IPVanish vs Atlas VPN: Which wins?

If you’re looking at various VPNs and struggling to find one that fits your needs, you’re not alone. The VPN market is growing at a rapid rate and there is an ever-increasing number of providers to choose from. Rather than being taken in by marketing speak, we’re testing VPNs for ourselves. Here, we’re taking a close look at IPVanish and Atlas VPN, two of our top-rated VPNs.

Below, you’ll find everything you need to know about IPVanish and Atlas VPN. We compare and contrast their pricing, features, performance, their response time to email enquiries, and more. It’s all broken down into easy-to-find, bite-size categories complete with even easier-to-understand comparison tables. To conclude, we’ll determine which wins in an effort to make your decision that little bit easier.

Highlights

IPVanish

• One of the fastest VPNs we’ve tested
• Works well with Netflix
• Unlimited simultaneous connections
• Solid security with encryption

Atlas VPN

• Fast with unlimited bandwidth
• Reliable unblocking of streaming services
• Connect all of your devices at once
• MultiHop servers for extra security

IPVanish vs Atlas VPN pricing

One of two plans that IPVanish and Atlas VPN have in common is the monthly subscription. This is the most expensive option per month, although it allows you greater flexibility if you’re not ready to commit long term. In both cases, you’ll pay $10.99 a month which is cheaper than many rival VPN providers, which often cost as much as $12-13/month.

IPVanish and Atlas VPN also offer one year subscriptions that get you a reduced rate compared to the monthly plans. This is the longest subscription option available with IPVanish. At $39.99 for the first year, you’re getting a discount of 69 percent. You pay just $3.33 a month as a result. The one year plan of Atlas VPN is very comparable at $39.42 for the first year. The 70 percent discount means you pay $3.29 a month.

We should also point out that IPVanish also offers a quarterly option. This is a good compromise between the more expensive monthly plan and the longer commitment that comes with an annual subscription. It’s available at $13.33 for the first three months or $4.44/month (59 percent off).

Atlas VPN’s lengthy three year subscription offers the biggest savings. It works out at just $1.99 a month ($71.49 for the first three years) thanks to the 82 percent discount.

Regardless of whether you choose IPVanish or Atlas VPN, you can benefit from a 30-day money-back guarantee. This is a great way to try either VPN risk-free. Note that in both cases, this is only available to you when you opt for the longest subscription plan (one year for IPVanish and three years with Atlas VPN).

Best Deal for IPVanish:Pay $39.99 for the first year of IPVanish. This works out at $3.33 a month, at a saving of 69 percent.

Best Deal for Atlas VPN:Save 82 percent with the Atlas VPN three year plan and pay $1.99 a month ($71.49 for the first three years).

IPVanish vs Atlas VPN features

With an IPVanish or Atlas VPN subscription, you’ll have access to apps for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and Amazon Fire TV. The difference is that Atlas VPN also offers an app for Android TV. However, you can manually configure IPVanish to work with compatible wireless routers as well as Linux (it provides manual setup instructions for both). Atlas VPN states that it doesn’t provide support for either Linux or routers.

Split tunneling is available via the Android apps of IPVanish and Atlas VPN. Indeed, it’s also now available with the Fire OS device apps of IPVanish. You can then choose which apps can bypass the VPN connection (useful if you need a faster, unencrypted connection for streaming, for example). While IPVanish doesn’t come with any free extra features, Atlas VPN includes an ad blocker as well as MultiHop (also known as Double VPN) servers.

Streaming and unblocking

There will be times when you find that you can’t access certain websites or services due to geographic restrictions. Region-locking is often due to restrictions related to copyright and licensing. This is common with streaming services, for example. However, some countries (such as China) have strict online censorship. This can impact news sites, social media services, and more.

The best VPNs can help you bypass restrictions. This is achieved by changing your IP address and spoofing your location. We tested IPVanish and Atlas VPN against some of the most popular streaming platforms. Overall, Atlas VPN was the most consistent of the two.

IPVanish fell short with some popular streaming services including Amazon Prime Video and BBC iPlayer. On the other hand, both VPNs worked well with Netflix and were able to securely access multiple libraries including Netflix US and UK. There are no guarantees that a VPN will work with a particular streaming service on any given day. Indeed, it’s something of a fluid situation as platforms look to prevent VPN use. However, these two VPN services are stronger unblockers of content than most VPNs.

Which of these VPNs work in China?

Unfortunately, IPVanish and Atlas VPN don’t work in China. This is a common issue with VPNs in China due to the country’s high level of censorship. The Great Firewall of China employs a variety of techniques to prevent the use of non government-approved VPN services. This includes IP address blocking, URL filtering, and DNS poisoning.

Some VPNs are still able to work in China, particularly those that offer a form of traffic obfuscation. The best VPNs for China include NordVPN, Surfshark, and ExpressVPN. However, as with IPVanish and Atlas VPN, their websites are blocked in China. As such, you’ll need to download and install your VPN ahead of any visit to the country.

Setup and interface

Setup with IPVanish and Atlas VPN is quick and easy thanks to the automatic setup wizard with the desktop and mobile apps. The desktop app of IPVanish presents more information than that of Atlas VPN overall. It manages to do this without feeling too cluttered. You’ll be able to find plenty of extra information about servers including ping and load. It’s also possible to favorite servers so you can find them faster next time.

Atlas VPN’s desktop app is more sparsely decorated but does include a tab for you to find streaming-optimized servers. In both cases, you can select a location via a list. IPVanish also includes a map view. Vertical left-side menus help you find the settings page and options such as VPN protocol and the kill switch.

The mobile apps are more similar and, as you’d expect, are simpler than their desktop counterparts. Each features a footer menu and a quick connect button so you can connect to the fastest available server in a single click. Overall, there’s little to separate the apps for IPVanish and Atlas VPN. Perhaps Atlas VPN’s are a little easier on the eye for beginners.

Servers and performance

With an IPVanish subscription, you’ll have access to over 2,000 servers across nearly 50 countries. This is a much larger network than that of Atlas VPN, which has roughly 750 servers in 37 countries. Both VPNs have servers in the most popular locations including the US, Canada, UK, Australia, and Japan. However, you’ll need IPVanish if you’re looking for a server in a country such as Argentina, Greece, or Turkey. Atlas VPN is the only one of the two with servers in Hong Kong.

It’s clear that whether you opt for IPVanish or Atlas VPN, you won’t have too much trouble when it comes to server speed. They both make our list of the fastest VPNs on the market. Of the two, IPVanish is the fastest. It averaged 488 Mbps in our tests (only CyberGhost was faster). Atlas VPN averaged 247 Mbps, which is still very fast and suitable for HD streaming, torrenting, and online gaming. Note that both VPNs offer unlimited bandwidth.

Looking for a server in a specific country? We’ve compiled a list of server locations for IPVanish and Atlas VPN:

Security

IPVanish provides more VPN protocols for you to choose from. While IPVanish and Atlas VPN both offer WireGuard and IKEv2, IPVanish supports OpenVPN and IPSec. The advantage of this is that you can choose that which best suits your needs. For example, WireGuard is now considered one of the fastest VPN protocols you can use. This makes it ideal for more bandwidth-intensive activities such as streaming.

Connecting to a VPN server in either case ensures your internet traffic is secured with 256-bit AES encryption. This is effectively uncrackable. The main difference is that while IPVanish uses 2048 bit keys, Atlas VPN’s keys are double in length (RSA-4096) and are thus even more secure.

Only IPVanish has cloaking technology. It has an obfuscation setting for the OpenVPN protocol called Scramble. This disguises VPN traffic as regular web traffic for bypassing blocks.

The two VPNs also have a kill switch feature. This is available on Windows, Mac, and iOS with IPVanish, and Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS in the case of Atlas VPN. Should the VPN connection fail, it cuts internet traffic and prevents data from being exposed. Notably, Atlas VPN also has an ad blocker which comes at no additional cost as part of your subscription.

Privacy

Interestingly, both IPVanish and Atlas VPN are headquartered in the United States. Many VPNs avoid this because the US is a member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. As such, any information gathered by the US government can then be shared with other member countries. However, it’s unlikely that the average person is on their radar so this usually isn’t something to worry about too much.

Despite the above, it’s well worth knowing that IPVanish and Atlas don’t keep logs by which you can be identified. In fact, unlike many VPN providers, IPVanish doesn’t even keep any connection logs (such as user IP addresses and timestamps). The same can’t be said for Atlas VPN which does keep some connection logs. This includes device data (model type, brand, etc.) and application usage data such as when you change app settings.

You aren’t required to provide much in the way of personal information when signing up with either IPVanish or Atlas VPN. Indeed, you only need to provide an email address so you can have an account and log in to the VPN app. Unfortunately, IPVanish doesn’t provide any anonymous payment options. Atlas VPN lets you pay in cryptocurrency (Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Ripple) via CoinPayments.

Configuration

Like most VPNs, IPVanish and Atlas VPN use shared IP addresses. When you connect to a server, you’re assigned the same IP address as other users on that server. One of the main advantages of this is that your browsing activity is then mixed with that of other users. It’s then much more difficult for a hacker or snooper to track a specific VPN user.

Neither VPN provides the option for you to obtain a dedicated IP address. This is unfortunate because dedicated IP addresses also have benefits. For starters, they’re less likely to be blacklisted by websites and services. You’re also less likely to have to enter CAPTCHAs while browsing.

While VPN IP addresses can also fall victim to DDoS attacks, a VPN still provides you with a layer of protection. That’s because your actual IP address is hidden so it’s the VPN’s IP address that is targeted instead. You can then switch servers and continue your online activities uninterrupted.

Customer Service

IPVanish and Atlas VPN are among our top-ranked VPNs for multiple reasons including the ease of use of their apps. However, there may be times when you need assistance in which case live chat and email support is available. In the case of Atlas VPN, you need to already have a paid subscription to access the live chat feature. Most VPNs don’t offer phone support, but IPVanish is one of the very few exceptions (available seven days a week).

If you prefer, you can search either VPN’s knowledge base to find the answer you’re looking for. Both VPNs provide setup guides with step-by-step instructions and screenshots to make the process even easier to follow. In terms of video guides, IPVanish and Atlas VPN have YouTube channels with guides, but neither has posted a video in the last year.

VPN response times to emails can vary significantly. For this reason, we sent IPVanish and Atlas VPN the same three questions, testing the speed and quality of their replies. Atlas VPN is faster, replying in just 45 minutes on average. IPVanish only took 15 minutes to reply to our first inquiry, over two hours with the second, while not replying at all to the third.

The Winner: IPVanish

Taking all the above into account, there are certainly many reasons to consider Atlas VPN. In particular, it provides good speeds and particularly strong unblocking of streaming platforms. There are also a number of extra features that make it particularly good value. For example, you can connect an unlimited number of devices at once. There’s also the option to connect to MultiHop servers for extra security.

However, IPVanish is the overall winner. It’s even faster than Atlas VPN (in fact, it’s only second to CyberGhost in our VPN speed tests), making it the best option for streaming, torrenting, and online gaming. It has more than double the number of servers (2,000+ to Atlas VPN’s 750+). It also doesn’t limit the number of devices you can secure simultaneously. Whichever VPN you choose, you’ll benefit from a risk-free 30-day money-back guarantee.