CyberGhost VPN review 2025

CyberGhost VPN has been one of our top VPN picks for a while now, with good reason. Our CyberGhost VPN review shows that it features 11500 servers across 100 countries, giving you access to streaming libraries across the world. The Romania-based product also ranks high on my list due to its user-friendly interface, 45-day money-back guarantee, and efficient performance. However, there are also some drawbacks.

In our tests, we’ve found that CyberGhost struggles with certain streaming platforms, doesn’t quite have as advanced functionalities as some of its competitors, and could use a few quality-of-life fixes to make it to the top of our rankings.

In this article, I look at how CyberGhost performs in terms of streaming, speed, usability, security, and privacy to tell you whether it’s the best VPN out there.

⭐ Rating:	4.2 ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆
🥇 Overall rank:	#5 out of #41
📖 No logs policy:	Independently-audited
💵 Price:	From $2.19/month
🖥️ Servers:	11500 in 100 countries
🍿 Streaming services:	Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Disney+
🔥 Coupons:	CyberGhost VPN coupon 83% OFF

Visit CyberGhost VPN

CyberGhost VPN strengths and weaknesses

In our testing, we’ve found areas in which CyberGhost VPN shines. These are especially related to its privacy and server diversity. However, it also has some weaknesses related to how it performs in real-life situations.

CyberGhost VPN review: key takeaways

We thoroughly tested CyberGhost and analyzed how it performs in various scenarios. Based on that, I created a shortlist of key features and aspects, ranking each out of 10:

• Privacy and security – 10/10. CyberGhost VPN uses AES-256 encryption, which is widely considered to be one of the best security standards. It also has a very strict no-logs policy that has been audited twice.
• Cost and value for money – 8/10. CyberGhost has a single-tiered plan for its product, starting at an attractive $2.19/month. However, I have to dock some points for the price being for a lengthy 28-month plan, with shorter plans being far more expensive.
• Speed and performance – 7/10. CyberGhost VPN has proven to be a reliable VPN. Unfortunately, its speed is noticeably lower than NordVPN, Surfshark, and ExpressVPN.
• Server network – 6/10. With 11500 servers in over 100 countries, CyberGhost has quite an extensive network. However, despite that count and specialized torrenting, gaming, and streaming servers, its offering pales compared to NordVPN and ExpressVPN.
• Features and functionality – 7/10. While CyberGhost is very feature rich, some of its features, like its ad blocker, are not quite as reliable as its competitors’. Unfortunately, CyberGhost VPN also lacks features like custom DNS.
• Compatibility – 7/10. Offering apps for Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android, as well as a command line app for Linux, CyberGhost covers the most popular OS’. However, with no GUI on the Linux version and a limit of 7 simultaneous connections, it lags behind the competition.
• Customer support – 9/10. CyberGhost VPN’s customer support offering is robust, featuring 24/7 live chat and email support options, as well as an extensive knowledge base. All that's keeping it from a perfect score is the lack of phone support.

Alternatives to CyberGhost VPN

CyberGhost VPN has a lot of strengths. However, it won’t work for you if you have certain needs. For example, it has trouble connecting to popular streaming services like Disney+ and struggles with BBC iPlayer on some servers. It also doesn’t offer custom DNS support and might not be the best choice for Linux users.

If you’re looking for alternatives, I suggest NordVPN, Surfshark, and ExpressVPN. NordVPN is great if you’re looking for custom DNS support, and Surfshark has a very functional Linux app. Finally, all three, including ExpressVPN, offer excellent streaming servers that should work with any service of choice.

CyberGhost VPN price – is it worth the money?

CyberGhost offers three plan durations, with the shortest being the monthly plan priced at $12.99/month. A 6-month plan priced at $6.99/month, and a 28-month plan starting from $2.03/month are also available. If you’re looking to test the service, CyberGhost offers a 24-hour free trial on Windows and macOS, 3-day free trial for Android, and 7-day trial for iOS, as well as money-back guarantees.

By purchasing the 6-month and 28-month plans, you also gain access to 1 year of 500GB pCloud cloud storage, PrivacyGuard, CyberGhost ID Guard, and special NoSpy servers. In the case of the 1-month plan, you only get the CyberGhost ID Guard. You can also pay an extra monthly fee to get a dedicated IP for your VPN.

Plan length	Price
Free trial	✅ Yes (24 hours to 7 days, depending on OS)
1-month	$12.99/month
6-month	$6.99/month
28-month	$2.19/month

CyberGhost VPN accepts payments with credit cards, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and Bitcoin. The 1-month plan offers a 14-day money-back guarantee, while the 6-month and 28-month plans offer 45-day money-back guarantees, ensuring you can try the product risk-free.

Compared to our top providers, CyberGhost’s price is pretty attractive. It is cheaper than NordVPN and ExpressVPN, but slightly more expensive than Surfshark. The big downside for CyberGhost is that it doesn’t offer a 1-year plan, meaning you need to pay a lot initially to get an attractive monthly price. Its 6-month plan, on the other hand, is actually more expensive per month than NordVPN’s, ExpressVPN’s, and Surfshark’s 12-month plans.

Is CyberGhost VPN secure?

CyberGhost VPN’s security is robust, with AES-256 encryption and an independently audited no-logs policy guaranteeing your browsing and data will be secure. Thanks to advanced security features like a kill switch, leak protection, and a malicious content blocker, it will protect your internet activity without a hiccup.

Encryption

CyberGhost VPN uses AES-256 encryption, which is widely considered to be the strongest encryption standard. This means that your internet activity will be turned into unreadable code to anyone monitoring your activity, like ISPs or government agencies.

This makes CyberGhost VPN a top-tier internet privacy tool. It ensures that your browsing activity is kept safe, whether you’re on your own network or private Wi-Fi. This is great for adding that extra layer of security to your browsing when traveling.

Privacy

CyberGhost VPN has a strict no-logs policy, which two independent audits from Deloitte Romania have confirmed. With a very privacy-friendly policy, you don’t have to worry about your data getting into the wrong hands with CyberGhost VPN.

Data	Does CyberGhost VPN store it?
IP address	No
Customer’s email address	Yes
Customer’s encrypted password	Yes
Payment data	Yes (via third-party payment providers)
Browsing history	No
Session information	No
User bandwidth	No
Network traffic	No

CyberGhost leak tests

To see if CyberGhost’s security and privacy claims are legitimate, I performed a simple leak test to see whether my IP or DNS addresses would be leaked when using CyberGhost. The results show that CyberGhost is working as intended, securing my IP and my provider's DNS address from third parties.

Advanced security features

CyberGhost VPN also features some advanced features that will help secure and protect your data. I’ve listed them in the table below:

CyberGhost VPN feature	How it works
Kill switch	This feature turns your connection off if it spots your VPN has disconnected for any reason, thus avoiding leaking your information.
MultiHop (double VPN)	CyberGhost enables you to further obfuscate your internet activity by providing a double VPN feature that routes your traffic between two servers.
Dedicated IP	In order to avoid your VPN’s IP being flagged by various services due to other users’ activities, CyberGhost offers a dedicated IP assigned only to you.
Ad blocker	CyberGhost VPN’s ad blocker blocks DNS domains used for ads, trackers, and malware.
No-spy servers	No-spy servers are special servers located in CyberGhost’s headquarters in Romania, rather than third-party data centers, bringing excellent security.
Smart rules	Smart rules allow you to set up CyberGhost to trigger different connections based on the apps you’re using.

Dedicated IP

CyberGhost VPN allows you to get a dedicated IP for an extra fee starting at $2.50/month. A dedicated IP means that you’ll likely have more access to various websites, as VPN IPs with a lot of users are more likely to be flagged as VPNs and blocked from various services. A dedicated IP helps you get around that, as you’ll be the only one using your IP, making it less likely to trigger blocks.

Ad blocker

CyberGhost also has a built-in ad blocker to help you avoid annoying ad banners, pop-ups, trackers, and malware. The feature only works with the WireGuard protocol and can be enabled in the VPN’s settings.

Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work. In my tests, CyberGhost let through far more ads than NordVPN’s Threat Protection Pro. This included banners, pop-ups, and even YouTube ads, which were particularly annoying. If you’re looking for a VPN with a built-in adblock, CyberGhost VPN wouldn’t be my top choice.

Smart rules

CyberGhost VPN allows you to set up smart rules, which are simple scripts that launch the VPN or certain apps under certain conditions. This can be very useful when traveling, for example, automatically activating a VPN connection when you connect to an external Wi-Fi network.

You can also auto-connect to a given server location whenever you start the computer or launch an application, like a private browser, when connecting to a VPN.

This may sound novel, but other providers offer it in other ways. For example, NordVPN’s split tunneling solution includes the auto-connect feature, and auto-launch is a common VPN feature. However, smart rules are a very practical way to set up VPN automation.

CyberGhost VPN server network

CyberGhost VPN offers servers in over 100 countries, spanning various regions. This is a pretty big choice, although smaller than NordVPN’s 126 countries, it will still unblocks most of the content you’ll be looking for. Below, you’ll see a breakdown of the regions supported by the provider:

Regions	Countries
Europe	45 countries
Asia Pacific and Oceania	25 countries
North America	4 countries
South America	14 countries
Africa and the Middle East	12 countries

Specialized servers

CyberGhost VPN also offers specialized servers for torrenting, streaming, and gaming. I find these servers very useful because they help users get the most out of their VPN usage by ensuring they connect to the right server at the right time.

• Downloading servers are optimized for torrenting with P2P clients like uTorrent, located in countries where torrenting isn't heavily penalized for faster download speeds. In my testing, CyberGhost's torrenting performance was average. VPNs like NordVPN often provide better speeds with dedicated P2P servers.
• Streaming servers are tailored to access platforms like Netflix and Hulu with optimized speed and stability. They are optimized to bypass geo-restrictions and provide stable, fast connections for high-quality streaming. During in-house tests, these servers reliably unlocked content without interruptions, offering a smooth streaming experience. For example, while streaming Netflix, CyberGhost maintained 86% of its initial speeds, which is decent, but NordVPN performed better, retaining 90% of its baseline speeds.
• Gaming servers are designed to minimize latency, which affects how quickly your internet responds. High latency can cause lag, disrupting your online gaming. I tested CyberGhost's gaming servers and found they increased our latency by 10ms compared to playing without a VPN, which is acceptable. The connection remained stable throughout our testing. CyberGhost stands out as one of the few VPNs with dedicated gaming servers.
• NoSpy servers are a great choice for the most security-conscious users. They’re based in CyberGhost’s headquarters in Romania, which isn’t part of any surveillance alliance like Five, Nine, or Fourteen Eyes.

Is CyberGhost fast?

Our tests show that CyberGhost is a relatively fast VPN provider with speedy servers in various locations. To check performance, we compared its performance between countries and protocols.

Along with our research team, I tested CyberGhost’s ping and download speed across multiple locations worldwide using the WireGuard protocol. Note that in this test, the Singapore servers were very busy, which may account for the very low download retention speed. If we discount it, its download retention should be higher than the results of our previous test. Here's a comparison with 500/500Mbps baselines:

Country	Ping, ms	Download speed, Mbps	Download retention, %	Upload speed, Mbps	Upload retention, %
Australia	306	464	92.8	253	50.6
Canada	109	443	88.6	336	67.2
Germany	28	465	93.0	416	83.2
France	36	467	93.4	446	89.2
Japan	282	480	96.0	420	84
Netherlands	31	469	93.8	469	93.8
Sweden	19	461	92.2	465	93
Singapore	284	72	14.4	8	1.6
UK	37	470	94.0	444	88.8
US	101	468	93.6	188	37.6
Average	123.3	425.9	85.2	344.5	68.9
Average (previous test)	125.8	456.2	91.2	373.1	74.6

We also tested the same locations using the OpenVPN UDP protocol. As you can see, the results were far worse than in the case of WireGuard, which is to be expected given that WireGuard is faster than the two protocols, also with a 500/500Mbps baseline.

Country	Ping, ms	Download speed, Mbps	Download retention, %	Upload speed, Mbps	Upload retention, %
Australia	318	162	32.4	157	31.4
Canada	119	204	40.8	194	38.8
Germany	31	243	53.6	283	56.6
France	33	114	48.6	250	50
Japan	293	241	22.8	129	25.8
Netherlands	33	241	48.2	229	45.8
Sweden	31	237	47.4	233	46.6
Singapore	300	176	35.2	158	31.6
UK	36	274	54.8	301	60.2
US	101	144	28.8	14	2.8
Average	112	206.3	41.3	344.5	38.96

Our past tests have also shown that CyberGhost’s IKEv2 protocol retains around 50% of speed, making it a good second option behind WireGuard.

If you wonder how this compares to other providers, I decided to compare each of our top 3 providers’ best protocols against CyberGhost VPN’s WireGuard speed averages:

Baseline 500/500Mbps	Ping, ms	Download speed, Mbps	Download retention, %	Upload speed, Mbps	Upload retention, %
NordVPN (NordLynx)	152	468.2	93.6	354.1	70.8
Surfshark (WireGuard)	118	462.7	92.5	312.7	62.5
ExpressVPN (Lightway)	118	454.8	91.0	406.5	81.3
CyberGhost VPN (WireGuard)	123	425.9	85.2	344.5	68.9

As you can see, CyberGhost had the worst download speed retention of the four, while having the second-worst upload speed retention and ping. If you’re looking for the fastest VPN download speed, you should pick NordVPN or Surfshark, while if you upload a lot, I’d go for ExpressVPN. NordVPN’s OpenVPN score is also extremely impressive, retaining twice the download speed that ExpressVPN and CyberGhost VPN retained.

Testing CyberGhost use cases

CyberGhost VPN video review

If you want to learn more about CyberGhost, you can also watch our video review where you’ll find more insights about the product.

Customer support

CyberGhost VPN offers a wide selection of support options, crucially including a 24/7 live chat, which ensures you’ll get help anytime something goes wrong with the product. You can also request support via email and help yourself by using a collection of guides and FAQ.

24/7 live chat	✅ Yes
Email	✅ Yes
Phone line	❌ No
Guides or articles	✅ Yes
FAQ	✅ Yes

I also tested how long it takes to contact CyberGhost’s customer support team. When contacting them, I was informed that the team is experiencing a high load of requests at the moment, and it may take a little longer to be connected to an agent. I was eventually able to speak to an agent after about 10 minutes and received a thorough response to my question. I find that to be a decent result, all things considered. The agent answered my question in detail, showing a good understanding of the topic.

How we tested CyberGhost VPN

Together with the Cybernews research team, I tested CyberGhost VPN using our standard VPN evaluation methodology, which we used to test 41 VPNs. Here are the things we took into consideration when testing:

• Privacy (30%). Privacy is crucial in any VPN. I closely examined CyberGghost VPN’s no-logs policy, jurisdiction, and its use of RAM-only servers to ensure that user data remains fully protected and anonymous.
• Features (25%). A good VPN should offer as many quality features as possible. I tested CyberGhost VPN’s additional features like smart rules, its ad blocker, and special servers to see if they’re as good as advertised.
• Compatibility (20%). Along with our research team, I tested CyberGhost VPN’s capabilities in terms of its compatibility with multiple systems and browsers, along with taking any differentiating factors into consideration.
• Customer support (15%). While we don’t want to have issues with products, sometimes we simply do. That’s why I checked the response times and thoroughness of CyberGhost’s support staff.
• Pricing (10%). I reviewed all of CyberGhost’s plans, compared their pricing, and assessed the provider’s value for money, taking competition plans into account.

CyberGhost VPN review: final thoughts

All in all, CyberGhost VPN is a very solid VPN choice with affordable pricing and moderate performance. What I really liked about it were its dedicated streaming, torrenting, and gaming servers that can be really helpful if you use your VPN for many different reasons. Features like the NoSpy server, a reliable kill switch, and smart rules, are also great for the more security-conscious users.

However, I’ve also found some issues. Unfortunately, streaming unblocking isn’t as reliable as I’d like it to be, with some services like Disney+ only working on one server, and others like BBC iPlayer being slow and buggy even when working. Some lacking features also include custom DNS and a GUI on Linux. Finally, our tests have also found it to be a bit slower than our top picks. I would definitely recommend NordVPN or Surfshark as excellent alternatives to CyberGhost VPN to deal with those issues.

FAQ