OctaneVPN Review 2024: Before You Buy, Is It Worth It?

Overall, Is OctaneVPN Fast? Yes! I Got Fast Speeds Except With Distant Servers

I was impressed with the fast speeds I got on most of OctaneVPN’s servers during my tests. I got average speeds of 15Mbps — which is fast enough for streaming in HD, gaming, and surfing the web.

Speed Test Results

Before connecting to OctaneVPN servers, my base internet speed was around 30Mbps. During my tests, I connected to servers close to me and those farther from my location. Generally, I didn’t experience a speed drop of more than 50% with most of the servers I tested. The server in Amsterdam gave me speeds around 17Mbps, while with the server in Vancouver I got a speed of 15Mbps.

I got my fastest speeds with the server in Washington DC, even though it had a high latency above 200ms. When a VPN has high latency, it is generally not ideal for multiplayer games that require a latency of less than 100ms to avoid lags. The furthest server from my location — the one in Saint Petersburg, Russia — got speeds less than 1Mbps despite having a lower latency than the server in Vancouver.

It was disappointing to get a significant speed drop with the server in Russia. With a 97% drop, I couldn’t even load a lightweight website. One of the disadvantages of a significant decrease in speed is that you don’t get to use it for anything meaningful like unblocking region-specific content for streaming. In contrast, I’ve never had anything more than a 25% drop in speed using ExpressVPN — even when connected to a distant server.

Are OctaneVPN’s Speeds Fast Enough for Gaming? Yes, But The Ping is Too High

I found that OctaneVPN is not ideal for online gaming — the high latency it causes is too disruptive, especially for multiplayer games. Unfortunately, most servers I tried produced a ping of over 150ms, which is too high for multiplayer games.

I didn’t experience any lag while gaming with the server in Washington DC, which was the only server that gave me low enough ping to play without interruptions. However, it wasn’t the same experience with other servers I tested.

Server Network — 125+ Servers in 40+ Countries

With 125+ servers in 40+ countries, OctaneVPN has a limited network compared to many other VPN providers. Because of its small network, OctaneVPN’s servers may often experience overcrowding (where each server has too many users) and eventually lead to a drop in speeds.

Despite the small number of servers, you can trust OctaneVPN to safeguard your privacy since it owns every part of its server network. Owning servers is much better for users’ privacy than renting, as there are no third parties who could potentially interfere with the equipment.

Security — Top-Grade Security Features

I found that OctaneVPN uses strong, military-grade AES 256-bit encryption to keep your online activities private and secure during my tests. I liked that the VPN has an automatic kill switch, which will terminate your session on the internet if you lose connection to one of its servers. For instance, this might happen if you move too far away from your WiFi router or the VPN’s server crashes. OctaneVPN brands this feature as “IP and DNS Leak Protection” on its app even though it works precisely as a kill switch. However, I noticed that the kill switch isn’t activated by default, so you’ll have to turn it on if you expect it to function.

However, I was disappointed to learn that OctaneVPN lacks a decent selection of tunneling protocols. The VPN offers OpenVPN’s UDP and TCP protocols and IKEv2 but lacks other protocols used by top-grade VPNs, such as WireGuard. With these protocols, your mind doesn’t have to race with concern for your data’s safety. You get bank-grade protection against hacking and possible theft of your information when connected with the VPN.

Privacy — Strict No-Logs Policy but No Independent Audit

OctaneVPN is not ideal for users seeking top-notch privacy simply because it’s based in a Five Eyes member state, and a third party has never audited its privacy practices. OctaneVPN is headquartered in the US, which is under the jurisdiction of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance. The VPN’s location means that intelligence agencies in the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand can compel OctaneVPN to share customer information as part of an investigation. Since countries like the US and the UK are notorious for data surveillance, privacy-minded VPN users should find this concerning.

On the other hand, I was happy to note that OctaneVPN has a no-logs policy. The only logs OctaneVPN maintains are general traffic logs to see how much bandwidth is going through each server. It also collects the information necessary for processing your payment, which most VPNs do. However, a third party has not audited these policies, so you have to take the company’s word for it when it makes these claims.

To see if OctaneVPN exposes DNS requests, I launched the VPN and connected to a server in the US. Next, I ran a DNS test. The test results confirmed that only the OctaneVPN server I used handled my DNS requests. With this, I am assured that the VPN was capable of keeping my IP address concealed.

Torrenting — Not Supported

OctaneVPN claims to support P2P, but I couldn’t get it to work during my tests. Despite reaching out to customer support and being assured that OctaneVPN supports torrenting, it just didn’t work for me, no matter which server I tested. When using some servers — the US servers specifically — it blocked the torrenting website. I found this troubling that OctaneVPN servers would deliberately block torrent websites.

Does OctaneVPN Work in China? Not Likely

Sadly, OctaneVPN may not work in China. I couldn’t personally test OctaneVPN in China since I don’t live there. But I reached out to customer support to find out if the VPN works there. I was informed that the Great Firewall of China might likely interfere with OctaneVPN, and as such, I couldn’t confirm that the VPN would work there.

So if you’re traveling to China, you’ll need a VPN that’s guaranteed to work there. For this, I’ll recommend ExpressVPN. You can try ExpressVPN to access the internet from China safely. ExpressVPN is backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee, that way, you can get a full refund if it doesn’t work for you.

OctaneVPN isn’t ideal for urgent assistance. The company has a knowledge base and a ticketing system. There’s no phone number or live chat to reach out to, so getting immediate assistance is impossible.

It was disappointing when I discovered there was just one article in the knowledge base. On the other hand, the FAQ page had answers to general questions about OctaneVPN. For specific information on how to set up the VPN on your device, there’s a separate section with how-to guides.

OctaneVPN’s online form allows you to raise tickets if you have any questions. I tested the contact form when I had an issue processing the payment. Despite choosing high priority for my request, I received a response after 11 hours. I was disappointed with the slow response time. That said, the customer representative resolved my problem after responding to my ticket.