NymVPN Review

NymVPN is a relatively young VPN, and moved from a public beta to a full release in early 2025. Rather than having a no-logs policy, it has a zero-knowledge network of third-party providers. This is structured so that NymVPN never handles your data and the network nodes only ever have a partial view of your data, rather like Tor, with your traffic running through at least two servers.

NymVPN’s mixnet network can prevent even the most sophisticated nation-state level actors from tracking you with its high-security Anonymous mode. In addition, it's based in Switzerland and allows you to create an account and subscribe fully anonymously.

The downside of this is that NymVPN is relatively slow and Anonymous mode isn’t fast enough even for standard internet browsing. The service is also relatively expensive at $3.79 per month with a long-term subscription, costing more than most of the top providers, while having a middling network of server locations and currently no support for Smart TVs or routers.

To gauge NymVPN’s capabilities, I’ve thoroughly tested its apps and features, looking at its performance, usability, and success with unblocking international services and rated how it compares to similarly matched rivals and to leaders in the field.

NymVPN on paper

For a quick explanation of any VPN-related terminology, check out our VPN glossary.

NymVPN price

NymVPN has a single pricing tier, like CyberGhost VPN and PIA, with subscriptions available for one month ($14.99 per month), one year ($4.49 per month), or two years ($3.79 per month). This is relatively expensive when compared to Surfshark’s $1.99 per month two-year starter plan and the equivalent options from ExpressVPN (at $2.79 per month) and NordVPN (at $3.39 per month).

You can install the app on up to 10 devices, and there’s a 2 TB fair use policy. This is unusual, but allows you to use around 65 GB of data per day, which should be plenty for most people. However, the 10-device limit is fairly restrictive, and particularly so when compared to Surfshark’s unlimited connections.

The company accepts a particularly wide range of payment options, and you can pay by card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, or with cryptocurrency, ETH tokens, or cash (mailing your money to Switzerland). In addition, you can pay with NYM tokens, which net you an additional 50% discount on the price of your plan.

There’s a seven-day free trial, and NymVPN offers a pro-rata money-back guarantee for 30 days. That means that if you request a refund after 10 days, you’ll be reimbursed for the remaining 20 days.

Rating: 7/10

Does NymVPN have a free trial?

NymVPN gives you full use of the service with a 7-day free trial. No email address is required with the signup, but you do have to enter your payment details, and at the end of the trial, it will convert to a two-year plan.

If you cancel before then, there’s nothing to pay. There’s also a 30-day pro-rata money-back guarantee.

NymVPN features

NymVPN has reasonable coverage for core VPN features and has some particularly strong privacy functionality.

It offers a kill switch across all its apps, cutting your internet connection if the VPN fails. Unusually, the Windows kill switch is on by default and can’t be disabled. This is good for security, but it means you can’t turn the kill switch off if it causes issues.

The kill switch generally worked well in my testing and consistently blocked my internet when I tried to break the VPN connection. One usability issue is that the app doesn’t display a notification when blocking your connection, which would of course be helpful.

The NymVPN Android app doesn’t have a stand-alone kill switch, but prompts you to use the system-level Android always-on kill switch. That’s not as convenient, but it’s not difficult, and the end result should be just as secure.

It currently only supports split tunneling for Android. It has a strong implementation, though, and makes it easy to select whether apps will connect to the internet directly (for faster connections and a local IP address) or will be encrypted via NymVPN.

NymVPN’s Fast Mode supports AmneziaWG, an open-source fork of WireGuard, which is intended to be resistant to censorship. Unlike most leading VPNs, NymVPN doesn’t support OpenVPN or any other protocols, but it is multi-hop by default, allowing you to pick entry and exit servers.

The Anonymous mode doesn’t use a standard VPN protocol, but takes a five-hop route through the Nym mixnet. You’re able to select the entry and exit servers, and the process shuffles your data packets and adds fake traffic to help you escape detection from even the most advanced AI-powered traffic surveillance.

This is very secure, but it has such a large impact on connection speeds and latency that it’s only intended for things like messaging, emailing, and crypto transfers.

NymVPN has reasonable coverage for core VPN features and has some particularly strong privacy functionality.

In November 2025, NymVPN added an enhanced connection mode, which is effectively an obfuscation feature. This extends Fast Mode by using the QUIC protocol to make your traffic look more like regular browsing data, thereby reducing the chance that third parties will be able to detect that you’re using a VPN (even with techniques like Deep Packet Inspection).

This has the potential to help you bypass VPN blocks in restrictive locations like China. NymVPN also reports that it automatically rotates cryptographic keys to protect against session linking.

On Windows, you can set NymVPN to launch when your device boots, but you’ll need to manually connect. The Android NymVPN app can launch and automatically connect when your device loads up, but there’s no option to specifically auto-connect on unsafe or pre-selected networks.

For privacy absolutists, NymVPN supports using Tor over VPN, and you can launch the Tor browser or connect to Tor with NymVPN running for an extra level of privacy. Tor is slow, but it may well be better than using Nym’s Anonymous mode.

On the technical side, NymVPN allows you to use IPv6 connections, and you can route traffic via a local SOCKS5 proxy for apps or an HTTP RPC proxy for wallets. Unlike most VPNs, though, NymVPN doesn’t offer an ad blocker, and there are no add-ons like antivirus or online privacy tools.

Rating: 7/10

NymVPN server network

NymVPN works differently to most popular VPNs, as it’s a decentralized service, and its servers are owned and operated independently. That means it doesn’t have the same guaranteed list of locations, and at any time, some may be down or no longer available.

In the Windows app, I counted 68 countries and 112 locations, and the number has grown considerably in the last year. This will fluctuate, though, and you may see different numbers between different apps.

The Nym Explorer tool reports that the network currently includes as many as 72 countries, 149 locations, and 713 individual servers. The NymVPN homepage quotes a network of 85 countries, but this doesn’t seem to match what we’ve seen in the apps.

VPNs with similar network sizes include Windscribe (with 70 countries) and PureVPN (with 66), while leading providers like NordVPN and ExpressVPN offer 129 countries and 108, respectively. The number of locations, meanwhile, puts NymVPN in a similar league to Hotspot Shield and Windscribe, both with 116 locations, but some way behind ExpressVPN’s 188 locations.

Your account will allow you to simultaneously use NymVPN on 10 devices. If you want to use different devices, however, you’ll need to uninstall the apps before you can use new hardware.

When testing whether NymVPN connections were physically hosted in the labeled locations, NymVPN performed better than most of its competitors, and the only servers I found that were clearly hosted outside of the named country were for Moscow in Russia, which is as I would expect.

NymVPN has strong coverage for the 30 most common VPN locations, only omitting Denmark. There are some notable quirks to its network distribution, though, with three locations for the Netherlands but only one for Australia, and no support for Canada’s west coast. The provider’s coverage is strongest in Europe, though it’s relatively weak in Africa, with only three locations for the entire continent.

Rating: 7/10

Is NymVPN good for streaming and unblocking?

NymVPN got mixed results when I tested it against different streaming platforms. I found it unlocked Amazon Prime Video for most territories and Netflix for the US, UK, and Canada. I could also access 9Now and TVNZ+ for Australia and New Zealand.

That said, NymVPN didn’t unblock Disney+ or the BBC iPlayer for me or Netflix for Australia or Japan, and I found 7Plus and 10 Play in Australia had consistent technical issues.

This puts NymVPN behind providers like NordVPN, CyberGhost, and even free service EventVPN that have a better track record for consistently unblocking major global streaming platforms.

In my testing, I found that every unblocked service worked on my first attempt, but blocked services remained consistently blocked. It seems that Australia is a particularly weak spot for the platform, and it’s possible that streaming platforms view the IP addresses of Nym’s exit servers as being suspicious.

When it comes to torrenting, I tried downloading test torrents from locations in the UK, US, and the Netherlands and they all worked without issue. That said, NymVPN doesn’t currently support port forwarding, and while it’s an increasingly unusual feature for VPNs, it’s important when uploading torrents.

Rating: 7/10

How fast is NymVPN?

Normally, we test VPNs with a remote cloud PC with an ultra-fast connection to measure the maximum possible performance available. However, I found that NymVPN wasn’t able to maintain a connection with our usual test environment.

This is an extremely unusual use case, so NymVPN can’t be blamed, but it meant that we had to measure the provider’s performance with a 160 Mbps 5G UK connection. We measured connection speeds using multiple testing platforms, at multiple times of day, and for local UK and trans-Atlantic connections, as we do in our standard approach to how we test VPNs.

In my testing, I recorded speeds of around 80 Mbps for local UK connections and 97 Mbps for US connections in the morning and speeds of 55 Mbps across the board in the evening. It’s strange that a local connection was slower than an international one in some periods, but in a network of independently managed servers with varying levels of bandwidth, it’s to be expected that anomalies will emerge.

Given the very consistent evening speeds, it’s possible that my connection was getting capped in this period by my UK entry server hitting its bandwidth limit.

NymVPN is a fair bit slower than the competition, but it’s worth noting that NymVPN is routing traffic through two servers

All of this indicates that NymVPN is a fair bit slower than the competition, and its speeds are more variable. When I tested ExpressVPN with the same 5G connection, it hit 111 Mbps for the UK and 119 Mbps for the US.

It’s worth noting that NymVPN is routing traffic through two servers, so delivers a multi-hop connection by default, which is typically much slower.

While NymVPN is by no means the fastest VPN on the market, Fast mode should be sufficient for browsing the internet, streaming Netlfix (which requires around 25 Mbps), and securing yourself on public Wi-Fi.

NymVPN’s Anonymous mode routes your traffic through an extra three intermediary servers, making it more difficult to track your activities, but slowing down your connection. Anonymous mode is intended for bandwidth-light tasks like emailing or messaging, but I found my connection ground to a halt on Windows, with latency increasing to 1,000-3,000 ms and severe issues coming up with the stability of my connection. Things improved on Android, but it still took 60 to 90 seconds to connect to websites.

Rating: 6/10

NymVPN privacy and security

NymVPN operates a very unusual model and doesn’t own servers or much infrastructure. Rather than having a no-logs policy, NymVPN is designed to be a zero-knowledge network: it doesn’t know who you are and doesn’t handle your data.

At the same time, the system means that the operators of the servers in the network know very little about you: the entry server doesn’t know who you are or what internet resources you’re trying to access, and the exit server only knows the IP of the entry server and the destination website you’re trying to reach. Because of this, the node operators have no-logs commitments, but the data that they handle is always partial and would be meaningless on its own.

In Anonymous mode, your traffic is passed through multiple nodes, encrypted multiple times, and your data packets are standardized and re-ordered, so it should be impossible to decrypt it or connect it back to your IP.

All of this puts NymVPN in stark contrast with a traditional VPN like ExpressVPN, which locks down its owned and operated network with its TrustedServer technology.

NymVPN’s AmneziaWG protocol uses ChaCha20-Poly1305 for encryption, just like the standard WireGuard protocol. The Fast mode improves on this by encrypting your data twice, so it’s only fully decrypted after it’s passed through the exit server.

Rather than having a no-logs policy, NymVPN is designed to be a zero-knowledge network: it doesn’t know who you are and doesn’t handle your data.

There's no current support for post-quantum encryption, but it’s on the near-term product roadmap. In addition, the provider’s apps are open source, enabling the community to inspect their code and confirm that they work as described and to report any potential vulnerabilities.

With NymVPN, you get multi-hop encryption as standard, and you can access obfuscation either via the mixnet with Anonymous mode or with QUIC encryption. During my testing, I also found the kill switch to be consistent and effective.

When creating an account, NymVPN asks for very little information from you, using a system that’s similar to Mullvad and IVPN. You don’t need to enter your email address or create a password but are instead assigned a 24-word code to access your account. For maximum anonymity, you can pay with cryptocurrency, NYM tokens, or ETH tokens, or you can even send cash to NymVPN in Switzerland. Of course, if you lose your access code, you’ll be permanently locked out of your account.

The only data that NymVPN collects is usage information, which requires an opt-in. If you consent, the provider may log details such as connection timestamps, the total data transferred, network and ISP information, connection events, and app events.

This data is reportedly anonymized and deleted after 90 days. This is fairly standard, but unlike in most cases, NymVPN doesn’t have your email or any other personal information about you.

Rating: 9.5/10

NymVPN apps and compatibility

NymVPN has good support for major device categories, with open-source apps for Windows, Mac, Linux, Android and iOS. However, unlike leading competitors, it has no support for any type of Smart TV or gaming console or for routers (though OpenWRT support may be introduced soon, allowing you to connect routers). Unusually, NymVPN also has no browser extensions, and hence doesn’t provide any ad blocking tools.

During my testing, I found the apps to be generally consistent and easy to use. At present, split tunneling is only available for Android, though, and while a kill switch is available across platforms, it requires workarounds in some cases, such as using Android’s system-level always-on VPN.

It’s also worth mentioning that all of NymVPN’s apps are open source. If you want to open a Github issue or look at others, you just need to go to the “Settings” menu and then to “Support & feedback,” which has a link to the repository. This makes the reporting process far simpler than it is in with other open-source VPN apps.

Rating: 6.5/10

Is NymVPN easy to use?

NymVPN’s apps are generally intuitive, consistent, easy to install, and simple to use, and I found that they worked as expected on every platform.

A minor speedbump is that the Mac app isn’t available in the App Store, and I had to download it from the website, but that’s also true for some far more established VPNs.

If you run into any trouble there are installation and configuration guides in NymVPN’s knowledgebase, though these are rather basic in some cases.

Getting online with NymVPN is very simple, and you can connect with a single click, though you may want to select specific entry and exit nodes. Picking between the Fast and Anonymous modes is very easy, and there’s explanatory labeling if you’re ever in any doubt about functionality. That said, you won’t see your new VPN IP when you connect, and the only status information on offer is the timer showing how long you’ve been connected.

While NymVPN has fewer features and options than most VPNs, it’s simple to get to the settings menu to enable QUIC-based obfuscation, switch your app appearance, or access other configuration items. There aren’t options for “Fastest” connection, “Automatic” location, or “Favorite” servers at present, though.

The NymVPN location list is equally simple and straightforward. It has a list of countries, sorted alphabetically, and an indicator for the number of servers for each. If you click the country name, then the app will choose a location for you, but you can also pull up a list of the servers for the country and their locations, and you can click again to get additional server information. This includes points such as Exit IPv4 address, ASN, ASN Name, and performance details.

NymVPN’s apps are generally intuitive, consistent, easy to install, and simple to use.

NymVPN took around 5 to 10 seconds to connect for me with both Fast and Anonymous modes. Other VPNs can typically connect with WireGuard in 1 to 2 seconds, but this isn’t necessarily surprising given the multi-hop setup. Even with the most geographically distant servers, though, it didn’t take more than around 10 seconds for me to connect, which is faster than OpenVPN with some providers.

Users have previously complained about problems like slow disconnections and being unable to switch servers while connected, but it seems that NymVPN is quickly resolving usability issues like these.

Rating: 8/10

Why is NymVPN based in Switzerland?

Like Proton VPN, NymVPN is registered and based in Switzerland and benefits from the country’s famously strong privacy and data protection laws.

Swiss law stipulates privacy by design and by default, and Nym Technologies argues that its decentralized model means that it doesn’t collect any information to share, in any case.

NymVPN’s Swiss base also puts it beyond the reach of the 14-Eyes Alliance of intelligence-sharing nations.

NymVPN customer support

NymVPN has various contact and support channels, including an online knowledgebase, a website chatbot, chat support and an email ticketing system (available from 1 am to 5 pm GMT on weekdays). It also has its own subreddit.

The knowledge base contains a reasonable range of pages covering NymVPN’s functionality. These could go into more depth in places, though, such as assisting users in getting started with the platform.

The Nym forum has some activity, but is geared towards the technical community and concerns such as router support.

The website chatbot is fairly basic and will point you to support pages that may be related to your query based on keywords. This is potentially better than LLM-powered chatbots that spit out incorrect answers, but you’re likely to be directed to pages that are only tangentially relevant to your question. You can ask to be connected to a human operator, but I was never able to reach an agent during my testing period.

If no agents are available, you can leave an email ticket with the support team. In one case, I heard back within 27 minutes, in another I waited several hours before the support team closed down for the weekend. The reply that I did receive was fairly basic. My query concerned the difficulty of using Anonymous mode to access web pages, and the reply I got, in summary, was that I should use Fast mode instead. While this might be correct, it didn’t really engage with my problem.

Rating: 6.5/10

Can you trust NymVPN?

NymVPN operates with a zero-knowledge network and by design, cannot log user data. The node operators in the network are constrained by no-logs commitments, but should only have ever access to fragmentary and anonymized data. In terms of its software, the provider operates with open-source apps and makes it unusually easy to report issues on GitHub, which should help to bring vulnerabilities to light. There’s also a bug bounty program, which offers payment in NYM tokens.

The provider has a thorough commitment to anonymity, with no email addresses or passwords being logged and multiple methods of anonymous payment being available. Also, while the provider is relatively young, there have been no known security incidents involving the network.

NymVPN says it undergoes regular reviews, but this isn’t quite as encouraging as it might sound. Since 2021, the company has had four audits and two technical reviews, but the most recent audit was in July 2024 and the results of the two reviews, dating to “2023-2024,” are yet to be published.

In the most recent audit, conducted by Cure53, Nym’s code got mixed results. Cure53 found relatively few issues with the apps but noted 43 security-related findings, including 12 security vulnerabilities (mostly relating to the backend and cryptography), seven of which were identified as being of high or critical severity.

NymVPN reports that the issues were fixed, but Cure53 stated concerns, noting that “... the codebase would benefit from more rigorous security practices and code reviews. The overall security posture of the platform could be enhanced considerably, by addressing the identified vulnerabilities and implementing a more systematic approach to security controls.”

Of course, it’s very positive that NymVPN has undergone multiple audits and published their results. However, it would be good to see additional testing to confirm that the platform is moving forward in the right direction. NymVPN does seem to be launching product upgrades at a fairly rapid pace, though, and there are plans to incorporate post-quantum encryption measures in the near future, which is very promising.

In terms of its public reputation, NymVPN has a below-par Trustpilot score, but it’s based on less than 10 reviews, so shouldn’t be given too much weight.

NymVPN for Android rates a below-average 3.1/5 on Google Play’s US store, but the app fares better in other regions, with a 4.5/5 on Google Play UK, and both scores seem to be based on a relatively small number of reviews. The iOS app currently rates 3.7/5 but is, again, based on only a handful of reviews.

Rating: 7.5/10

NymVPN review: final verdict

Subscribe if:

✅ You need a high-security connection with multi-hop and obfuscation features
✅ Absolute anonymity is important to you
✅ You want a service with a free trial

Don't subscribe if:

❌ You want a high-speed connection
❌ You’re looking for the cheapest VPN around

Alternatives to NymVPN

NymVPN FAQ

How to cancel NymVPN

NymVPN auto-renews when your subscription ends, so you may want to cancel before that happens. To cancel, log into your account on a browser, and under “Account,” go to “Manage subscription.” Next, click to cancel your subscription. If you do this in your first 30 days, you’ll get a pro-rata refund.

NymVPN also notes that there’s no way to delete your account once it’s created, but you can do the next best thing and remove your access by unlinking your device in the NymVPN app settings, uninstalling the app from your device, and deleting your credentials and access code.

Of course, you’ll want to make sure that your plan won’t auto-renew before doing this to ensure that you aren’t charged for an unreachable account.

Does NymVPN work in China?

NymVPN reports that its service may work in China, though there can be connectivity issues.

The provider’s Anonymous mode has been reported to work more consistently but is only really suitable for low-bandwidth activities that can cope with high latency, such as emailing, messaging, and crypto transactions.

The provider’s QUIC functionality may also be useful, as the alternative transport mode can help bypass firewalls. NymVPN has servers for Hong Kong for users wanting to reach the region, but none for mainland China.

Who owns NymVPN?

NymVPN is owned by Nym Technologies, which is based in Neuchâtel in Switzerland.

The Nym network went live in 2022, but its founders, including Harry Halpin and Ania Piotrowska, had been working on similar ideas for several years.

NymVPN went into beta in 2024 and into full release in March 2025.

How we test VPNs

We have a full explainer on how we test VPNs, but, in short, it goes something like this.

Firstly, we test the sign-up process. How easy is it to pay, and what options are there? From there, we install the VPN on a number of devices, make notes on the simplicity of the process, and whether there are any extra steps that introduce complexity.

Then comes the fun part. We use all the features, running tests to detect any problems like DNS leaks or faulty kill switches. We'll dive into the code if it's available, and see if there are any anomalies we think you might be interested in reading about.

We test the speed – 120 individual tests, daytime and evening – and connect to various servers to get a good idea of how robust the server network is, and what speeds you can expect to get in normal usage.

Streaming comes next. We test a wide range of global and regional streaming services to see how well each VPN can unblock content.

Customer support is also very important. So, if we have any queries along the way, we'll follow the avenues provided to see how well-prepared the support team is. This includes live chat, email, and ticketed systems.

Once we've done all of this, we'll have a good feel for the apps and will have found out if there are any usability quirks, or unique features that we really like.