NordVPN vs Private Internet Access

PIA logs no data about your connection whatsoever, whereas NordVPN collects your username and connection timestamp for 15 minutes after a session ends.

Although this minimal data retention isn’t sufficient to compromise your anonymity, we’d prefer it if NordVPN followed PIA’s lead and didn’t log any data at all.

NordVPN has been audited 4 times with each audit confirming that the VPN does not store your IP address or browsing activity.

Similarly, PIA’s no-logs policy is proven by an audit and multiple real-life court cases. For example, PIA was subpoenaed in the US to provide user data, but official court documents revealed that PIA had no data to share.

Conversely, NordVPN has conceded that, if ordered by a court, it could start collecting data on a user under criminal investigation. We don’t expect this to be an issue given the VPN provider’s committal to transparency reports, but it’s still worth taking into consideration.

We place greater trust in real-world tests, like the ones PIA has passed, over third-party audits. There’s no guarantee that a VPN doesn’t change its behavior while an audit is ongoing, only to revert once it’s finished.

NordVPN is based in the privacy-friendly jurisdiction of Panama, which isn’t part of any international intelligence-sharing alliances. Any company incorporated there doesn’t have to collect any user information.

In contrast, PIA is headquartered in the US. The US is part of the Five Eyes alliance, making it one of the worst places to base a VPN service. This is why PIA’s no-logs privacy policy is so important. As it doesn’t collect any user data, it has no logs to provide.

Following several real-world tests of its logging policy, we’re confident that PIA’s base in the US isn’t a concern. That said, we’d prefer it matched NordVPN by moving to a privacy-friendly jurisdiction.

NordVPN accesses 11 more Netflix libraries than PIA, making it the superior Netflix VPN.

In total, PIA can unblock Netflix in 6 countries, and NordVPN can stream 17 Netflix libraries.

PIA fails to unblock many popular Netflix regions, including Canada, France, Mexico, and Brazil. Though, unlike NordVPN, it can access Netflix India.

Here’s how the VPNs compared in our Netflix testing:

PIA has dedicated servers for streaming in the US, UK, Australia, Denmark, Italy, Japan, Finland, and Sweden, though the Denmark and Finland ones don’t work for Netflix. They are labeled “Streaming Optimized” in the PIA app.

NordVPN doesn’t have dedicated servers for streaming. Its SmartPlay feature makes it easy to unblock Netflix using any server in a compatible location. It can be much more frustrating using PIA as you might need to test several servers until you find one that works.

Though NordVPN is better than PIA for Netflix, if you want the very best VPN for Netflix streaming, Windscribe unblocks 32 libraries, and ExpressVPN is our top recommendation.

Streaming Service	NordVPN	PIA
Disney+	Yes	No
BBC iPlayer	Yes	Yes
Amazon Prime Video	Yes	Yes
HBO Max	Yes	Yes
Hulu	Yes	Yes

Both NordVPN and PIA are great at unblocking other streaming services, in addition to Netflix. For example, we used PIA’s UK streaming server to unblock BBC iPlayer.

NordVPN still has the edge on PIA, though, as it has better platform support. PIA’s Smart DNS feature has never worked in our testing, so we couldn’t use it to stream on our Smart TV or games consoles.

On the other hand, we used NordVPN’s Smart DNS tool to stream Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, and HBO Max. It doesn’t work with Netflix or BBC iPlayer, though.

In the video below, watch us using NordVPN to access US Netflix, HBO Max, and BBC iPlayer.

NordVPN and PIA are two excellent choices for streaming, but they’re not the very best. ExpressVPN is more reliable at streaming geo-blocked content platforms than NordVPN, and it works with far more libraries than PIA.

NordVPN and PIA’s connection speeds are as fast as each other on same-country connections, with our download speed dropping by just 5%.

Our speed tests on international connections also revealed identical average download speeds for NordVPN and PIA.

Here’s a summary of our international speed test results:

Server Location	NordVPN	PIA
UK	90Mbps (10% loss)	90Mbps (10% loss)
Japan	89Mbps (11% loss)	85Mbps (15% loss)
Brazil	83Mbps (17% loss)	92Mbps (8% loss)
Australia	84Mbps (16% loss)	82Mbps (18% loss)

As you can see, NordVPN’s and PIA’s international download speeds are very similar.

NordVPN was faster in more locations, such as in Australia and Japan. While this would usually mean NordVPN wins out in this category, it was up to 9Mbps slower than PIA on its Brazil and South Africa server.

Both VPNs maintain a low enough ping for online gaming. NordVPN registered an average of 8ms and PIA recorded 6ms.

This isn’t a significant difference and our gameplay remained unaffected with both VPNs.

We tested both VPNs by playing competitive online games, like CS:GO and Minecraft’s Survival Games, and experienced no lag or FPS drops.

NordVPN and PIA offer identical VPN protocols and encryption ciphers.

Both VPNs use WireGuard with ChaCha20 encryption to protect your traffic. We consider WireGuard to be the best protocol available due to its balance of speed and security.

We tested the encryption of each VPN using a packet analyzer and confirmed that they successfully encrypted our traffic:

NordVPN and PIA also offer OpenVPN, with AES-256 encryption, as an alternative.

If you connect using OpenVPN, PIA gives you granular control over the encryption that the VPN uses. You can choose whether to use AES-128 or AES-256 for encryption, as well as RSA-2048 or SHA-384 for the handshake operation.

This is great for advanced users who want to tailor the encryption exactly to their requirements and isn’t offered by NordVPN.

However, NordVPN’s overall simplicity is better if you’re a more casual VPN user.

A kill switch prevents your real IP address from leaking if the VPN connection fails by blocking your internet. Thankfully, NordVPN and PIA include a kill switch in all of their desktop and mobile apps.

We tested both VPNs with our kill switch test tool and found that our IP address was successfully prevented from leaking every time:

The main difference between the two comes down to implementation. For instance, you can toggle PIA’s kill switch on and off in its iOS app whereas NordVPN’s is automatically enabled and invisible.

Moreover, NordVPN gives you more control than PIA because it offers an app-specific kill switch, as well as a network kill switch that blocks everything if the VPN connection goes down.

While PIA has the latter, it doesn’t allow for app-level disconnections like NordVPN does.

Though NordVPN’s total server count is big enough for most users, it compares poorly to PIA. NordVPN has 7,150 servers in 118 countries. On average, NordVPN has 150 fewer servers per country than PIA.

Both VPNs also have excellent city-level server choices in countries around the world, including Australia, Canada, and Germany.

PIA excels for getting an IP address from the USA, offering an impressive range of servers across 50 US cities compared to 16 with NordVPN.

The main benefit of this is that you can connect to a server closer to you. It also allows you to access localized content, like sports blackouts in the US.

Here’s the number of countries covered in each continent:

Continent	NordVPN	PIA
Europe	44	45
Asia	32	22
North America	17	8
South America	10	9
Africa	11	5
Oceania	4	2

NordVPN provides a wider selection of country options across every continent, making it more likely to have servers in the specific country you wish to appear from.

NordVPN’s apps are simpler to use and are generally more intuitive than PIA’s. As the VPN automatically selects the best settings and server location for you, you can start using it within seconds.

Here’s a video of us connecting to both NordVPN and PIA side-by-side:

As PIA’s interface is configured for more advanced users, there are more settings and elements on the screen at once. This makes it slightly more difficult to navigate. This might not be a drawback, though, depending on your experience level.

NordVPN’s PC and Mac apps are easier to use than PIA’s, as they include less overly technical features and customizable options.

PIA includes several advanced options which can be revealed by clicking the downward facing arrow. While more experienced users will appreciate this, we found it needlessly cluttered.

Conversely, NordVPN’s features are neatly arranged as icons on the left-hand side of the app. While this is much better than PIA’s design, we found these icons to be insufficiently descriptive and believe they would benefit from clear labels.

NordVPN was also quick to launch and begin using, whereas PIA sometimes took up to 3 seconds to start up.

We appreciated the compact nature of PIA’s desktop apps, which offer the flexibility to switch between a windowed or docked mode. In contrast, NordVPN’s desktop apps are huge and can’t be minimized beyond a large window.

Both VPNs look better and are easier to use on mobile than desktop, with NordVPN offering a marginally better user experience. Its apps are easy to start using and look great on a mobile resolution.

Both VPNs only require one tap of a button to connect and disconnect. That said, PIA was marginally quicker to connect to a server with an average time of 1.3 seconds compared to 2.1 seconds with NordVPN.

We also liked how PIA’s kill switch on Android could be activated via a toggle, whereas NordVPN required us to go into our device settings.

However, we found it much easier to navigate NordVPN’s mobile apps. Scrolling down automatically opens its server list and the ‘Quick Connect‘ button allows for seamless setup. This is a much smoother user experience than PIA’s apps, which places its server list and extra features on separate tabs.

Both VPNs provide dedicated apps for Fire TV Stick, Android TV, and Apple TV. Based on our testing and personal use, we found PIA to be the better choice for these devices.

NordVPN’s streaming apps deviate from its desktop app design which can be confusing if you’re switching between the two. This is unlike PIA which uses a consistent UI across its apps, resulting in a familiar user experience.

We found it especially disconcerting that NordVPN’s streaming apps don’t feature its map interface. Instead, you have to scroll through a horizontal list to select your server location which was particularly time-consuming when using a TV remote.

PIA’s server locations are sensibly arranged in grid view which we found significantly easier to use.

Private Internet Access supports torrenting traffic on all 18,651 servers in 91 countries. As such, you can expect fast file-sharing speeds regardless of your real-life location.

In contrast, NordVPN requires you to use specific P2P-optimized servers which are unhelpfully located at the bottom of the VPN’s server list. Plus, NordVPN doesn’t provide P2P servers in 14 countries, cutting out 13% of its server network.

When downloaded a torrent file while connected to one of these general servers, our traffic was redirected through P2P servers in Canada or the Netherlands. This substantially slowed our average bitrate as it added an extra server.

PIA is one of a few top-rated VPNs to support port forwarding. Port forwarding improves your average bitrate by bypassing the NAT firewall on your router.

However, we recorded identical torrent download speeds with PIA when its port forwarding feature was turned on and off. It still improved our performance when seeding torrents, though.

Despite this, we recorded a marginally faster 9.8MiB/s bitrate with NordVPN compared to 9.6MiB/s with PIA.

No matter how large the torrent file, PIA and NordVPN will download it almost as fast as your regular internet connection.

Both VPNs include a kill switch on all platforms, too. Your real IP address won’t be exposed if your connection drops out.

PIA and NordVPN both include a Smart DNS tool in their default VPN subscription.

This feature allows you to connect to a proxy server and spoof your location. It can be set up on devices that don’t support VPN apps, like games consoles, but it won’t encrypt your encryption.

When it comes to functionality, NordVPN’s Smart DNS is limited to unblocking US-based streaming services, while PIA claims compatibility with apps from five countries: Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, the UK, and the US.

However, PIA’s Smart DNS didn’t work with any streaming service we tested.

Using PIA, we weren’t able to stream Netflix, Hulu, or BBC iPlayer on our PS5.

On the other hand, NordVPN’s Smart DNS tool worked with US Netflix, HBO Max, and Amazon Prime Video.

If you plan on using PIA or NordVPN to unblock content on a Smart TV or games console, NordVPN is the better option.

NordVPN has a much better Chrome browser extension than PIA. It includes a built-in ad blocker, a ‘Bypass List’ which acts like split tunneling for your browser, and the full server list.

Both apps have a WebRTC leak blocker to protect your IP address from leaking and successfully unblock Netflix and BBC iPlayer. We rank NordVPN as the second-best Chrome extension (after ExpressVPN).

NordVPN also has a better Firefox app than PIA. Like the NordVPN Chrome extension, the Firefox extension includes the Threat Protection feature for ad blocking and effectively unblocks geo-restricted video content.

PIA is the better option for overcoming internet censorship in stringent regions like China and Russia. Unlike NordVPN, which has lost its functionality in China, PIA demonstrates a significant success rate, bypassing the Great Firewall 50% of the time.

Private Internet Access can bypass web censorship thanks to the Shadowsocks proxy. Shadowsocks is an open-source proxy that’s been designed specifically for bypassing Chinese censorship.

PIA first sends traffic through a regular encrypted VPN server, before relaying it to the proxy server. Make sure to manually connect to the Japan Shadowsocks server to get the best performance from China.

On the other hand, NordVPN’s servers use built-in obfuscation technology. This attempts to disguise VPN internet traffic as regular HTTPS web traffic. Unlike Shadowsocks, it’s compatible with every NordVPN server, as long as you connect with OpenVPN.

While NordVPN’s implementation is simpler and has better speed performance, the bottom line is that PIA works more often.

NordVPN’s Double VPN is more secure than PIA’s multi-hop solution. By routing your traffic through two separate VPN servers, NordVPN provides double encryption, making it significantly harder for websites or third parties to trace your activity.

PIA, on the other hand, uses a Shadowsocks proxy for its multi-hop feature, which adds obfuscation rather than full encryption. While effective for bypassing censorship, it lacks the robust security of NordVPN’s Double VPN and is better suited for users prioritizing access over privacy. PIA’s implementation also falls short in speed and ease of use, making it less ideal for streaming or gaming.

Overall, NordVPN is the superior choice for multi-hop, offering enhanced encryption, faster speeds, and seamless usability. While PIA’s option is helpful in restrictive regions, it doesn’t match NordVPN’s level of privacy or performance.

NordVPN and Private Internet Access include an adblocker with the VPN subscription. These block adverts and trackers on popular websites, like YouTube, Google, and Facebook.

Our investigation into VPN ad blockers found that PIA’s ad blocker, named PIA MACE, is the best on the market. It blocked 80% of the ads we tested it with, as well as 100% of analytics trackers.

NordVPN’s ad blocker, called Threat Protection, wasn’t as effective. It blocked 20% fewer ads than PIA MACE, as well as 34% fewer analytics trackers.

Additionally, unlike PIA MACE, Threat Protection is not included with a standard NordVPN subscription, requiring an additional fee.

You can see how the two ad blockers compare head-to-head in the chart below:

We tested both VPNs support teams by asking them a series of questions. We measured the accuracy of the response, as well as how long it took to get the answer.

Here’s how NordVPN performed:

Question	Response Time	Question Answered
What type of encryption does NordVPN use?	Instant	Yes
What Netflix libraries does NordVPN unblock?	Instant	Yes
What’s the fastest NordVPN protocol?	95 seconds	Yes

Here’s how Private Internet Access performed:

Question	Response Time	Question Answered
What type of encryption does PIA use?	365 seconds	Yes
What Netflix libraries does PIA unblock?	340 seconds	Yes
What’s the fastest PIA protocol?	185 seconds	Yes

As you can see, NordVPN’s customer support team gave us answers to our questions much faster than PIA’s.

Its chatbot can answer a lot more questions than we typically see from other VPNs. We also appreciate how it gave us the answer in the chat window, rather than sending us a link to a help page.

We only needed to speak to a person on NordVPN’s support team once. When we did, they responded in under two minutes.

On the other hand, PIA’s support team is frustratingly slow. There’s often a queue for its live chat team, which regularly takes a few minutes. Even when we did get through, we had to wait at least three minutes for an answer to our question.

PIA’s support agents were also more likely to send us to a support article, rather than answering our query directly.

Both NordVPN and PIA offer additional security features, including VPN split tunneling and SOCKS5 support for faster torrenting.

We’ve found NordVPN to be more fully-featured than Private Internet Access on the whole, though.

We especially love NordVPN’s Meshnet feature, which allowed us to route internet traffic through personal devices rather than VPN servers.

With this, we could essentially get a residential IP address for free, which is especially useful for bypassing geo-restrictions or accessing local streaming services while abroad.