Mullvad is the minimalist, and it makes a virtue of everything it refuses to do. It will not ask for your email, your name or a payment card you can be traced through — you get a random 16-digit account number and may post it cash in an envelope if you like. It will not raise the price either: a flat €5/month, unchanged since 2009, with no renewal hike and no auto-renewal trap. What it gives up to stay that pure is exactly what Proton leans on — there is no free tier, streaming is an afterthought, support is email-only, and the network is a lean 696 servers rather than tens of thousands.
One thing we will say plainly: Mullvad runs no affiliate programme, so we earn nothing if you choose it. We are still happy to call it our privacy and anonymity pick, because that is where it genuinely shines — and it is a useful trust signal when you are weighing our verdict. For the full standings see our best VPN for Ireland ranking; for most readers Proton is the broader buy, while privacy absolutists will prefer Mullvad.
Quick comparison
The short version, side by side — every figure from our hands-on testing in Dublin, the same data behind our best-VPN ranking. Green highlights show which provider takes each round.
| Proton VPN | Mullvad | |
|---|---|---|
| Our score | 9.3 / 10 | 8.9 / 10 |
| Best for | Best for privacy | Most anonymous |
| Price from | €2.99/mo | €5.00/mo |
| Money-back guarantee | 30-day | 14-day |
| Avg Dublin speed | 430 Mbps | 410 Mbps |
| Netflix unblocking | Yes | No |
| Simultaneous devices | 10 | 5 |
| Servers | 20,000+ | 696+ |
| Countries | 145 | 90 |
| Works in China | No | No |
| No-logs policy | Yes | Yes |
| Jurisdiction | Switzerland | Sweden |
| Support | Live chat (paid) + email | Email only |
Anonymity: Mullvad's no-email, no-account signup
Almost every VPN starts by asking who you are; Mullvad refuses to. There is no email, no name and no account form — you click a button, are handed a random 16-digit account number, and that string of digits is your account. Top it up with cash posted in an envelope or with cryptocurrency and there is no card, no inbox and no profile linking the subscription to you. It is a genuinely different model from the usual email-and-password ritual, and it is the single thing that makes Mullvad the more anonymous of the two.
Proton VPN cannot quite match it. Signing up means giving an email address — Proton lets you use an anonymous one and never asks for more, but the address itself is a thread, however thin, back towards your identity that a 16-digit number never creates. For the vast majority of people that thread is harmless. For anyone who wants a VPN account that provably cannot be traced to them, though, Mullvad's signup is in a class of its own.
No-logs proof: five Swiss audits vs a survived police raid
On paper the privacy fundamentals are a dead heat — both are audited no-logs providers on RAM-only servers with open-source apps and a respected base, Proton in Switzerland and Mullvad in Sweden. What separates elite from merely good is whether the no-logs claim has ever been tested in the real world, and here both have receipts. Proton points to five consecutive Swiss no-logs audits; Mullvad points to the day in 2023 when Swedish police arrived with a warrant and left empty-handed because there was nothing stored to seize.
Switzerland sits outside the 14 Eyes while Sweden is a member, which on paper favours Proton — but a jurisdiction only matters if there is data to compel, and Mullvad has demonstrated there is not. Treat their core privacy as equal; the tiebreaker is the anonymity model above, not the audits, which both pass with room to spare.
| Proton VPN | Mullvad | |
|---|---|---|
| No-logs policy | Yes | Yes |
| Independent audit | Securitum (2025) | Cure53 (2024) / X41 (2025) |
| Jurisdiction | Switzerland | Sweden |
| Privacy rating | 9.9 / 10 | 9.9 / 10 |
Pricing: Mullvad's flat €5 vs Proton's free tier and €2.99 long plan
Mullvad has charged the same €5/month since 2009 — no introductory teaser, no renewal hike, no auto-renewal trap and no lock-in, so paying for a single month before a trip home costs exactly €5 and stops dead when you do. Proton VPN works the way most VPNs do: it rewards commitment, dropping to about €2.99/mo on the 2-year Plus plan and rising to €9.99 month-to-month, and it crucially offers the thing Mullvad flatly will not — a free tier with unlimited data, no ads and no time limit.
So the maths flips depending on who you are. Lock in for two years and Proton is markedly cheaper; want zero outlay and Proton is the only choice on this page. Need a no-strings single month, and Mullvad's flat fiver beats Proton's €9.99 month-to-month cleanly. Proton also backs purchases with a 30-day money-back guarantee against Mullvad's 14 days, though Mullvad arguably needs a refund less when you can simply not top up again.
| Proton VPN | Mullvad | |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | €2.99/mo | €5.00/mo |
| Free trial | Free tier | None (14-day refund) |
| Data cap | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Value rating | 9.0 / 10 | 8.8 / 10 |
Streaming: Proton's Dublin unblocking vs Mullvad's deliberate silence
This is the one round where the gap is wide, and it exists by design. Proton VPN treats streaming as a feature — its physical Dublin servers reliably unblock Netflix and Irish TV including RTÉ Player and TG4, and it ships apps for Fire TV, Android TV and Apple TV, so it doubles as a way to watch home from abroad. Mullvad makes no streaming promises at all: Netflix is hit-and-miss, RTÉ Player and TG4 are unverified, and there is no Fire TV app to put it on the big screen.
Tellingly, Mullvad runs real Dublin servers too, so you do get a true Irish IP — but a working IP and a service that consistently defeats geo-blocks are not the same thing, and only Proton commits to the latter. Both these providers are privacy picks first; if Irish or international TV matters to you even occasionally, that is reason enough to lean Proton.
| Proton VPN | Mullvad | |
|---|---|---|
| Netflix unblocking | Yes | No |
| Streaming rating | 9.3 / 10 | 7.5 / 10 |
| TV / streaming-box apps | Fire TV, Android TV, Apple TV | — |
Dublin speeds: 430 Mbps Proton vs 410 Mbps WireGuard-only Mullvad
Both are fast enough that the numbers barely matter — Proton averaged 430 Mbps on our Dublin line to Mullvad's 410 Mbps, a sliver of a gap you would never feel buffering a stream or pulling a large download. Mullvad is WireGuard-only, which keeps it lean and quick; Proton rides the same modern WireGuard tunnels with other protocols on tap, and edges ahead largely because it has so much more network to spread load across.
That scale shows at the margins: Mullvad's small Dublin footprint can fill up on a busy match night, where Proton's vastly bigger fleet has more room to absorb the crowd. For everyday use, though, call the raw speed a tie — neither will be your bottleneck on a typical Irish broadband connection.
| Proton VPN | Mullvad | |
|---|---|---|
| Avg Dublin speed | 430 Mbps | 410 Mbps |
| Speed rating | 9.2 / 10 | 9.0 / 10 |
| Global speed loss | 8% | 25% |
Security: Mullvad's post-quantum WireGuard vs Proton's Secure Core
Both cover the basics flawlessly — always-on kill switch, split tunnelling and full P2P/torrenting — then diverge on philosophy. Mullvad deliberately ships WireGuard only, with ChaCha20 and experimental post-quantum-resistant tunnels that almost no rival offers, betting that a tiny, modern attack surface beats a long options list. Proton VPN takes the opposite bet: WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2 and its Stealth obfuscation protocol, AES-256 alongside ChaCha20, and Secure Core multi-hop routing through hardened servers in privacy-friendly countries.
There is no loser here, only a temperament. Pick Mullvad if you find reassurance in a stack small enough to reason about and forward-looking on quantum; pick Proton if obfuscation for awkward networks and an extra multi-hop layer matter more to you. For all but the most adversarial threat models, both are comfortably over-built.
| Proton VPN | Mullvad | |
|---|---|---|
| Encryption | AES-256 + ChaCha20 | ChaCha20 + post-quantum |
| Kill switch | Yes | Yes |
| Split tunnelling | Yes | Yes |
| P2P / torrenting | Yes | Yes |
| Protocols | WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, Stealth | WireGuard |
Network scale: Proton's 20,000 servers vs Mullvad's lean 696
The headline numbers are lopsided — Proton VPN fields roughly 20,000 servers across 145 countries against Mullvad's 696 servers in 90 countries — and more boxes in more places means more locations and less congestion, so Proton wins the spec line easily. Mullvad has never chased that count; its smaller fleet is a deliberate trade for a network it can audit and run tightly.
For an Irish reader the reassuring detail is that both keep physical servers in Ireland, so either way you get a genuine Dublin IP rather than a virtual one. The practical difference is at the edges: Mullvad's lone Irish presence can congest on a big match night, while Proton's scale keeps things smooth — the same dynamic that gave it the slim speed edge above.
| Proton VPN | Mullvad | |
|---|---|---|
| Servers | 20,000+ | 696+ |
| Countries | 145 | 90 |
| Works in China | No | No |
Living with it: Proton's live chat and 10 devices vs Mullvad's lean setup
Both ship polished native apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, Android and Linux, but Proton VPN is the gentler daily driver. Its apps lay out streaming, Secure Core and server choice clearly, it covers 10 simultaneous devices, and its conventional email signup is the familiar path. Mullvad is minimalist on purpose — the no-details signup is slick once it clicks, but a 16-digit number you must save yourself, on just 5 devices, is a different mental model that rewards a little technical comfort.
Support draws the sharpest line. Proton offers live chat to paying users plus email; Mullvad is email-only with no chat at all, in keeping with its lean, low-overhead character. Neither is hard to run — Proton simply meets a newcomer further down the road, while Mullvad asks you to come to it.
| Proton VPN | Mullvad | |
|---|---|---|
| Ease-of-use rating | 9.1 / 10 | 8.5 / 10 |
| Native platforms | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux | Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux |
Which should you choose?
It comes down to what you value most. Here's the quick way to decide.
Choose Proton VPN if…
- check_circleYou want the best genuinely-free VPN tier on the market — unlimited data, no ads, no time limit
- check_circleStreaming matters: reliable Netflix and Irish-TV unblocking with Fire TV, Android TV and Apple TV apps
- check_circleYou want a huge network — around 20,000 servers across 145 countries — plus Secure Core multi-hop
- check_circleYou prefer the cheapest long-term plan (from about €2.99/mo), 10 devices and live chat support
Choose Mullvad if…
- check_circleMaximum anonymity is the goal — no email or personal details, just a random account number
- check_circleYou want to pay anonymously in cash or crypto, with a flat €5/month and no auto-renewal trap
- check_circleYou value an independently-owned provider audited and proven against a 2023 police raid
- check_circleYou do not need streaming and prefer a lean, WireGuard-only, post-quantum security setup
Advertiser disclosure: we earn a commission when you buy through links on this page. This never affects our scores or the winner of each round.
