The best VPN for gaming should maintain a stable and responsive connection, and protect your privacy, whatever you get up to on the web. It should also bolster support for your favorite online services and offer the ability to keep using them wherever you travel. It should be simple and reliable enough not to interrupt your gaming sessions.
There are many VPNs out there, but only a few provide PC gamers with the level of security and speed we crave. The VPNs below will keep everything you do online private and won't get in the way of your gaming. Our favorite VPN for gaming so far is Surfshark. It has everything you want; it's affordable, easy to use, and allows for use on unlimited devices, while IPVanish offers the best value for those on a budget.
Throughout the year, I check out and test many different VPN services. From general use to online gaming, there are many types to pick from. I look for VPNs that provide the best overall PC gaming experience that won't strain your bank account or CPU. I factor in cost, performance, and features to determine the best VPNs, complete with rigorous testing and research, so you don't have to gamble with your privacy.
Getting the best VPN experience will cost you. Thankfully, the VPNs on this list with monthly or yearly subscriptions come at reasonable prices. Just be wary of free VPNs—you can almost be sure that some of your data will be tracked and sold to third parties, which defeats the purpose of a VPN. So be sure always to read the fine print.
I would say just to be wary of free VPNs unless you're absolutely sure how your data is being processed and where it will end up. They can be a handy alternative for just getting a quick look at how something looks from a different region but will generally also have the biggest impact on just how fast your connection is.
Surfshark is my boy. For me, it's the best VPN for gaming that we've tested, offering a great combination of lower ping than my non-VPN connection and a relatively minor hit on overall download speeds. It's ever so slightly taxing on the uploads than NordVPN, which comes out top on that score, but not by enough to put me off. You'll probably want to prioritize that upload speed for streamers, making NordVPN the go-to option. But then, as a streamer, you'd probably rather have the total bandwidth available to you at all times…
The app is straightforward. There are neat features such as an optional kill switch (disabling your internet connection if the VPN drops for any reason) and an allowlist to allow banking apps through the VPN block. The company offers a strict no-logs policy and seems to be reliable on that front.
Surfshark is also the only service tested that offers access to unlimited devices from a single account. That's pretty impressive, considering the relatively low cost compared to some of its peers.
The only issue I've encountered is that it doesn't seem like a comfortable fit for torrenting. I struggled to get anything to function, so if that's a deal-breaker for you, you'll probably want to look at Nord instead.
It's close between Surfshark and NordVPN, but the toothy one just about wins out thanks to its unlimited devices, lower price, and lower ping. NordVPN is the high-performance option of download and upload speeds are the be-all and end-all for your PC experience. It delivers one of the highest relative download speeds in my testing compared to an untouched connection and the highest upload speed.
That seems to be where many VPN services fall in just how much they tank your upload connection. My upload speed is already 10x slower than my downloads, so I can ill afford to lose any more. But NordVPN still delivers around 85% of that connection, while Private Internet Access dropped down to 35%.
It's also your best option if you find torrenting your go-to method of accessing content online. Surfshark seems to block everything, in my experience, making Nord the next best thing.
The service also delivers an impressive ping performance, getting close to my unfettered ping score and consistently beating my game ping scores too. NordVPN uses the latest WireGuard VPN protocol, which it's called NordLynx. It's reportedly the fastest around and does seem to help it run consistently well.
IPVanish is one of the most affordable VPN services we've tested, but that doesn't mean you're missing out. It might not have the full feature set of Surfshark or NordVPN, but you do get 250GB of SugarSync encrypted storage and backup for free with a new subscription, which could give you a little extra peace of mind over your more sensitive documents.
It performs well too. The impact on my upload and download speed is impressively minimal, and it also manages, for the most part, to drop down the in-game ping when gaming online. There was a little spike in CS: GO, but nothing worrying, and still with fewer packet drops than with my standard connection.
If you're after a quality VPN service to run on your gaming machine, and potentially on nine other devices simultaneously, but don't want to spend big, then IPVanish is a great alternative to the top two on our list.
Our list's second most expensive service is also the broadest reach globally. With servers in a staggering 94 countries, if you're looking to play with friends abroad, or find yourself traveling a lot, then ExpressVPN could be your best bet for a solid, secure, and relatively speedy connection.
ExpressVPN isn't bad in my testing for in-game ping performance, regularly giving me a lower millisecond count than my standard connection in Battlefield 5. Still, it sometimes struggled in CS: GO. However, it was the weakest when it came to downloading speeds—not that 94% of my regular connection is bad—but the upload hit was second only to the dreadful performance of Private Internet Access.
Of the top four, it also has the fewest number of simultaneous devices allowed, though, at five devices, you can still share the load across PC, laptop, phone, and significant other. But ExpressVPN is still a quality, reliable service that may not have the top-level performance I've measured from some others, but it is still a decent option for PC gamers.
Other VPNs tested
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VyprVPN
Private Internet Access
CyberGhost
The best VPN FAQ
Is a VPN good for gaming?
The historical consensus has been that you shouldn't use a VPN while gaming online because it might impact your connection and slow you down. Yes, you might be able to bypass the bane of geo-blocking, but many people complain about horrifying lag and subsequent in-game failures.
That is still the case if you're using a bandwidth-limited free service, such as Hola or the basic TunnelBear package, but if you pick wisely, you could find the best VPN for gaming, in some cases, can improve your online performance.
It may sound like we're pulling your chain. But it's true; a good VPN service can keep you safe and secure behind the scenes and improve your ping results in-game. Now, it's not a case of some fancy wizardry that will suddenly turn a slow internet connection into a lightning-quick one. But the best VPNs for gaming will often boast superior routing compared to your current internet service provider (ISP). That means you could get less packet loss via a VPN, and you might even see a lower ping, making your connection more responsive in-game.
I run a generally reliable, 100Mbit+ fiber connection at home, yet I still experience packet loss when I've got boots on the ground in Battlefield 5. My ping isn't bad, but it could always be better, right? Running a VPN does, however, take a bit of a chunk out of your overall download and upload speeds, but maybe not as much as you might think. Picking the best VPN for gaming will minimize that impact.
Why should I bother with a VPN?
There are other reasons you might want to run a VPN on your PC; the number one draw is online security. If you don't want a network tracking your every move, using a virtual private network is the best way to avoid that. The best VPNs run a 'no log' policy, which means they'll store no data about you or your activity, helping you stay secure in the face of any data breach. Again, it will also help you get around geo-blocking. Say you want to unlock a new game early or wish to subscribe to a service only available in another country, no problem.
How are VPNs tested?
Testing VPNs is a fun game and doesn't always end up with you bricking your internet connection each time you uninstall one to install another. Honestly. Not every time, anyway… We've sourced accounts for each of the services and tested them all on the same 100Mbit connection at the same time of day to ensure a fair reflection of the performance of each of them.
There are free VPNs and some VPN services with free tiers, but you won't find them suitable for connecting while gaming online. They almost always introduce latency to your experience and severely hamper the overall performance of your network connection.
We haven't included any free options, such as Hola or TunnelBear, in this list. They're also not necessarily a practical choice if you're trying to get around geo-blocked services such as video streaming, as you may still find them restricted.
As for testing, first, I took a Speedtest.net measurement of my standard, unfettered internet connection, using that as a baseline against which to test each of the different services. Then I installed each VPN and tried it before uninstalling it to add a new VPN fresh.
