NordVPN vs Private Internet Access

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 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.

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 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.

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:

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

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

That said, PIA has open-source VPN apps while NordVPN doesn’t. This means that anyone can view the code running Private Internet Access, decreasing the risk of security vulnerabilities.

While we’d like NordVPN to do the same, the sheer number of advanced security features it includes means it beats PIA here.

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.

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.

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.

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 much 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.

Though NordVPN’s total server count is big enough for most users, it compares poorly to PIA. NordVPN has 6,328 servers in 111 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	46	45
Asia	27	22
North America	15	8
South America	12	9
Africa	7	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.

As you can see, PIA is cheaper than NordVPN when you commit to a two-year subscription.

The monthly cost for both VPNs is identical at $12.99. The price drops to $2.03 per month for PIA if you prepay for two years. NordVPN is nearly as cheap as PIA at $2.99 per month when prepaid for the same period.

Both NordVPN and PIA accept a wide range of payment options, including credit and debit cards. For private payment, both VPNs accept Bitcoin. You can also buy a gift card for PIA or a license key for NordVPN. For PIA, you can also use major brand gift cards.

Private Internet Access and NordVPN offer a 30-day money-back guarantee on all plans, allowing you to test the service out before committing to a subscription. Both VPNs make it easy to get your refund, so we recommend taking advantage of this.

NordVPN only offers a genuine seven-day free trial on Android, while PIA also offers it on iOS.

PIA stands as the only effective option among the two for accessing restricted content in China, enabling users to reach blocked applications like Instagram and YouTube.

Despite this, both VPNs offer services in other regions known for strict internet censorship, such as Russia, Turkey, and the UAE.

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.

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.