When you search for a VPN, Cyberghost will pop-up on the top of Google search. It is truly one of the most known brands in the VPN industry, but does it have any advantages comparing with other VPN providers? Where is it located? Does Cyberghost logs user activities? Let’s take a look at how tough the product is.
About the company
Short background about Cyberghost as a company: 8 years back, team of tech people in Germany developed a VPN solution and quickly got traction. Fast forward to 2016 and they got acquired by Kape Technologies for 9.1 million EUR ($10.13 M USD) and was moved to Romania (which does not fall under 14 eyes jurisdiction). Sounds like a success story, doesn’t it?. On this day, CyberGhost declares to have 30M active users across the globe.
Straight out the box it has all the top-tier VPN stuff – AES 256-bit encryption, OpenVPN connection packed together with IPSec protocols and many more features.
What’s the big deal about this product? Why they became so successful?
Should you consider buying this product?
I am tempted to bring answers to all of these questions.
Quick Cyberghost review
| Feature | Answer |
| Overall position | 4th |
| Logging policies? | Strict no-log |
| Location? | Romania |
| Encryption protocols | IPSec & IKEv2 and 256-bit AES/OpenVPN |
| Torrenting | Allowed |
| Customer support | 24/7, via email & live chat |
| Unblocks US Netflix? | Yes |
| Money back guarantee? | 45 days |
| Option to pay with cryptocurrencies? | Yes, by Bitcoin |
| Cost | $2.75 to $12.99/mo |
| Website | cyberghostvpn.com |
Supported devices and operating systems
Cyberghost VPN declares to work on major operating systems and devices. They have desktop apps for Windows, macOS, Linux. Mobile apps for iOs and Android. As well as NordVPN, they offer browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox and on top of that. It is also a cool thing that they developed TV Apps for Amazon FireSticks and Android TV’S.
What features does CyberGhost offer?
Let’s get started with location coverage and server capacity. This virtual private network offers a wide range of servers (more than 4000 to be exact) in 60 countries.
CyberGhost is equipped with all the key features you can think off.
Hiding IP? Yes
Kill-switch? They sure have it
Cyberghost uses all the mainstream encryption protocols including OpenVPN, L2TP, and IPSec. If you are aware of these protocols, you know that you can rely your security AES-256 encryption. This will keep your data and devices secure. If you want to read more about what specific protocol means – feel free to check out our blog post right HERE.
Although, users were questioning whether acquisition by Kape Technologies might have compromised security of CyberGhost VPN. Yet the company took security and privacy serious and now annually they issue a transparency report, talking transparent with their users and ensuring honest reputation. Here is their latest report.
CyberGhost Log Policy
As I mentioned before, CyberGhost VPN is based in Romania which does not belong to 14-Eyes Alliance. This allows company to ensure a strict no-logging policy – no data about your browsing activity is being kept in their storage.
This company is also very transparent compared to NordVPN or ExpressVPN, as they do have way more public information accessible to everyone.
Connections and speeds
Cyberghost allows to have 7 simultaneous connections at a time – that is one extra compared to NordVPN or Surfshark. Few years back, they only allowed 5 connections at a time, but this improvement really helped to acquire more users.
One of the biggest cons that we found while testing Cyberghost were the speeds. As we have our own testing logic, Cyberghost really disappointed us in the aspect of speed. We’ve tested internet connection with and without VPN connected and Cyberghost speeds dropped almost twice:
No VPN (Europe)
Ping: 6ms
Download: 134.16 Mbps
Upload: 89.91 Mbps
US Server (Los Angeles)
- Ping: 231ms
- Download: 14.21 Mbps
- Upload: 9.03 Mbps
Asia server (Seoul)
- Ping: 81ms
- Download: 31.00 Mbps
- Upload: 19.72 Mbps
Europe server (Rome)
- Ping: 31ms
- Download: 61.22 Mbps
- Upload: 35.04 Mbps
Australian server (Sydney)
- Ping: 101ms
- Download: 7.33 Mbps
- Upload: 6.15 Mbps
Customer support
In this tight industry, it super important to have a reliable and fast responding customer support. Cyberghost does seem to have a qualified personnel who will be ready to answer your questions 24/7 through live chat and emails.
We were also surprised with the FAQ’s and guides Cyberghost offers. Majority of historical problems and questions are stored there, so most likely you will not even have a need to contact a real person.
Pricing
If we’d take a look at Cyberghost’s pricing, it is clearly visible that their main rival is NordVPN. We can see lots of similarities in these two pricings.
Cyberghost cheapest and best value plan is $99 for 3 years ($2.75/mo). Their 2 year subscription can be purchased for $88.56 ($3.69/mo) and 1Y plan is available for $71.88 ($5.99/mo). It is worth to mention that their monthly plan is even more expensive than ExpressVPN’s – it can be purchased for $12.99
Final verdict
If you still hesitate whether you should get a subscription of Cyberghost or no, the answer from our side is yes.
It is a good streaming and torrenting orientated VPN provider with 0 logs policy. Big variety of client apps, server locations is truly an advantage. However, we think that Cyberghost should really do something with their speeds. Our tests clearly indicated that they struggle with connection speeds and that could be a deal breaker for an average or advanced internet user. It is worth to mention that they have a “no question 45 days money back guarantee”, so you will have plenty of time to decide whether you should commit to becoming a long term Cyberghost user or not.
If you have a budget for Cyberghost, we would recommend taking a look at NordVPN – our #1 rated VPN provider. The pricing is kinda alike, but we found way less cons when we tested NordVPN.
