Two providers built for the same reason
Most VPN companies are marketing companies with servers. These two are the exceptions, and it shows in the same ways: open-source apps with published audits, no-logs claims tested by police or courts rather than just by auditors, a refusal to play the intro-price-then-triple-the-renewal game, and either no affiliate programme or a modest one. That last point is why you rarely see them at the top of other sites’ rankings: there is little to earn by recommending them.
So the question is not which is trustworthy. Both are. It is which trade-offs suit you.
Mullvad: the account that does not exist
Mullvad’s signup is a button that generates a 16-digit number. That number is your account. There is no email, no name, no password reset — lose the number and the account is gone. Pay by card if you like, or send €5 in an envelope, or Monero. The company cannot identify you because it never asked. In April 2023 Swedish police arrived at Mullvad’s office with a warrant for customer data and left with nothing, because there was nothing.
The trade-off is scope. Mullvad does not unblock streaming services and does not try. It removed port forwarding in 2023 after abuse. Its network is smaller. The app is deliberately plain. It is the right VPN for someone whose threat model includes the subscription itself, and the wrong VPN for someone who wants Netflix.
Proton: the non-profit that does everything
Proton VPN comes from the company behind Proton Mail, and since 2024 that company has been controlled by the Proton Foundation, a Swiss non-profit — the only ownership change in this market that moved away from investors. The apps are open source and audited. Secure Core routes traffic through hardened servers in Switzerland and Iceland before the exit. Stealth and alternative routing were built for Iran and Russia and carry a large share of those countries’ VPN traffic. There is port forwarding, a Tor option, NetShield DNS blocking, streaming that works, and a free tier with no cap and no ads.
The trade-off is the account: an email is required, though a Proton Mail address created without identifying information is enough. And the pricing follows the industry pattern, with a two-year intro and a higher renewal.
Price
Mullvad: €5 a month, always. Proton Plus: about $4.49 a month on the two-year plan, roughly $5.24 a month once the renewal term is counted. Effectively the same money. The difference is that Mullvad’s number is the number, and Proton’s requires a calendar reminder.
Who should pick which
Proton if you want one VPN for everything — daily privacy, streaming, torrenting with port forwarding, travel to censored countries — from an owner whose incentives you trust. Mullvad if the account must not be traceable, if you pay in cash, if you do not stream, or if you want the simplest possible app that has changed little in years because it did not need to. Many people run both.
What we have not tested
Speeds on either; published tests put them close, with Proton slightly slower on Secure Core by design. Our own throughput and leak tests are pending and the speed dimension is excluded from both scores until they land.