A side-by-side on jurisdiction, audit history, kill switch and what each service is genuinely good at.
| hide.me | Proton VPN | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | €11.99/mo billed monthly, or as low as €2.69/mo on the 24+2-month plan (€69.99 billed every 26 months) — every plan carries a “renews at the same price” guarantee | Premium pricing, offset by one of the most usable unlimited-data free tiers in the category |
| Jurisdiction | Malaysia — outside the 5-Eyes, 9-Eyes and 14-Eyes intelligence-sharing alliances | Switzerland |
| Free plan | A genuine lifetime free plan — no ads, no data-selling, no throttling, capped monthly data | Unlimited-data free plan (limited server locations) |
| Simultaneous devices | Up to 10 simultaneous connections | 10 simultaneous connections on paid plans |
| Server footprint | 2,600+ servers in 92+ countries, rated up to 10 Gbps each | 20,000+ servers in 140+ countries |
| No-logs audit | Independently audited no-logs policy (Securitum, first audited 2015, re-audited yearly), a public transparency report published every year since 2013, and VPN Trust Initiative accreditation | Open-source apps with an openly published, publicly downloadable no-logs audit |
| Kill switch | Stealth Guard — a per-app kill switch that automatically cuts internet if the VPN drops, plus Multihop double-VPN routing and Dynamic Port Forwarding | System-wide and per-app kill switch (Advanced Kill Switch) |
Backed by the team behind Proton Mail, with open-source apps across the board and a no-logs audit that's publicly downloadable — no NDA required, unlike some rivals. On jurisdiction, Proton VPN is based in Switzerland. On audit history: open-source apps with an openly published, publicly downloadable no-logs audit
hide.me's no-logs policy has been independently audited every year since 2015 by Securitum, it publishes a transparency report every year going back to 2013, and it holds VPN Trust Initiative accreditation — a longer, more repeated verification history than most VPN reviews can point to. Its Malaysia jurisdiction sits outside the 5-Eyes, 9-Eyes and 14-Eyes alliances, and Stealth Guard's per-app kill switch automatically cuts your connection the instant the VPN tunnel drops.
If Proton VPN's specific strengths — backed by the team behind Proton Mail, with open-source apps across the board and a no-logs audit that's publicly downloadable — no NDA required, unlike some rivals — matter most to you, it's a reasonable pick. If a repeated, named third-party no-logs audit and a jurisdiction outside every major surveillance alliance are non-negotiable for your threat model, hide.me's track record is hard to match.
Both are genuinely privacy-first with independently audited no-logs claims. Proton VPN's Switzerland jurisdiction and open-source code are excellent, but hide.me's Malaysia jurisdiction sits outside the 14-Eyes alliance entirely, and its transparency reports date back further (2013 vs. Proton's more recent program). If open-source code matters most to you, pick Proton; if jurisdiction outside every major surveillance alliance matters most, hide.me has the edge.