Surfshark vs CyberGhost: which VPN is better?

Surfshark and CyberGhost, two reliable VPN providers, are well-known for their budget-friendly options and impressive features. At Cybernews, where we specialize in conducting comprehensive research and evaluations of VPN providers, we have examined these two services in-depth.

By analyzing their speed, security, features, price, and other factors, we aimed to determine which one is the best fit for you. Both Surfshark and CyberGhost have demonstrated their streaming capabilities, delivering high-quality content without interruptions. Additionally, we thoroughly reviewed and tested various features such as kill switches, web filters, specialized servers, and torrenting support to ensure a comprehensive evaluation. However, once put head-to-head, the Surfshark vs CyberGhost comparison clearly showed which one lives up to the expectations better.

Keep reading and delve into our hands-on testing results to find out which provider comes out on top.

Surfshark vs CyberGhost

Surfshark is better than CyberGhost for a majority of use cases. It offers unlimited connections and is slightly faster than CyberGhost. However, both providers share similarities in tunneling protocols, streaming site access, platform support, and affordability but overall, Surfshark shows a better value.

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Streaming and Netflix performance

Both Surfshark and CyberGhost can unblock all of the popular streaming platforms without any issues. During our in-house tests, Surfshark and CyberGhost also managed to unblock different libraries on Netflix easily and made it to our best Netflix VPNs list.

First off, Surfshark can unblock sites like Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, Hulu, Disney+, and more. Also, Surfshark has a Smart DNS feature that helps unblock all these streaming sites on devices that you can’t get a VPN app on.

CyberGhost, in comparison, did just as well as Surfshark. This VPN can unblock Netflix easily, however, we noticed an issue. As we were browsing through the library, the connection was slow and lagging. But once the show started playing, the issue has resolved. We’ll give CyberGhost the benefit of the doubt and assume it was a problem on Netflix's side.

Other streaming services worked just as well. During our tests, there were no issues connecting to Amazon Prime Video, HBO Max, or Hulu. However, to enjoy BBC iPlayer, we had to connect to a server optimized for streaming.

Plans and pricing

Surfshark and CyberGhost are budget-friendly VPN options. Both providers offer great long-term deals for a very low price. Additionally, each of them has long and reliable money-back guarantees. Surfshark offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, while CyberGhost – a 45-day.

The monthly subscription plan is the most expensive option for both providers, CyberGhost costs $12.99, while Surfshark $12.95. The difference is so minuscule that we can’t name either of them as offering a better deal.

The price drops significantly the longer plan you pick. CyberGhost offers a six-month plan for $6.99/month. However, the best deal comes with the two-year plan, then CyberGhost VPN will cost you only $2.11/month.

Surfshark also offers some great deals with long-term plans. The year-long subscription would cost you $3.99 per month and the best offer is to buy the two-year plan for as low as $2.30/month.

When it comes to paying for your subscription, Surfshark offers a higher variety of options. CyberGhost accepts payments from credit cards, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and Bitcoin. Surfshark accepts transactions via credit card, PayPal, Google Pay, and various cryptocurrencies.

Surfshark vs CyberGhost: which is more secure?

Surfshark and CyberGhost offer solid and reliable protection for your data online. To encrypt your data, CyberGhost uses AES-256-CBC cipher and Surfshark has AES-256-GMC and Chacha20Poly135. Technically, the AES GMC version is a newer and safer one, but overall, both are unhackable.

Both providers state that they don’t log any user information, and both can confirm it with an independent audit of the no-logs policy. However, considering that they both work on RAM-only servers, where the information is wiped clean with every update, it further supports the no-log claims from both.

An advantage that Surfshark has over CyberGhost is the obfuscated servers. This feature helps out when your office or school blocks the internet traffic or if the VPN ports are blocked in your country. Obfuscation will hide your VPN connection and allow you to easily access the internet connection

Wrapping up

Overall, Surfshark vs CyberGhost security comparison could be considered a draw, however, Surfshark has the slightest edge as it works on RAM-only servers. Additionally, the obfuscated servers' option that Surfshark has is what wins against CyberGhost, and provides secure and unrestricted internet access.

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Infrastructure

RAM-only servers are the best option for VPNs to offer their customers. So that no customer information is collected and stored on any hard drives since RAM servers wipe themselves clean during each restart

So this way you can be certain that your data won’t accidentally leak to hackers or third parties, be stolen, or be used for any other purposes.

Surfshark and CyberGhost both operate on RAM-only servers. Your data stays completely anonymous and safe since it’s not collected for storage.

Privacy

A VPN encrypts your data and hides it from hackers, ISP, and other online threats to ensure your privacy online. Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) highly likely collecting your data, what pages you visit, what you search for, or click, with the intent to sell it to third parties.

Additionally, countries that belong to the 5-Eyes, 9-Eyes, or 14-Eyes Intelligence Alliance have laws that allow the government to spy on the residents or require the ISP to collect and provide information about internet use. That information can be used for government intel or even shared amongst the alliance members.

CyberGhost is based in Romania, which isn’t a part of the alliance group and their strong policy against collecting data supports the claim that they are secure and care about your privacy.

On the other hand, Surfshark is based in the Netherlands, which belongs to one of the alliance. However, this VPN provider also has a strong stance against information logging and works on RAM-only servers, so you can be secure knowing that they won’t give out your information because they have no logs of it.

Additionally, another point to support that these two providers care about your privacy is that they both accept payments with cryptocurrency. So barely any of your personal data will be connected to your account.

Logging

Both of these providers strongly state that neither logs any of the user information. That is supported by the fact that both Surfshark and CyberGhost work on ram-only servers, so there’s no storage possibility for your data.

Additionally, CyberGhost’s no-logs policy has been independently audited by Deloitte and the results confirm that this VPN doesn’t log user information.

Surfshark’s no-logs policy has been independently audited by the Deloitte auditing firm, while the security infrastructure has been audited twice by Cure53. They checked out Surfshark’s browser extensions, server infrastructure, and general tool security.

Overall, you can trust that neither of these VPN providers is logging your information for future use or to sell to third parties.

Speed performance: Surfshark vs CyberGhost

In this part of the Surfshark vs CyberGhost comparison, we’ll look at their performances with their main WireGuard tunneling protocol.

From the table results, you can see that Surfshark vs CyberGhost are close rivals. However, there are some important differences. If you look closely at the upload speed, CyberGhost dominates among the selected countries. But Surfshark delivers impressive download speed. Typically upload speeds are more relevant for torrenting and rarely matter in other use cases.

• Baseline: 454Mbps download/ 456Mbps upload

The average Surfshark speed is 373 Mbps. Meanwhile, CyberGhost comes close with an average of 355 Mbps. While the difference is quite slim, one thing is clear. When it comes to speed, Surfshark is ahead of CyberGhost.

These are the results of our testing period, so use them as an approximate guide. Depending on your internet speed, these results might differ. However, Surfshark will certainly offer better connection speeds without unnecessary loading times or lags.

Additionally, we’ve looked at the average ping results of these two providers. Here’s what we found with both VPNs working with the WireGuard protocol.

The results were pretty close in this race. However, Surfshark still came out as the winner. You will experience slightly fewer lags with Surfshark. However, CyberGhost is not a bad option either. It has pretty impressive results and kept up pretty close to Surfshark.

Wrapping up

Surfshark is slightly faster than CyberGhost. It offers better download and upload speeds with the WireGuard tunneling protocol. Additionally, it also had better results when comparing Surfshark and CyberGhost ping.

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Features overview

Surfshark and CyberGhost offer a variety of useful features to ensure your security and anonymity online. However, Surfshark’s feature package is both bigger and better. In this part, we’ll compare the features that these VPNs share to see which is the better choice.

Kill switch

With both of these providers, you’ll get a reliable kill switch feature. So if your connection to a VPN is ever suddenly dropped, it will kill the internet connection as well and protect your real IP address from leaking.

CyberGhost’s kill switch can be found in the privacy settings tab.

We’ve tested out the abilities of this security feature, and, on Windows desktop, it was very successful. CyberGhost’s kill switch successfully went into action when our connection to the server was lost.

However, we noticed an issue with the macOS app. When waking up the system from its sleep state, we were able to establish the connection to the VPN, but unfortunately, there still is no access to the Internet.

By the way, you can disable the kill switch whenever you want on the desktop app, the same can’t be said about mobile users.

Surfshark also offers a very reliable kill switch with more customization options. You can pick between a soft kill switch and a strict one.

When enabled, the strict one will block all of your internet traffic, unless you’re connected to a VPN. On the other hand, Surfshark’s soft kill switch will drop the internet connection when a VPN disconnects from the server accidentally.

Overall, both of these VPNs' kill switch is secure and can be trusted to protect your real IP address from leaking.

Ad & malware blockers

CyberGhost and Surfshark offer web filters to reduce the tracking and the number of ads you’re shown.

CyberGhost calls this tool an ad blocker, it uses DNS filtering to filter out your search results.

While you can customize this tool a lot, it can be confusing. There are two toggles for the ad blocker, and also separate toggles for malicious websites and trackers.

Unfortunately, during our tests, even with all toggles turned on, we still encountered some unwanted ads.

Surfshark’s proprietary DNS feature that blocks ads and online trackers is called CleanWeb.

When this tool is turned on, it blocks IP addresses that are blacklisted, so the ad hosts will not be able to load and you won’t see their popups. The same happens with the hosts distributing malware or gathering user data. During our tests, this worked really well and we didn’t encounter any malicious ads.

Specialized servers

CyberGhost has specialty servers for streaming, gaming, and torrenting. You can also get NoSPY servers that provide more advanced privacy measures and come with an extended bandwidth for faster speeds than the regular ones. Additionally, CyberGhost also offers dedicated IP servers in 7 locations, for an additional price that ranges from $2.50 to $5.00 per month.

Surfshark has multi-hop and dedicated IP servers. With multi-hop your connections are passed through 2 VPN servers, so that eliminates any traces of your real IP address. With a dedicated IP you’ll always be connected to the same VPN IP address which belongs exclusively to you, reducing the risk of getting blocked by streaming or gambling sites. The dedicated IP comes at an additional cost of $3.75 per month, and is available in 6 locations as of now.

Also, there are obfuscated servers to bypass most VPN blocking measures. And, of course, P2P specialized servers are available. Even though Surfshark supports P2P on all of the servers.

Additional features

Both of these providers have some additional features. However, Surfshark offers a bit more extensive package of security tools. To read in-depth descriptions of all features you can visit our CyberGhost and Surfshark reviews.

CyberGhost also offers a smart rules feature that helps to automate this VPN. You can specify a country or a server as a default connection point when you enable VPN, additionally, this tool works like a split tunneling feature.

There’s also a dedicated IP feature. You can purchase a dedicated IP address from CyberGhost if you need a consistent IP address for seeding torrent files or other for other connections. This IP address will be only yours and you won’t need to share it with anyone.

Surfshark offers a reliable split tunneling feature called Bypasser, to pick and choose which websites or apps require a VPN tunnel and which don’t. There’s also a Safe Search feature to enjoy browsing online without being attacked with ads.

Another great feature is Surfshark’s GPS spoofer, which hides your physical GPS location. It is particularly useful for mobile devices, that track your location with GPS. An IP rotator will constantly change your IP address without requiring you to change your server connection. The alert option will inform you about any of your data leaks.

Lastly, for an additional price, you can get the Surfshark Antivirus tool to protect your device from malware. This tool includes very reliable realt-ime protection and device scanning, so you can be certain that your devices will be secured from malware threats.

Wrapping up

Surfshark vs CyberGhost feature comparison ends with Surfshark’s win. This VPN provider has more security tools, they are more reliable with securing your data, and performed better during our test than CyberGhost’s security features.

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Servers and locations

Even though CyberGhost offers more servers, Surfshark covers more geographically varied locations. So both of these providers have their perks when it comes to comparing their server fleet.

Therefore, there isn’t a clear winner in this category. Both of these providers have their own strengths against the competitor.

Torrenting

When it comes to torrenting, CyberGhost and Surfshark are both good options. CyberGhost has specialized P2P servers for torrenting, they are even grouped in a separate list, so it’s very easy to find.

However, the torrenting speeds with CyberGhost are not impressive. During our test, the speed didn’t exceed 40 Mbps (5 MB/s), so there might be some throttling measures placed.

On the other hand, Surfshark is one of our top VPNs for torrenting for a reason. This VPN provider allows P2P on all of their servers, but for the best speed results, there are dedicated P2P servers available.

Surfshark’s speed while torrenting was also much better than the competitor’s. The average we reached during our test was 28 MB/s. So torrenting with this VPN will be a lot faster.

Wrapping up

Surfshark is a faster and better option for torrenting than CyberGhost. This VPN provider supports P2P connections throughout all of the servers and has great download speed results. While CyberGhost has dedicated P2P servers, the speed results left a lot to be desired.

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Platforms, interface, and ease of use

For device compatibility, both Surfshark and CyberGhost offer a variety of OS support. However, the CyberGhost client for Linux OS is outdated, difficult to install and navigate, however – there are guided setup instructions.

On the other hand, Surfshark has a dedicated Linux app that is easy to use and set up.

Another advantage that Surfshark has over CyberGhost is the ability to have unlimited simultaneous connections, while CyberGhost caps it at 7. Meaning that for a very approachable price you can cover your and your family’s devices just with one Surfshark subscription.

Wrapping up

Overall, Surfshark exceeded CyberGhost in terms of compatibility. Surfshark VPN allows for more simultaneous connections and has better-developed apps, especially for Linux clients.

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Desktop apps

Surfshark desktop apps have a very pleasing user interface, are easy to set up and use. There are a few differences between the Windows and macOS versions, but they aren’t too troublesome.

The Windows version includes all of the useful features, like split tunneling, no borders, and multi-hop to name a few. All of the features are easily accessible. Additionally, while there is no map interface, the possible server locations are listed alphabetically.

The macOS version is a little more limited than the Windows. First of all, you can pick between two macOS versions to download – the one from the official Surfshark website, which comes with IKEv2 and WireGuard protocols, or the App Store version that also adds the OpenVPN protocol.

The macOS version also doesn’t have the map interface either, nor is there the split tunneling feature.

The Windows version of CyberGhost’s app is simplistic and easy to use, but it could do with some improvements. This VPN also doesn’t offer a map interface while picking a server location. Additionally, the connection status indicator isn’t reliable, since it won’t always inform you when your connection attempt has failed.

The macOS app is similar to the Windows one, but with slight tweaks and improvements. For example, you can turn on data compression to reduce the amount of download data.

However, the macOS kill switch is sometimes unreliable, the app will show you that your VPN connection has been re-established even though your internet connection is still down.

Mobile apps

Surfshark mobile apps both have attractive user interfaces and are easy to use, however, the Android version is much better developed when compared to the iOS one.

The Android version has all the same features as the Windows one, plus the GPS spoofing feature. The iOS version looks identical to the Android one and is just as pleasant to use and navigate. However, there’s no GPS spoofing feature or a Whitelister. So you do get minimal feature support.

CyberGhost’s mobile apps are pretty much identical whether you’re using the Android one or the iOS one. They also work a bit better compared to the desktop versions.

On Android, you can choose between OpenVPN and WireGuard tunneling protocols. On iOS, you get to pick between WireGuard and IKEv2. Additionally, the Android app may ask you for your location permission only to read the name of your wifi hotspot.

Customer support

CyberGhost and Surfshark both offer the same customer support tools. That includes a 24/7 live chat option to reach an agent, or you can pick the email route for help.

If you prefer to find a solution independently, both providers offer vast knowledge bases filled with guides and articles or the FAQs page with relevant questions.

The response time, during our testing, was quick, efficient, and the agents were polite and knowledgeable. So, overall, both providers offer truly high-quality care for their customers.

Video review

Check out the Surfshark vs CyberGhost video, where we compare these two contenders in more detail. Find out which one is worth your time more than the other!

Surfshark vs CyberGhost – which one wins?

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Overall, Surfshark is better than CyberGhost and is the clear winner. While CyberGhost didn't win any categories, we had to declare a draw four times.

Surfshark VPN provided great connection speed results with all tunneling protocols. It was also better with torrenting capabilities, and offered a larger variety of features. Surfshark apps were easier to use and better developed.

On the other hand, CyberGhost is a pretty decent VPN option and keeps up with Surfshark in a couple of categories. This VPN offers great protection as well as excellent streaming capabilities, a budget-friendly price, and plenty of servers from geographically diverse locations. So you wouldn’t be disappointed with CyberGhost VPN, however, it simply can’t compete with one of the market leaders like Surfshark.

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