NordVPN vs. VPN Unlimited 2024 – Final Testing & Comparison

Choosing a VPN that fits your needs is challenging when there are hundreds on the market, all claiming to be the best. Since all VPNs have pros and cons, you can’t know how badly a shortcoming will affect your online activities until you try them for yourself.

If you’ve narrowed your selections down to NordVPN and VPN Unlimited, the only way to decide which you should get is to try both in real life. To save you the trouble, I’ve tested both VPNs in every area that can impact the way you use the internet.

After running rigorous tests over several weeks, I recommend NordVPN because it’s faster for high-bandwidth activities and is more secure. You can get NordVPN confidently since it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you don’t like it, you can ask for a refund.

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No Time? Here’s a 1-Minute Summary of Category Winners

Pricing	2-year + 3 months-year plan costs $3.09 per month	Lifetime Plan is a flat $99.99
Streaming	Works with Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and more	Has working streaming-optimized servers for Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, HBO, BBC iPlayer, and more
Servers	6,300+ servers in 111 countries	500+ servers in 68 countries
Speed	Local speed test: 14% decrease from baseline speed Distant UK server speed test: 19% decrease from baseline speed	Local speed test: 21% decrease from baseline speed Distant UK server speed test: 42% decrease from baseline speed
Security	Military-grade 256-bit encryption Double VPN DNS and IP leak protection NordLynx protocol Malware protection Onion over Tor Free malware protection	Military-grade 256-bit encryption DNS and IP leak protection KeepSolid Wise protocol Malware protection costs extra
Torrenting	5 minutes to download 1.8GB video	34 minutes to download 1.8GB video
China	Unreliable in China	Unreliable in China
Gaming	16% increase in latency compared to baseline	226% increase in latency compared to baseline
Device Compatibility	Supports Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, routers, gaming consoles, and more Up to 10 simultaneous connections	Supports Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, routers, gaming consoles, and more Up to 5 simultaneous connections
Company Jurisdiction	Headquartered in Panama which is outside the 5, 9, and 14 Eyes Alliances	Headquartered in the US which is part of the 5 Eyes Alliance
Privacy Policy	Audited privacy policy	A no-log policy that hasn’t been audited
Payment and Refunds	Accepts major credit cards, PayPal, and cryptocurrencies 30-day money-back guarantee	Accepts major credit cards, PayPal, and cryptocurrencies 30-day money-back guarantee
Customer Support	Fast support via live chat, email, and an extensive online knowledge base	Fast support via email, online ticket, and an extensive online knowledge base

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13 Categories of Comparison for NordVPN vs. VPN Unlimited

1. Pricing: Compared all the plans for each VPN picked the one with the lowest subscription prices.
2. Streaming: Ran tests to see how many major streaming services NordVPN and VPN Unlimited can access.
3. Servers: Evaluated the type and number of each VPN’s servers as well as investigating which country’s content you can access.
4. Speed: Conducted extensive tests to find out the average speeds you can expect between local and long-distance servers.
5. Security: Identified all the encryption protocols and the advanced features that both VPNs use to keep your data and devices safe.
6. Torrenting: Tested P2P file-sharing capabilities and other features that can enhance your torrent downloading, like SOCKS5 proxy and port forwarding.
7. China: Assessed the VPNs’ stealth and obfuscation features’ effectiveness against the Great Firewall of China.
8. Gaming: Played several online games to see if the VPNs are fast enough to support lag-free matches and competitive gaming.
9. Device Compatibility: Listed all the compatible devices and the differences in features that you’ll find between apps.
10. Company Jurisdiction: Analyzed how the location of each VPN could affect your privacy.
11. Privacy Policy: Read each VPN’s privacy policy to determine how your data is handled when you use their servers.
12. Payment and Refunds: Reviewed how many payment methods you can use to buy each VPN and how difficult it is to get a refund.
13. Customer Support: Contacted each VPN’s teams to determine how knowledgeable they are and how long it takes for them to respond to your questions.

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1. Pricing — VPN Unlimited Has Cheaper Plans Than NordVPN

VPN Unlimited costs less than NordVPN, but only with its Lifetime Plan that lets you use the VPN indefinitely after a one-off payment. Here’s what you can expect from each:

Even VPN Unlimited’s pay-as-you-go monthly subscription is more economical at $9.99 compared to NordVPN’s $12.99. Plus, it tries to match the best free VPNs in 2024 by generously offering a 7-day free trial that doesn’t require your credit card details. I was relieved to be able to use all its features without worrying about being automatically charged at the end of the trial period.

There are many top VPNs offering great monthly plans, so it’s worth checking them out if you’re more inclined towards a short-term subscription.

Both VPNs have add-ons, but VPN Unlimited offers a security bundle called MonoDefense for an additional $1.67 a month. However, NordVPN includes Threat Protection, SmartPlay, and NordPass free with every standard package. These are equivalent to MonoDefense’s features like DNS firewall, Smart DNS, and password manager respectively.

Still, $1.67 a month for MonoDefense plus a one-off payment for VPN Unlimited’s Lifetime Plan is still cheaper than NordVPN’s $3.09 a month price tag. Additionally, both VPNs have extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Microsoft Edge browsers, though they don’t use military-grade encryption to hide your data.

Ultimately, VPN Unlimited is cheaper overall, but only if you get the Lifetime plan and you just want a basic VPN. NordVPN is still a fantastic value for your money, but VPN Unlimited is priced lower if you don’t mind being locked into the same VPN plan forever.

2. Streaming — NordVPN Accesses More Global Movie Platforms Than VPN Unlimited

NordVPN is better for streaming because it unblocked Amazon Prime Video US and many more Netflix libraries than VPN Unlimited.

VPN Unlimited has specialized servers for popular streaming services and all of them worked without problems except for Amazon Prime Video. The platform displayed a proxy error message during all 5 attempts and wouldn’t show any listings. If you’re considering alternatives, CyberGhost has the best streaming-specialized servers I’ve tried among VPNs.

But other than that, VPN Unlimited’s dedicated streaming network accessed these on the first try:

It also has another specialized server that’s simply labeled as ‘Streaming’. When tested, the ‘Streaming’ option connected to a server in California, US and unblocked YouTube TV, CBS, ESPN, and Peacock TV seamlessly.

Though NordVPN doesn’t have servers dedicated for TV and movie sites, its country-specific ones bypassed geo-blocks on all the platforms above. Connecting to a server was also at least 15% faster than VPN Unlimited and NordVPN didn’t take more than 1 attempt to unblock content in any country tested.

What made it stand out is that NordVPN accessed many global Netflix libraries that VPN Unlimited couldn’t. NordVPN can help you avoid Netflix proxy errors whether your account is based in Australia, Spain, Turkey, Japan, or the Netherlands.

Most of VPN Unlimited’s specialized servers are for US content. Its location-based standard network isn’t as powerful for watching movies and TV shows from other regions. If you’re from Australia, Europe, or Asia and traveling abroad, you have a better chance of accessing your home content with NordVPN with its regular servers.

Watch movies and TV shows with NordVPN

3. Servers — NordVPN’s Network is Much Bigger and Covers More Countries

NordVPN has a bigger network than VPN Unlimited, with servers spread across more countries. It also has several different types of specialized servers aimed to improve security and privacy. Here’s a breakdown of both VPN’s network size:

I did notice that you can get an IP address in India and Libya with VPN Unlimited, but not with NordVPN. However, VPN Unlimited falls short without servers in popular locations like Hong Kong, Taiwan, Estonia, and Indonesia.

Though it doesn’t have a specialized network for streaming like VPN Unlimited, most of NordVPN’s regular servers could access top channels. Plus, you can connect to any of these specialty servers with a standard subscription:

• Double VPN — encrypts your traffic twice by routing it through 2 different servers to make it harder for spies to track you.
• Obfuscated servers — hides your connections from firewalls that block VPNs so that you can use NordVPN without restrictions.
• Onion over VPN — encrypts your data on the Tor network, allowing you to access the Dark Web safely even if the network is compromised.
• P2P — supports torrent downloads with better security and faster file transfer rates.

For a fee, both VPNs offer static Dedicated IP addresses that only belong to you. VPN Unlimited charges $12.50 a month if you get the 1-year plan and you can select from options in Canada, Germany, Netherlands, the US, or the UK. NordVPN’s costs just $3.89 a month for 2 years with IP addresses from the same countries plus Australia, France, Italy, Japan, and Sweden.

Since NordVPN has a bigger network with a variety of specialty servers, it’s the winner of this category.

Access global content with NordVPN

4. Speed — NordVPN is Faster Even With Long-Distance Connections

NordVPN has higher speeds for high-bandwidth activities, especially if you have slow internet and often connect to distant servers.

To find out if NordVPN and VPN Unlimited can support all your internet activities even if your data had to travel longer, I tested both their local and faraway networks. I also made video calls and watched movies in UHD to see how they’d cope with bandwidth-heavy tasks. Finally, I ran a few tests to compare their performance on high-speed internet and a slower wireless connection.

VPN Unlimited struggled in general, decreasing my baseline average by 21% while NordVPN only affected my speeds by 14%. This still allowed me to make smooth video calls on my fixed home internet. But with my slower broadband connection, VPN Unlimited caused several instances of frozen screens and delayed audio.

The Optimal Connection button in VPN Unlimited automatically finds you the fastest server. It took more than 15 seconds to connect to a local option in Malaysia, but the connection stayed strong throughout my 1-hour call. The other servers in Asia, Europe, and Australia sometimes dropped my calls or caused audio loss for a few seconds.

With NordVPN, I connected within 5 seconds and didn’t see any noticeable difference in video and audio quality even with servers 6,000 miles away. If you want a VPN with even better speeds, ExpressVPN had the fastest local and distant connections during my tests.

Watching The Age of Innocence on Netflix in UHD was also more enjoyable with NordVPN. NordVPN didn’t lag as Newland struggled to do the right thing amidst the watchful eyes of New York’s high society. This was unlike VPN Unlimited, which took longer to load and buffered every 8 to 15 minutes.

I recommend NordVPN for smoother high-bandwidth activities since it’s faster and more reliable than VPN Unlimited.

Try NordVPN’s fast servers

5. Security — NordVPN has More Features to Protect Your Safety Online

NordVPN wins this category because it has Double VPN and many other security features that VPN Unlimited lacks.

Encryption Standard

NordVPN and VPN Unlimited use military-grade 256-bit encryption to hide your traffic from hackers and cyberspies. It’s the highest level of encryption available today, used by the US military to secure their communications. With its complex algorithms, it’s almost impossible to crack the code and access your data.

Encryption Protocol

Both VPNs have proprietary protocols, besides OpenVPN which is great for paying bills securely and IKEv2 for streaming without lags.

NordVPN’s NordLynx is based on WireGuard, but greatly improves privacy. The NordLynx protocol uses Double NAT to add an extra layer of protection by assigning you a unique local IP address that’s different from your real IP address first. Then it assigns an IP address based on the location you’ve selected. This prevents your actual IP address from being exposed to the VPN server you select, so you can be sure it can’t log this information.

VPN Unlimited developed its own protocol with OpenVPN as the backbone, allowing it to offer a stealth feature that makes your connection look like regular traffic. During tests, VPN Unlimited’s KeepSolid Wise protocol bypassed firewalls on a restricted network. However, unless you get blocked for using a VPN, I wouldn’t recommend this protocol as it sometimes slowed down my connection speeds by up to 41%.

Leak Protection

Even when connected to a VPN server, your data can still leak and expose your IP address to websites and hackers. This is because your traffic can accidentally escape the VPN’s encrypted tunnel. I tested NordVPN and VPN Unlimited for:

• DNS leak — happens when your ISP’s DNS servers are used instead of the VPN’s to translate domain names into IP addresses, which can reveal your browsing activity.
• IPv6 leak — VPNs can easily hide your IPv4 address but they may not be able to hide the newer IPv6 address, which can reveal your true location to websites and apps.
• WebRTC leak — used by certain web browsers for online calls and P2P file sharing but a vulnerability can expose your device’s IP address to websites.

During my tests I detected no DNS, IPv6, or WebRTC leaks with NordVPN and VPN Unlimited.

VPN kill switches are another safety feature to keep your real IP address and location from being exposed if your internet connection becomes unstable. Both VPNs have a kill switch on their apps, but VPN Unlimited doesn’t offer it for Linux devices.

Specialty Servers

Besides the regular connections, NordVPN also has Double VPN, Onion over VPN, and obfuscated servers. These aren’t available in every country, but there’s at least one located on every continent to help you communicate online securely and privately with decently-fast speeds. Besides VPN Unlimited’s stealth protocol, it doesn’t have other security features to match NordVPN’s.

Browse securely with NordVPN

6. Torrenting — NordVPN is Faster With Many P2P Servers in Nearby Locations

NordVPN has P2P servers in almost 50 countries to support torrenting compared to VPN Unlimited’s 3 in Canada, France, and Romania.

The nearest VPN Unlimited P2P server to me was 5,000+ miles away in Bucharest. So I wasn’t surprised it took me 34 minutes to download The Mark of Zorro and Don Q, Son of Zorro, a pair of 1.8GB public domain movies from the 1920s.

On the contrary, NordVPN’s P2P server in Singapore only took slightly over 5 minutes to download the same movies. NordVPN also has torrenting servers in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, Singapore, Australia, and other countries.

Both NordVPN and VPN Unlimited support SOCKS5 proxy, which reduces the torrent data size to improve downloading speed compared to other proxies. However, NordVPN doesn’t support port forwarding like VPN Unlimited does. Port forwarding allows more peers to communicate with your device to download torrents even faster.

One thing I liked is that VPN Unlimited prompts you to turn on the kill switch when you connect to a P2P server. This avoids exposing your IP address to others on the torrent network if your internet connection is interrupted while downloading. NordVPN didn’t prompt me to do this even when the kill switch was turned off, so be sure to turn it on before torrenting.

On the plus side, NordVPN’s Threat Protection automatically scans your downloads to make sure they don’t contain any malware. Although each VPN has its pros and cons in this category, NordVPN wins because its torrent-optimized servers outnumber VPN Unlimited and have much faster download and upload speeds.

Download torrents with NordVPN

7. China — Neither VPN Can Bypass the Great Firewall of China Reliably

Both NordVPN and VPN Unlimited struggled to get past China’s firewall that blocks VPNs.

VPN Unlimited’s KeepSolid Wise protocol doesn’t work against the Great Firewall of China even though it’s meant to have a stealth function to get past such blocks. During tests, none of the protocol’s TCP, UDP, or TLS connections could access the global internet with its servers in Hong Kong or Malaysia.

NordVPN did only slightly better as the obfuscated server in Singapore unblocked WhatsApp and a few other sites from China. However, the servers in Hong Kong, Japan, and other countries didn’t work. You can ask for help through NordVPN’s live chat, but the servers suggested by its chatbot also couldn’t bypass the firewall.

According to the support team, new NordVPN servers are added every 2 to 3 days so you might have better luck trying again later. Still, I don’t recommend NordVPN for the country because there are many top VPNs to bypass online censorship in China. They’re more reliable if you intend to work from there or need to contact your family in an emergency.

But if you must select between these 2, NordVPN is more likely to get past China’s firewall. However, remember to download the app before entering the country as the VPN’s website is blocked there.

8. Gaming — NordVPN Has Lower Latency to Play Online Games Competitively

NordVPN doesn’t delay the time between your action and the game’s response too much. Its lower latency helps you play at optimum speed so you’ll experience no noticeable lags that affect your gaming.

To test NordVPN’s and VPN Unlimited’s performance in fast-paced games, I measured the local servers’ latencies in milliseconds. The best VPNs on the market have latency ranging between 30ms and 50ms. However, anything below 100ms is still acceptable. Here’s how the 2 VPNs performed during my tests:

I had no problems keeping up with my opponents while playing League of Legends or Apex Legends with NordVPN. I also found NordVPN to be one of the best VPNs to play Call of Duty: Warzone even though the latency was slightly higher here. My sessions were still smooth with no lag to get in the way of my wins.

With VPN Unlimited, the high latency made for a disappointing gaming session. Apex Legends kicked me out of a game when I couldn’t reconnect quickly enough after the already high-latency server caused my connection to be interrupted. However, both VPNs protect you from distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks if an opponent decides to take you offline by overwhelming your network with requests.

For an alternative way to play with friends or family, NordVPN also has Meshnet which lets you connect to other devices directly. You can game together through a private and secure virtual network. Setting up LAN sessions usually requires enabling port forwarding on your router, which is quite technical and time-consuming compared to using Meshnet.

Due to its low latency and the bonus Meshnet feature, I recommend NordVPN for gaming instead VPN Unlimited, especially if you play competitively.

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9. Device Compatibility — NordVPN Supports More Simultaneous Connections

NordVPN lets you use 10 devices at the same time which is 1 more connection than VPN Unlimited allows.

With NordVPN, you’ll have to select a different protocol if you connect more than 1 device to the same server. If you have more devices than the limit, you can set up your router with NordVPN. It only takes up 1 slot but secures all the devices connected to your network.

VPN Unlimited takes a slightly different approach by also allowing you to buy additional device slots. Among its subscriptions, you can choose to pay for 1, 5, or 10 additional connections according to how long you need them for.

Neither VPN struggled when I used all the connections allowed for browsing and streaming simultaneously. I downloaded the apps to my Windows PC and MacBook Pro within minutes. But both VPNs have apps for all major devices and are compatible with browsers, smartphones, gaming consoles, streaming devices, routers, and more.

While NordVPN has a kill switch on all its apps for Mac, Windows, Android, iOS, and Linux, VPN Unlimited doesn’t offer the feature for Linux. NordVPN also has a split tunneling ability for Windows and Android, which VPN Unlimited only avails on its Android version.

There aren’t native apps for smart TVs and gaming consoles for either VPN. However, they do provide online guides on how to manually configure it on these devices.

Since NordVPN supports more connections and has a kill switch and split tunneling features on more apps, it’s the winner of the device compatibility category.

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10. Company Jurisdiction — NordVPN is Headquartered in a Privacy-Friendly Country

NordVPN isn’t based in a country that’s a member of the 14 Eyes Alliance, while VPN Unlimited is.

Due to its location in the US, the government can request VPN Unlimited to surrender user logs to aid investigations. This data can also be potentially shared with foreign intelligence agencies if a crime was committed in another country.

Besides being located in a country that doesn’t monitor online activities, I also found out that NordVPN has a warrant canary statement on its website, which VPN Unlimited doesn’t. VPN providers use this to alert users if a government has officially asked them to provide any user information.

Additionally, NordVPN accepts more cryptocurrencies than VPN Unlimited if you’d rather not disclose a bank account or credit card linked to your identity. You can stay anonymous to the VPN by signing up with a throwaway email address and paying with a cryptocurrency.

NordVPN protects your privacy better by being headquartered in Panama, issuing a warrant canary, and accepting cryptocurrencies for subscription.

Stay anonymous with NordVPN

11. Privacy Policy — NordVPN’s No-Log Claims Have Been Independently Verified

NordVPN has been independently audited multiple times and uses RAM-based servers that can’t store any of your data, enforcing its no-log policy.

Its one blemish is that NordVPN amended its privacy policy in 2022 to say that it’ll comply with data requests from authorities. Since NordVPN previously promised never to do this, this sudden change seemed suspect. However, I’m not concerned since NordVPN’s no-log servers have been audited 3 times and proven to contain no data.

On the other hand, VPN Unlimited claims to log zero data, but this hasn’t been verified by any third-party audit firms. I also couldn’t find any evidence that it uses RAM-based servers.

In its policy, VPN Unlimited states that it collects your IP address and device information but removes them immediately after your session ends. I would prefer if it never collected this information in the first place, especially since it’s based in the US where you’re surveilled online.

NordVPN handles this with its proprietary NordLynx protocol, which uses the Double NAT system. This makes sure your real IP address and location is never exposed to the NordVPN server you use.

With its privacy policy protected by technology and audited externally, NordVPN is better than VPN Unlimited if you want to use the internet privately.

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12. Payments and Refunds — Both VPNs Make it Easy to Subscribe and Get a Refund

Both VPNs accept multiple payment options and honor their money-back guarantees.

I paid for the VPNs using a credit card to run my tests, then asked for a refund before the 30-day money-back guarantee period was over. With NordVPN, I just sent a message via live chat and an agent responded within a minute to say that it’ll be processed the same day. I got my money back after 4 days.

To test VPN Unlimited’s guarantee, I sent an email since it doesn’t offer live chat support. I included my reason for canceling as ‘I won’t be using the VPN’ since I didn’t want to delay the process. Almost immediately, I received an automated email confirming that it had been received. Less than 10 minutes later, a representative sent another email to inform me that the refund will be processed within a few days. I got my money back 3 days later.

Since the subscription and cancellation processes went smoothly with both VPNs and neither one tried to convince me to stay, both are winners in this area.

13. Customer Support — NordVPN Has 24/7 Live Chat for Instant Help

NordVPN offers help round-the-clock via live chat with response times under a minute.

I found VPN Unlimited’s lack of live chat assistance surprising since most VPNs offer it. According to a customer service representative I spoke to, VPN Unlimited has a live chat feature but it’s sometimes disabled since part of their support team is based in Ukraine.

That’s why I was impressed that a VPN Unlimited representative responded to my emails in less than 10 minutes every time. The staff was also knowledgeable and answered my questions about the refund policy, live chat availability, and the web browser extension.

You can also go to VPN Unlimited’s Help page and submit a ticket by clicking the blue ‘Contact Us’ button, just scroll down to find it. I immediately received a confirmation of receipt, followed by an email from a support agent.

NordVPN’s live chat was also impressive with an agent responding to my queries about Double VPN in less than a minute. Even NordVPN’s chatbot was helpful, suggesting servers to try when I asked about connectivity issues in China. When I sent an email for help regarding Dedicated IP addresses, an agent replied in a reasonable amount of time — 6 hours.

Both VPNs also have a good online knowledge base available in multiple languages. NordVPN has a slight edge here because it includes additional languages like Italian and Dutch. I saw many articles on its help pages that are great for a general understanding of VPNs and also more specific in-depth guides. Plus, NordVPN goes a step further by providing video tutorials.

Despite both VPNs responding extremely quickly whenever I had questions, I still wished VPN Unlimited had live chat support. Emailing VPN Unlimited meant exposing my email address. It’s annoying to have to create an entire dummy email account just to retain my privacy when I contact VPN Unlimited.

The NordVPN chatbot also asks for your email address, but you can just submit a fake one here since it doesn’t verify. A live chat option is faster and easier when you just want to clarify a few things quickly.

Since NordVPN has a solid team manning its 24/7 live chat support, it’s the winner of the customer support category.

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And the Winner Is… NordVPN

NordVPN ranks better than VPN Unlimited, winning 10 out of 13 categories, with 2 ties.

• Pricing: VPN Unlimited
• Streaming: NordVPN
• Servers: NordVPN
• Speed: NordVPN
• Security: NordVPN
• Torrenting: NordVPN
• China: Tie
• Gaming: NordVPN
• Device Compatibility: NordVPN
• Company Jurisdiction: NordVPN
• Privacy Policy: NordVPN
• Payment and Refunds: Tie
• Customer Support: NordVPN

VPN Unlimited isn’t a top-tier VPN and the test results reflect this. But VPN Unlimited is a good budget option that has all the basic features to keep you safe online. It provides sufficient speed for leisurely browsing and employs robust encryption to ensure secure online transactions when using public WiFi.

However, NordVPN is better if you need top speeds for streaming or gaming, or you’re an advanced user and want lots of safety perks. You’ll be safer with NordVPN’s strong privacy and security features like Double VPN, the NordLynx protocol, and audited no-log servers. If you’d like to get NordVPN to stay safe online, it comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you don’t like it, you can get a refund.

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