A proper Surfshark vs NordVPN comparison will help you decide which provider should be your next choice. If you’re considering one, you’re in the right place. These are among the best affordable VPNs available, offering excellent value for money, security, and privacy.
Surfshark is renowned for its competitively priced 2-year plans, unlimited simultaneous connections, and advanced security features. NordVPN, on the other hand, is an all-around performer, excelling in every aspect from safety and privacy to streaming, torrenting, and bypassing censorship.
A few years ago, NordVPN and Surfshark collaborated to enhance their services collectively. Therefore, this NordVPN vs Surfshark comparison for 2024 promises to be compelling, as we evaluate these two allies to determine the superior choice.
Before you commit to either option, we recommend reading this comprehensive analysis to the end. Both providers offer exceptional features, which we will detail in our comparison of Surfshark and NordVPN. Let’s find out who claims the throne!
Surfshark vs NordVPN: Overview
After testing both providers side-by-side, we concluded that NordVPN is better than Surfshark and should be your go-to option. However, here’s a brief overview of their features if you don’t have time to read the entire NordVPN vs Surfshark comparison.
| Surfshark | NordVPN | |
| Our Current Ranking | #4 | #1 |
| Prices | starting at $2.19/mo | starting at $3.39/mo |
| Money-Back Guarantee | 30 Days | 30 Days |
| Free Version | No | No |
| Logging | No | No |
| Protocols | OpenVPN, IKEv2, WireGuard | NordLynx, OpenVPN |
| Servers | 3,200 in 100 countries | 6,400 in 111 countries |
| Specialty Servers | MultiHop, Static IP | Double VPN, Obfuscated, Onion Over VPN, P2P |
| RAM-Only Servers | Yes | Yes |
| Working With Netflix | Yes (30+ catalogs) | Yes (20+ catalogs) |
| P2P Allowance | Yes | Yes |
| Simultaneous Connections | Unlimited | 10 |
Applications & Ease of Use
This comparison starts with the evaluation of their apps and compatibility. Let’s discuss the latter first. Both VPNs excel in this department, offering applications for all platforms. This makes them great for desktop, mobile, tablet, and laptop users.
Supported platforms include:
- Windows
- Linux
- macOS
- Android
- iOS
- Routers
- Smart TVs
- Apple TV
- Firestick, and so on…
We love their native Firestick VPN apps, as they’re ideal for streaming geo-blocked content. On top of that, both providers work on an array of router models, so you can use them to protect all devices in your household. What about concurrent connections?
Well, Surfshark is better than NordVPN here. It offers unlimited connections, while NordVPN is capped at 10. While not impressive by any means, it’s way ahead of ExpressVPN and CyberGhost, for instance. Ease of use is a strength in both providers, so it’s a huge plus.
Surfshark’s desktop app looks funky and professional simultaneously. It’s snappy and easy to use, alas, with a few cases of longer connection times on Windows. Its mobile apps are state-of-the-art, offering plenty of features to enjoy on the go. NordVPN takes the lead here.
We think it looks better and is snappier than its rival. This applies to all platforms. NordVPN, for example, takes 1-2 seconds to connect. It’s also decorated with a world map of servers that you can use to connect. Better yet, it feels sleeker and is slightly more intuitive.
During our Surfshark vs NordVPN evaluation, we thoroughly enjoyed both providers’ apps. While Surfshark beats its rival in simultaneous connections, NordVPN’s overall functionality is slightly better. This makes the initial round of the comparison a draw.
Surfshark vs NordVPN: Price Comparison
We praised Surfshark’s very affordable nature in our review. However, we drew the same conclusion for NordVPN as well! Starting with the shark that loves surfing, its price is dangerously close to $2/mo at the time of writing. We’re discussing its 24-month plan.
There are three tiers – Starter, One, and One+. The Starter plan isn’t very attractive features-wise because it lacks many that we’ll mention later. The One plan is extremely good, and at under $2.7/mo with 3 extra months, you’re getting even its antivirus and other good stuff.
Surfshark’s 12-month plans are ridiculously affordable. The One plan, again, shines, at over $3.1 a month with 3 extra months. Bear in mind that ExpressVPN’s equivalent costs $6.67 – above TWO times more! Sadly, its monthly plans start at over $15 – quite expensive.
NordVPN’s 2-year plans are more expensive but they’re very valuable. The Basic 2-year plan starts at around $3.4 and already includes plenty of features of NordVPN. The Plus plan is the one you want, with malware protection, ad blocker, and other premium features.
Sadly, it’s over $4.3 a month, making it a lot more expensive than Surfshark. NordVPN’s 1-year plans are also discounted but slightly less. The Plus plan, which is the best value, is around $6 a month. Compared to Surfshark’s $3.1+ a month price, it’s… well, expensive.
In this NordVPN vs Surfshark duel, it’s good to mention a 30-day money-back guarantee on both sides. It applies to all plans and lets you get a full refund in no time. Payment methods are identical – pretty much – and you’ll get options like PayPal, crypto, and debit cards.
This round goes to Surfshark because it’s way cheaper than NordVPN.
NordVPN vs Surfshark Features
Our Surfshark vs NordVPN price comparison might be enough for you to decide. Well, we wouldn’t rush to conclusions just yet. These providers are brimming with features waiting for you to explore them. We’ll help you a bit by explaining how they work.
Shared Features
Given the “buddies” status of these services, they share an awful lot of security features. They include:
- Bank-grade encryption. The strongest encryption – also titled 256-bit AES encryption. It’s a standard in premium VPNs that specialize in privacy and security. Being impenetrable and in this case, amplified by Perfect Forward Secrecy, it’s easy to see why popular options like these use it.
- Double VPN/MultiHop. This is the same feature present in both VPNs. It doubles your encryption by routing your traffic through two servers in different countries. As a result, the speed is slightly slower but the level of security rises significantly.
- Ad Blocker. Both VPNs can block ads, trackers, and malicious sites. NordVPN’s ad blocker is part of its Advanced Protection, while Surfshark has CleanWeb.
- Kill Switch. This is an integral part of both providers. NordVPN’s kill switch historically works better because its rival struggled with its malfunctions in the past. NordVPN also includes an App Kill Switch, which Surfshark lacks.
- Obfuscation/NoBorders. It’s great for avoiding censorship and getting over firewalls. NordVPN’s obfuscated servers are in all apps (except mobile) and Surfshark’s NoBorders mode is as easy to turn on – a win-win situation.
- Dark Web Monitor/Alerts. This feature is great for getting alerted about leaked credentials. You can react immediately and resolve the problem to avoid data theft. Both features are available in these VPNs’ mid-tier plans.
- Split Tunneling. Quite a handy feature if you want to exclude certain apps from using a VPN tunnel. Or perhaps include only specific apps. Not unique but very useful.
- Dedicated IP. Both providers offer dedicated IPs for purchase in multiple locations. Surfshark’s dedicated IPs are cheaper than NordVPN’s.
- RAM Servers. Finally, they use RAM-only servers for the ultimate privacy. RAM servers lose their data with each reboot, so no information stays on the server for long.
Unique Features
Despite all the similarities, these providers have their “personality” and still offer something unique. NordVPN has the NordLynx protocol, which is an improved version of WireGuard. Surfshark went with the “plain” WireGuard but with some tweaks to make it more dependable.
Other protocols include OpenVPN and IKEv2 on both sides. NordVPN’s offers don’t end there. Its Threat Protection includes real-time protection against malicious files and trackers. Surfshark has an antivirus that works incredibly well on all devices.
Surprisingly, it’s even better than NordVPN’s Threat Protection at detecting malignancies. Surfshark also includes the Search browser, which is a bespoke “incognito” mode for browsing without ISP monitoring. This feature is in the One and One+ plans.
Surfshark comes with the IP Rotation function to rotate your IP periodically while keeping your connection intact. This means you can’t be tracked even by NSA-level hackers. NordVPN punches back with Meshnet, which can be used in many interesting ways.
It’s good for remote control, remote access, and even file sharing. We love that Surfshark includes Static IPs but security-wise, they don’t do a whole lot. Security-wise, it’s hard to tell who is the winner because they offer amazing features not found in many other VPNs.
However, NordVPN is slightly better than Surfshark because of a few “extras”, particularly Meshnet, which seals the deal for many users looking to expand upon basic VPN functions.
Do NordVPN and Surfshark Store Logs?
Storing logs is an unattractive characteristic of many free VPNs. Thankfully, neither of them is free, which sort of implies that none of them keep logs! Examining the privacy policies of NordVPN and Surfshark, we can clearly see minimal logging practices.
These VPNs won’t store information like:
- Your IP address
- DNS requests
- Timestamps
- Connection logs
- Geolocation
- Traffic metadata, and so on…
We must say we’re impressed with the level of privacy both display. After examining the part about logging, both providers do well with very few bits of information. They’re limited to troubleshooting data and things like your payment info and email.
Now, both offer some “extras” that might require some more information. In particular, both contain anti-malware/antivirus, so scanning your computer for threats is naturally going to be “privacy-unfriendly”. This issue is resolved by anonymizing your data.
Even if something arrives at these VPNs’ servers, this information is in an anonymized form, plus, all data is wiped quickly, as soon as it’s not needed anymore. Besides, both providers have RAM-exclusive servers, so they can easily restart them and wipe all information.
Jurisdictions are quite different. NordVPN is in Panama, which is better than Surfshark’s Netherlands. NordVPN also has very significant audits from PwC and Deloitte. Surfshark has been audited by Deloitte and Cure53, so we’re talking about equal providers.
So, which provider to choose for privacy and no logging, NordVPN or Surfshark? Both are amazing, which is why this round is yet another tie.
Which VPN Is Faster: Surfshark or NordVPN?
If we exclude security and privacy, speed is perhaps one of the most important aspects of a VPN service. Today’s Surfshark vs NordVPN comparison for 2024 takes us to another vital face-off, which is all about performance. Before we proceed, we’ll mention a few things
The first thing is our location at the time of testing. We were in Europe, using a pretty fast internet connection with download and upload speeds of over 340 Mbps and 19 Mbps respectively. Here are our results:
After performing this test without using a VPN, we did the following. We tested both providers for 3 days in a row, 3 times a day, using 3 locations – the UK, the US, and Japan. Since both offer very fast protocols, we used them for our test.
To translate, Surfshark’s WireGuard and NordVPN’s NordLynx were used. We also performed our tests on our Windows computer as these VPNs work very well on Windows and it was also easier to perform our tests on this platform.
Here’s the average speed reduction of both providers based on our tests:
| Download Speed Loss | Upload Speed Loss | |
| Surfshark | 27% | 32% |
| NordVPN | 18% | 7% |
The table above favors NordVPN as the faster of the two. It was quite faster in both download and upload performance, however, the difference is even larger in the latter case. Surfshark’s 32% drop in upload performance was indeed alarming.
Get the best speeds with NordVPN
NordVPN, on the other hand, stayed composed, with its average speed reduction never going over 20%. Even in practice, the Panamanian VPN performed much better thanks to not only faster overall speeds but also lower latency.
Here are their complete speed test results across all three locations where you can see how they performed during our 3-day testing.
| UK (Download/Upload) | US (Download/Upload) | Japan (Download/Upload) | |
| Surfshark | 306.48/16.97 Mbps | 253.79/12.47 Mbps | 191.07/10.90 Mbps |
| NordVPN | 324.25/18.68 Mbps | 292.75/18.31 Mbps | 223.54/17.85 Mbps |
Streaming & Torrenting
After our performance evaluation, our Surfshark vs NordVPN duel moves in another direction. In two, to be precise – streaming and torrenting. As they’re respectable premium providers, you’d expect awesome performance from both. Here’s how they truly perform.
Streaming
Streaming is first and here, we have one amazing surprise. NordVPN performs exceptionally well, unblocking over 20 Netflix catalogs, BBC iPlayer, Hotstar, and dozens of other streaming platforms. It also works with TV channels abroad – ITV is one of them.
We must praise NordVPN’s unblocking abilities on all platforms. Having tested it on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS, we can report its apps are equally capable of jumping over geo-blocks. NordVPN’s inclusion of Smart DNS is more than welcome.
It is, however, limited to US-based streaming services only. Surfshark includes Smart DNS too, which is a great move for a greater streaming variety. We mentioned one surprise, which is Surfshark’s overwhelmingly powerful streaming ability that overshadows even NordVPN.
Surfshark works with 30 or more Netflix catalogs, which surpasses its rival. For instance, the provider can help you access Netflix Turkey, which many providers can’t – we can mention ExpressVPN in this regard. Other streaming platforms are easily accessible as well.
Interestingly, these providers don’t have dedicated streaming servers, which makes things more impressive. This means out-of-the-box optimization is already perfect for watching content online. While both are impressive, Surfshark has a slight edge because it unblocks more Netflix libraries.
Torrenting
Torrenting and P2P activities are enjoyable regardless of the provider you choose. NordVPN’s P2P servers are excellent, offering impressive speeds and stability for daily downloads. After testing them multiple times, we found that speed reductions are non-existent, which is awesome.
We used nearby servers in Europe to download torrents without hassle. NordVPN even has the SOCKS5 proxy that you can combine with torrent clients for slightly better performance. Surfshark also works for torrenting on all of its servers. That’s nice to have.
There’s no port forwarding or other extras to enhance torrenting. In our experience, this “extra” is unnecessary if you’re already using a fast P2P VPN such as these two. NordVPN and Surfshark are P2P-friendly but the former is slightly faster, as expected.
That’s why NordVPN is a tad better than Surfshark for P2P. Given the outcome of the streaming comparison, which was in Surfshark’s favor, the torrenting/streaming round ended up in a tie, as you can’t really go wrong with any of them.
Server Locations of Surfshark and NordVPN
Having a large server park isn’t necessarily better if the server quality is lacking. Luckily for us, this isn’t the case here. NordVPN and Surfshark have 10 Gbps RAM-only servers, resulting in the best possible experience. NordVPN has 6,400+ servers in 110+ countries.
It includes specialty servers we already mentioned plus dedicated IP addresses to make things varied. We can only praise this server network, which excels in aspects like security, privacy, and speed. NordVPN’s servers are distributed well, so it’s another plus.
It even has Indian VPN servers that fully work with Hotstar and other India-locked content abroad. We appreciate its Onion over VPN servers too that people mostly use to visit the dark web through Tor. Surfshark offers 3,200 servers in 100 countries.
It effectively has twice as less servers as its rival, so it’s at a disadvantage. However, this number isn’t critically small and won’t produce overcrowding and not being able to find a fast server for you. It doesn’t have specialty servers, so it’s less versatile, in a way.
Like its rival, Surfshark possesses dedicated IP addresses but also static IPs, which you won’t find in NordVPN. The provider has 10 countries less than NordVPN, which isn’t too alarming considering its amazing server distribution across every continent.
NordVPN wins this round because of a significantly larger, yet equally reliable server network with specialty servers.
Bypassing Censorship: Which VPN Does It Better?
Avoiding censorship is never easy, especially in China. The Great Firewall trumps even some of the best providers, one of which is CyberGhost. Well, if you’re using CyberGhost, it might be great to swap it for NordVPN which uses obfuscated servers. They’re extremely good!
Having tested them in China, we concluded that obfuscated servers can indeed get over the firewall. There’s a minor speed drop because of all the encryption and stuff going on in the background. However, the performance is sublime for all purposes, gaming included.
Surfshark uses NoBorders to achieve the same effect. It’s obfuscation applied to your connection, masking it, and making it look like a normal connection. This effectively lets you get over the Great Firewall and use it in China hassle-free. It’s efficient in practice.
But we noticed that it’s slightly less reliable than NordVPN, with a few connection problems here and there. That’s usually resolved by using Open VPN TCP, which is often better for firewall bypassing. The main thing is that both can be used in China.
NordVPN is a bit better, generally speaking. Other countries like Iran, the UAE, Turkey, and Russia aren’t problematic for either. Their censorship means aren’t as strong as China’s, so both can work efficiently and without connection issues.
Conclusion: NordVPN Wins Against Surfshark
Now that we have all the cards on the table, it’s time to sift through them and see which provider is better – Surfshark or NordVPN. Well, if we do the math, we can see that NordVPN won the comparison by beating Surfshark in most cases.
NordVPN is faster, offers more servers, and is better at bypassing censorship. Surfshark is cheaper, offers unlimited connections, and is slightly better for Netflix. Other aspects, such as torrenting, security, privacy, and compatibility are a tie, making the VPNs some of the best choices around.
In the end, our ultimate choice would be NordVPN. It’s better and only slightly more expensive than Surfshark. Having more servers and being way faster is important to us. If you’re more value-inclined and want to save as much money as you can, it’s okay.
In that case, you can opt for Surfshark but an even better option is Private Internet Access. At just over $2/mo, it’s also packed with unlimited connections, rock-solid security, and strong privacy. Still not better than NordVPN but superior to Surfshark overall.