Review: NordVPN Plus

NordVPN is probably the most recognizable name in the VPN world. It ranks on just about every list of the best VPNs (including our own), and it’s obvious to anyone with an internet connection and vague interest in tech just how aggressive NordVPN’s marketing strategy is. It has a high bar to live up to, and thankfully, it does.

Even in the face of a public hack and PR disaster in 2019, not to mention the massive target on its back given how prominent NordVPN is, the core service is still excellent. The speeds can go toe-to-toe with the best VPNs on the market, and Nord’s privacy and security practices have been tested and proven effective, even against the company’s will.

Further, it has largely led the market on large feature packages alongside its VPN service, which we’ve seen mimicked by competitors like ExpressVPN. NordVPN still stands tall today, and despite being a little more expensive than I’d like, it feels worth the price.

The Pricier End

NordVPN via Jacob Roach

NordVPN has slowly built up multiple plans at varying prices, each unlocking a new set of features. It doesn’t offer a free plan, which is a shame in the face of options like Proton VPN and Nord’s own free NordPass password manager. You’ll need to pay to get your foot in the door.

NordVPN’s Basic plan is on the expensive side, and as the name suggests, it doesn’t come with many extras. You get the VPN, 10 simultaneous connections, and Nord’s DNS servers to help combat ads. However, you don’t get Threat Protection Pro, which includes more sophisticated ad blocking, as well as malware/scam protection in your browser.

For that, you’ll need to upgrade to the Plus plan, which not only includes Threat Protection Pro but also the paid version of NordPass, which is a big upgrade. NordVPN’s Basic plan is more expensive than Mullvad and Windscribe, but the Plus plan is more in line with the rest of the market. Compared to Proton, for example, it is an extra $1 per month on the monthly plan.

Above Plus, there are two more plans, but I wouldn’t recommend them for most people. Complete adds 1 terabyte of encrypted cloud storage—Proton offers 500 GB with its cheaper plan—and Prime adds NordProtect, which is an identity-theft protection service with $1 million in identity theft insurance.

Plus is where I draw the line, and even with that plan, it’s more expensive than most of the market, short of VPNs like ExpressVPN. NordVPN doesn’t make much sense month-to-month. It really comes out ahead with multiyear discounts. The biennial plan gives you a massive boost of savings for your initial term—it’s a little over $100 for the first 27 months—before transitioning to the full price.

A Battle-Tested App

NordVPN via Jacob Roach

NordVPN has a ton of apps, which is becoming increasingly important, especially when it comes to streaming. Nord has apps for Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS, and it has extensions available for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge. It officially maintains Linux clients for a handful of distributions, including Ubuntu, Fedora, and Debian, and there are even more community-maintained apps. I was able to get NordVPN working on CachyOS, for instance, which is an Arch-based Linux distribution.

The native apps for Google TV and Apple TV are the game changers. For me, it’s Google TV, but native apps for smart TV operating systems are quickly becoming a key feature among VPN services. After all, one of the biggest use cases for a VPN is to get around streaming georestrictions, and without a native app, you have to resort to the restrictive, time-intensive process of setting up a VPN on your router.

On desktop, NordVPN still has a solid app, but recent updates have made it worse, not better. It can feel like a walking advertisement if you're not subscribed to NordVPN's Complete plan, with dedicated buttons for features like encrypted cloud storage and Threat Protection Pro in the menu, even if you don't have those features.

NordVPN has a lot of servers, and it has a lot of specialty servers for things like Tor. Navigating through them—especially among several modules with different Nord Security features—is frustrating. Profiles would go a long way for quick connections, something Proton VPN offers.

One of the features I like in the desktop app is Meshnet. It allows you to create your own private network between devices, up to 10 of your own devices, plus an additional 50 from other NordVPN users. It allows you to transfer files, remotely access devices, and more, all without ever sending your data to the cloud. Nord announced that it would shut the feature down on December 1, but after community backlash, the company changed course.

I’ve gotten a lot more mileage out of the Chrome extension. You don’t get the server map (you have to select from a list), but there’s a condensed list of features compared to the desktop app that are easier to manage. You get Threat Protection to filter ads and malicious websites, as well as split tunneling. The split tunneling works great, allowing you to quickly add websites or IP addresses to bypass the VPN tunnel.

One of the unique features you unlock through the extension is time zone spoofing. If your browser and connection have different time zone details, that can throw up red flags, whether you're logging in to your banking service or trying to score a preorder the moment it drops. It’s off by default, but turning on spoofing will automatically match your time zone whenever you’re connected to the VPN.

The NordVPN Hack

NordVPN via Jacob Roach

NordVPN, like any VPN worth its salt, claims a no-logs policy. More important than that policy, however, is NordVPN's stature within the cybersecurity world. Its privacy and security practices have been tested, not only via third-party audits but also with a very public hack the company experienced in 2019.

That’s the only place to start, not only because it was a public debacle, but also because it was a situation rife with misunderstandings. Like most VPN services, NordVPN does not own all of its servers. Some smaller VPN providers do, but just about every large VPN service rents at least some of the servers it uses.

At a data center in Finland, one of Nord’s servers was breached, and the company attributes that breach to improper configuration on the part of the data center provider. Regardless, no user account credentials were compromised, and the breach showed that NordVPN doesn’t keep logs, true to its privacy policy. It’s easy to be skeptical of a company’s word, but I’d like to contrast NordVPN’s breach with the public breach of LastPass. The fallout of LastPass’ breach is still rippling to this day, and it’s responsible for millions of dollars in losses. There’s been no evidence of monetary losses related to NordVPN’s breach in the past six years.

A breach is never a good sign, regardless of the circumstances, but the important thing is how NordVPN acted (and continues to act) in light of its breach. Not only was it transparent immediately, but it also put a security plan into action that we’ve seen play out. That included co-located servers, which NordVPN fully owns and operates, and disk-less servers, where logs literally can’t be stored because there’s no hard drive to store them on. There was also a security audit, and NordVPN has gone through an audit annually since its breach, with the latest arriving in February of 2025.

Beyond the basics, NordVPN includes additional security features. You get NordPass, which ranks among the best password managers, and Threat Protection. The Basic plan includes Threat Protection, which is limited. It can block ads and steer you away from sketchy websites, but there are plenty of free browser extensions that accomplish the same thing. Threat Protection Pro is only included with Plus and above, but it does a lot more. It can scan your PC for malware similar to an antivirus program, and it comes with a URL cleaner to strip out tracking information when clicking links.

One of my favorite new additions isn’t on the desktop app, though. NordVPN recently introduced scam call protection on Android, with an iOS version planned for the future. I’ve been using it for months, and it has easily flagged more than a hundred spam calls to my phone. It works a treat, even if it’s not one of NordVPN’s big advertised features.

Almost the Fastest VPN

NordVPN is fast. It’s not the fastest VPN I’ve tested—that’s Proton VPN—but that’s more of a rounding error than a notable difference in speed. Across five US locations, NordVPN dropped 15.32 percent of my unprotected speed on average. For context, Proton dropped 15.23 percent. Surfshark, which is also owned by Nord Security, dropped 18.84 percent, while Mullvad closed in on 24 percent.

So, NordVPN is fast, but more importantly, it’s consistent. Across the locations I tested, it never posted a slowdown of more than 20 percent, and in one location (Chicago), it only dropped a meager 6.6 percent of my unprotected speed. Overall, though, that 15 percent drop is a good representation of the speeds you can expect, at least in the US.

Speed testing with any VPN is tricky. There are a ton of factors that influence speeds beyond the server you’re connecting to. My speed testing—and any VPN speed testing, for that matter—is a snapshot in time. It provides insight into the kind of speeds you can expect on average, not a concrete number you should expect from every server at every time of day. To get the most accurate snapshot possible, I tested across five US locations at three different times of day over the course of a week. Before each test, I ran three passes of my unprotected speed to get an accurate comparison, and I threw out any results with a greater than 10 percent deviation between passes.

The best way to get around speed hurdles is to change servers, and NordVPN is solid on that front. It has around 7,400 servers, but the exact number is constantly changing. It maintains a database of its servers and locations, complete with details on the features those servers support and whether they’re virtual or physical servers.

NordVPN lives up to its monumental name. It still has a massive network, fast speeds, and a ton of features, and despite its infamous data breach, it has continued to double down on security measures. The main issue with Nord is the price. You can score a good deal on a two-year discount, but that price jumps up significantly when it comes time to renew. This is why I rank it slightly below Proton VPN, despite the two services going toe-to-toe on features and speeds. Proton Unlimited clocks in at the same monthly price as NordVPN Basic, and it comes with Proton Pass, Proton Mail, and a handful of other apps.