what it offers, look for long-term discounts, and check to see whether it includes a money-back guarantee (as this effectively allows you to try it with the promise of a refund if you’re not impressed).
• Ease of use: We value providers that focus on making their services as straightforward as possible. This may be by offering a consistent experience across all app versions, providing 24/7 support via live chat, or simply describing what each setting does.

ExpressVPN vs NordVPN: Price comparison

Value is an abstract concept, so to make things as concrete as possible, we evaluated each provider on eight factors. This included examining how many different subscription terms NordVPN and ExpressVPN offered, finding their lowest monthly price, and checking whether any discounts were offered for students or first responders.

Each provider was assigned a score based on what they offered in the above areas. These were then weighted and normalized, giving us a final rating out of 10, which allows us to more easily compare multiple VPNs to one another.

As you can see, NordVPN came out on top with a score of 9.5 out of 10. It has a significantly lower minimum price than ExpressVPN, mainly due to the presence of a multi-year subscription. Additionally, NordVPN permits up to 10 simultaneous connections, whereas its rival only allows eight. The other major difference is that Nord has a couple of enhanced subscription options – these cost a little more each month but include bonuses like a password manager, encrypted file storage, and insurance that’ll keep you covered in the event of identity theft.

It’s worth noting that these providers have quite a bit in common, though. For instance, each VPN costs around $13 for a single month of coverage, and they both provide a 30-day money-back guarantee. We’ve tested both of these and can confirm that users can cancel via live chat without giving a reason for a full refund.

ExpressVPN and NordVPN: Speed and reliability comparison

Your VPN’s speed is more than just ensuring you can view pages quickly. If it’s too slow, you could find yourself unable to load videos or even end up disconnected from the VPN entirely, leaving your browsing habits visible to whoever owns the network. Plus, while it may be stating the obvious, people are much less likely to use their VPN if it makes day-to-day browsing painfully slow.

We regularly perform speed tests on ultrafast servers, but most people don’t have exceptionally quick home Wi-Fi. That’s why we decided to perform our testing on a standard broadband connection (averaging 48.52 Mbps) as well. We decided to use each provider’s proprietary VPN protocol for testing (NordLynx and Lightway) as these are significantly quicker than OpenVPN, and neither VPN supports WireGuard.

NordVPN delivered better performance on 10 of the 13 servers we tried, though to ExpressVPN’s credit, there usually wasn’t much difference between the two providers. The Hong Kong servers had the biggest variance (5.67 Mbps), but that’s very minor in the grand scheme of things, especially considering these are on the other side of the world. Overall, NordVPN averaged 39.16 Mbps, and ExpressVPN averaged 38.42 Mbps, marginally making Nord the fastest VPN of the two.

Once these scores were weighted and normalized, we ended up with the following scores out of 10 for each provider:

Network and server locations

ExpressVPN and NordVPN have two of the largest networks around. The former claims to offer over 105 locations, while the latter has 110+ (though not all of these are listed on the website – you’ll have to check the app itself). Here’s a full list:

As you’ll notice, there’s a lot of overlap. However, each provider has some locations that its rival doesn’t support. ExpressVPN offers virtual servers in Cuba, Belarus, and Macau. At the same time, NordVPN can get you an IP address from the UAE, Paraguay, Papua New Guinea, Nigeria, Greenland, El Salvador, Belize, and Azerbaijan.  Will everybody need these? No, but it’s always nice to have the option.

It’s also worth mentioning that both VPNs work in countries with high censorship, such as China. NordVPN users have to enable obfuscated servers in the settings menu and then choose one of these specialty servers to browse safely, but ExpressVPN takes care of all this for you. It’ll just start obfuscating your traffic when it realizes you need it.

So, what exactly are obfuscated servers? Essentially, these specially configured servers make encrypted VPN traffic look like everyday internet activity. The higher your level of security, the more work the server has to do to encrypt and decrypt traffic. In practical terms, this means that obfuscated servers are slightly slower than general-purpose ones. Therefore, we’d suggest only using them if you’re in a country with oppressive censorship.

App interface and multi-platform support

ExpressVPN boasts a simple, novice-friendly design that’s virtually identical on mobile and desktop devices. You’ll find a quick connect button on the main page, and clicking the VPN Locations button in the menu will take you to a server selection screen. There are two tabs here: one for commonly requested locations and another that shows every supported country alphabetically. The options menu is divided into multiple tabs, each with just a handful of settings to play with. We will say that the Shortcuts, Browsers, and Other tabs don’t really add much to the user experience and could probably be removed without too much impact on most users.

NordVPN’s interface seems a little more complex, but that’s only because it offers greater flexibility. Users will appreciate the ability to connect to specialty servers directly from the home screen, for instance. Roughly half of the tabs in the left-hand menu are for features that aren’t included with standard subscriptions. Still, even these advanced tools can generally be activated with a toggle switch (the exception being Meshnet – more on this later). The settings menu is grouped into multiple tabs, which helps keep things neat and organized. There’s much more customization potential here, so experienced users may prefer it to hands-off services like ExpressVPN.

ExpressVPN and NordVPN both offer apps for Windows, Android, iOS, MacOS, and Amazon Fire TV. They each have a command-line based app for Linux too. However, what really sets them apart is router support. ExpressVPN boasts custom firmware that allows you to use features like the kill switch and Lightway protocol, whereas NordVPN has to be manually configured for routers. On the plus side, the help section on its website walks you through the process step-by-step.

NordVPN vs ExpressVPN: Security and privacy

The main appeal of a VPN is its ability to hide your browsing activities from hotspot owners, network administrators, and the government. To do this, providers must offer unbreakable encryption and safeguards designed to prevent data from leaking out unencrypted. For the most comprehensive review of each VPN, we check to see what they offer in over a dozen relevant areas—take a look below for the full list.

Once again, these results are normalized and weighted to provide a final score out of 10:

Let’s start with what ExpressVPN and NordVPN have in common. They’re based in countries not part of any intelligence alliance (the British Virgin Islands and Panama, respectively). They each use AES-256 encryption, which currently cannot be cracked. Our testing revealed that neither leaks data via IPv6, DNS, or WebRTC and that the included kill switches work as intended (halting all data transfer following an unexpected outage). Both VPNs include obfuscation tools designed to sidestep extreme online censorship and block ads and trackers automatically. That’s a fantastic start!

One of ExpressVPN’s latest additions is its “Advanced Protection” tab. This allows users to block ads, shady sites, and trackers, or restrict access to adult content. 

Here’s the best bit: ExpressVPN and NordVPN have both proven their no-logs claims. NordVPN has had four external audits, and at the time of writing, ExpressVPN has been audited a staggering 18 times, with its apps, infrastructure, and privacy policy all independently examined. Now, ExpressVPN was purchased by Kape Technologies in 2021, which raised concerns given the organization’s previous involvement in advertising. Since then, however, the VPN has continued to pass audits with flying colors, and we’ve seen no indication of any security issues.

Both services allow you to choose specific apps or websites to bypass the VPN, too (a feature called split tunneling). This is helpful, for instance, if you’re trying to access content from another country without losing access to sites only available in your current location. However, if you’re looking for advanced functionality, NordVPN has more to offer. It can alert you when your personal info is found on the dark web, can help you securely send files, and offers a tool called Meshnet that lets users route data or remotely access your other devices from anywhere in the world.

ExpressVPN vs NordVPN: Streaming capability

In our years of testing, NordVPN and ExpressVPN have been two of the most reliable VPNs for streaming and accessing geo-blocked content. They regularly work with platforms that stump other providers, and you’ll rarely have to try multiple servers to find a suitable one.

Still, this is anecdotal. We tested them against around a dozen major streaming services to find out how versatile they are and noted how well they performed. Further, our team checked to see if they offered apps for other streaming hardware (Fire TV, Android TV, and so on) and whether they included a Smart DNS service. Here are our findings:

As you can see from the table above, ExpressVPN and NordVPN are very evenly matched. They each block ads, work in countries like China or the UAE, and offer first-class speeds. While both worked perfectly with different Netflix regions, we liked that it was possible to use this service with any of NordVPN’s servers. If you try to access a library that it can’t access, you’ll just be redirected to the US version of the site.

Additionally, both providers offer a Smart DNS feature to help you access region-locked content on devices that don’t support full VPN apps (such as game consoles or Smart TVs). Just be aware that these only provide access to US content and don’t encrypt any device traffic—they’re exclusively for streaming. Once again, we weighted and normalized each VPN’s scores and discovered that, for the first time, we have a tie!

NordVPN and ExpressVPN: Ease of use

User-friendliness is a tricky thing to quantify, but that wasn’t going to stop us. Still, given its subjectivity, we felt it best to create a comprehensive set of testing criteria. Our team examined each provider from the ground up, noting how straightforward the signup and cancellation processes were, ensuring that it was easy to secure every device we wanted, and checking to see whether any functionality was only present in certain versions of the app. Here’s what we discovered:

Overall, it’s clear that these providers value simplicity. Registering (and later, canceling our subscription) only took a few minutes and there were absolutely no quibbles when it came to testing the money-back guarantee. Multi-platform support was excellent, and there was very little difference between functionality across different devices. That said, NordVPN does offer tapjacking protection, which is a mobile-only feature.

When things go wrong, it’s vital that you’re able to resolve the problem as quickly as possible. NordVPN and ExpressVPN offer around-the-clock support over live chat. This is free, and the many times we’ve taken advantage of it, staff have been friendly, helpful, and fast to respond. Each provider also has an extensive library of how-to guides, tutorials, and help articles on its website, so you won’t even need to rely on staff the majority of the time.

Once we normalized and weighted the values from the table above, we found that NordVPN scored ever so slightly higher than its rival:

There were a couple of reasons for this. Firstly, it tells users which servers are best suited to tasks like torrenting, browsing the dark web, and beating online censorship. That removes a lot of trial and error, leading to a more seamless experience. Second, NordVPN was a little more consistent when it came to unblocking streaming sites – both providers could access every service we tested, but NordVPN generally worked the first time. However, ExpressVPN scored highly on router support, given its custom firmware that preserves most of the functionality of the standard apps.

Which is better overall: NordVPN or ExpressVPN?

ExpressVPN is a highly versatile, reliable service. It seems expressly designed to make browsing the web safely as easy as possible for novices and still manages to deliver speeds that many of its competitors could only dream of. In other words, it’s an excellent choice for VPN beginners who value simplicity and don’t mind spending a little more each month.

All things considered, though, NordVPN is the better option for most people. This service is as fast, offers many ways to customize your security setup, and enhances your online privacy like no other VPN. As if that wasn’t enough, it’s also slightly more reliable when it comes to streaming. You can even get a dedicated IP address if you’d like.

In short, NordVPN provides comparable performance, more robust security, and greater versatility than ExpressVPN at a lower price. It’s hard to argue with that.

Remember: ExpressVPN and NordVPN include a 30-day money-back guarantee with every subscription. You can sign up, try either service for a month, and cancel if you’re not impressed. Still, based on our experiences testing these VPNs, we’re confident you’ll be satisfied with one, if not the other.

Other VPN comparison articles

Want to know how some other leading providers compare to ExpressVPN and NordVPN? Check out some other comparisons below:

• ExpressVPN vs CyberGhost
• NordVPN vs Surfshark
• NordVPN vs IPVanish
• ExpressVPN vs IPVanish
• NordVPN alternatives
• ExpressVPN alternatives

NordVPN or ExpressVPN FAQs