How do VyprVPN and Private Internet Access compare?
While PIA is a great VPN if you are looking for fast connection speeds, VyprVPN is a great VPN if you are looking for a VPN with excellent streaming capabilities.
But how do these two VPNs compare in other aspects like torrenting and advanced security features like ad blocking?
In this VyprVPN vs PIA comparison, we are going to compare VyprVPN with PIA along the lines of their connection speeds, streaming capabilities, torrenting support among others.
I hope that by the end of this PIA vs VyprVPN comparison, you’ll be able to make a choice between either VyprVPN or Private Internet Access.
So let’s get started.
Here is a quick summary.
VyprVPN | Private Internet Access | |
Website | vyprvpn.com | privateinternetaccess.com |
Servers | 700 | 3,340 |
Jurisdiction | Switzerland | United States |
Streaming | Netflix, Hulu, Amazon, iPlayer | Netflix |
Speed | 4.0/5 | 4.7/5 |
Torrenting | All servers | All servers |
Kill Switch | YES | YES |
Works in China? | YES | NO |
Devices | 5 | 10 |
Pricing | $ 2.71/month | $ 3.33/month |
About
VyprVPN is a VPN service provider based in Switzerland that enables you to access the internet securely, as well as unblock geo-restricted content on platforms like Hulu.
Here is the link to an in depth review of VyprVPN.
Private Internet Access, on the other hand, is a VPN company located in the United States that provides fast and secure internet access. Find a detailed Private Internet Access review here.
Server Collection
How many servers does either VyprVPN or PIA have?
Usually, the more servers a VPN has the better the speeds you should expect to experience from their servers as there will be less load in each server.

Of course this is not always the case.
VyprVPN only has 700 servers that are spread out over 70 countries at the time of writing this VyprVPN vs PIA comparison.

PIA, however, has a quite large server collection that amounts to 3,340 servers that are spread over 32 different countries in different continents.
As you can see, while PIA has more servers in general, VyprVPN does a better job of spreading their servers to cover a wider geographical region than PIA.
So if you are looking for a VPN with a wider geographical coverage then I recommend VyprVPN over PIA.
Streaming
I started this VyprVPN vs PIA comparison by mentioning that VyprVPN has much better streaming capabilities than PIA. But how exactly do PIA vs VyprVPN streaming capabilities compare?
You’ll be particularly interested in the answer to this question if you are looking for a VPN that will enable you to unblock all the major video streaming platforms.

VyprVPN will enable you to stream content on Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu and BBC iPlayer among other streaming platforms.
In order to unblock your favourite streaming platform in a particular region using VyprVPN, just connect to a server that is located in that particular country and then launch your streaming app.
I was able to unblock these streaming platforms without experiencing proxy server errors.
PIA, on the other hand, was only able to unblock Netflix for the United States audience using their US-based servers.

Even though most people are interested in Netflix US because it has the largest collection of tv shows, PIA could do better by unblocking Netflix in other countries like the UK.
Their servers were, however, completely blocked on other platforms like Amazon Prime, Hulu and iPlayer.
It is therefore clear that VyprVPN unblocks more streaming platforms compared to PIA. So if you are looking for a VPN with great streaming capabilities then I recommend VyprVPN over PIA.
Speeds
If you’ve already checked a few VPN websites, then you should have realized that all of them claim to be the fastest VPN company.
This can be really annoying because not everyone can be number one.
So before I chose who to believe and who not to, I decided to test the speeds of both VyprVPN and PIA myself to establish the truth.

If you want to stream video content in their original qualities like 4K, then you need a VPN with very fast connection speeds.
How does VyprVPN vs PIA speeds compare?
I tested their speeds by connecting to three different servers based in the US, UK and Hong Kong. After that, I launched speedtest.net and used it to test for the before and after download and upload speeds.
VyprVPN on average had a download speed of 79% of my initial speeds, while PIA had an amazing average of 94% of my download speeds before connecting to their servers.

It is therefore clear that Private Internet Access is a much faster VPN service compared to VyprVPN. If you are looking for a VPN with great connection speeds then I recommend PIA.
Torrenting
In order to torrent safely and anonymously, you need a VPN that will hide your actual IP while on these torrenting platforms.
It is the only way to ensure that your torrenting cannot be tied to your IP and used against you in a court of law if you live in a country that outlaws torrenting.
So will you be able to torrent with either VyprVPN or PIA?

VyprVPN and Private Internet Access both allow P2P file sharing activities on all their servers.
Unlike other VPNs that will require you to first connect to special P2P server before you can start torrent downloads, these VPNs have all their servers P2P optimized.
So you don’t need to connect to any special servers before you start torrenting.

In addition to that, since both these VPNs do not keep logs, you’ll get to enjoy private and anonymous torrenting.
However, if you are looking for a VPN that is great for torrenting then I recommend PIA over VyprVPN because you’ll get faster download speeds.
Privacy Policy
Surprisingly, some VPN companies will keep logs of your internet usage, which negates the whole point of using them to hide from your IP address.
If you don’t want to have to worry about your vpn company going rogue someday and sharing your entire internet usage history, ensure you never work with a vpn that keeps logs of your internet.
Whenever I see that a vpn logs my IP address, in whatever format, I drop them like a hot potato.

Let’s now compare Private Internet Access with VyprVPN to establish the VPN that will offer you true privacy online.

VyprVPN, being based in Switzerland, is located in a pretty much friendly place for a VPN company that is concerned about your privacy online.
In addition to that, they also state clearly that they do not log your server connection timestamps, bandwidth usage or even your real IP address.
So they don’t have logs that could tie you to certain activities on their servers.
PIA, on the other hand, is located in the US which is not a privacy friendly country for a VPN company at all.

Apart from being a founding member of the 14 eyes countries surveillance alliance, they also have laws that obligate VPN companies to comply anytime the government asks for user logs through a court order.
That being said, PIA wants to provide true privacy online and states in their policy that they keep no traffic logs. I think PIA should state in more clear terms what logs they don’t keep, as just saying we do not keep logs is not good enough in 2021.
However, if you are looking for a VPN that does not keep logs of your internet activities then currently either VyprVPN or Private Internet Access is a great option.
Encryption and Data Protection
In order to protect your personal information online, you should make it unreadable to any other person but the intended device.
This ensures that packets sniffers will not be able to decipher the actual information even if they hijacked your network traffic during transmission.
How do VyprVPN and PIA ensure that your personal information is secure online?

VyprVPN uses a 256-bit encryption technology to encrypt your data to ensure that it is impossible to decrypt.
It is a military-grade encryption technology. Militaries and government agencies like the FBI use it to encrypt sensitive, classified information.

PIA, on the other hand, supports a 128-bit encryption technology that is also tamper-proof and impossible to hack.
While 256-bit encryption offers better security than 128-bit encryption, the latter is much faster.
VyprVPN supports various connection protocols that include OpenVPN, L2TP, IPSec and Chameleon protocols. Private Internet Access, on the other hand, gives you connection protocol options that include OpenVPN, IPSec, L2TP and PPTP.

The PPTP protocol is, however, prone to attacks and should not be used unless you know what you are doing.
Overall, both VyprVPN and PIA will offer you secure internet access thanks to these advanced technologies that they both use. I recommend either VyprVPN or Private Internet Access if you are looking for a VPN with secure internet access.
Ad Blockers
Do you want to block ads using either VyprVPN or PIA?
You might be thinking of blocking ads if you are sick of ad companies tracking you around the web. They achieve this through scripts that they install on your browser and then show you particular ads on every websites that you visit.
It feels very intrusive when you think about it.
So how does VyprVPN vs PIA compare in terms of their ad blocking capabilities?
Fortunately, both VyprVPN and PIA have an inbuilt adblocker in their apps that ensures that ads are disabled on the websites that you visit. They disable the ads together with the tracking scripts that these websites install on your device.

In addition to that, they also have malware blockers that will protect you from malware-infected websites that you may visit online.
So if you are looking for a VPN with an ad blocker then either PIA or VyprVPN is great.
Dedicated IPs
Some VPNs give you the ability to always connect to the internet using the same IP address as long as you always choose the same server.
In some cases, you can even get an IP address that is unique to you and is not shared by anyone else.
This makes it easy if you are looking for an IP that you can whitelist in your security sensitive applications like you home security camera feed.

Neither VyprVPN nor PIA support dedicated IPs at the time of writing this Private Internet Access vs VyprVPN comparison.
So you won’t be able to get IPs that are solely for you that you could even use to remotely access your work network securely. If you are looking for a VPN that will provide you with a dedicated IP then I don’t recommend either VyprVPN or PIA.
You should instead check out something like CyberGhost and NordVPN.
Kill Switch
Do you want to stay anonymous online at all times and never reveal your real IP address?
Then what you need is a functional automatic internet kill switch.

A kill switch will ensure that your internet access is blocked for your device anytime that your VPN app disconnects from its server.
It does this to ensure that other apps that might continue to access the internet without your VPN, thereby exposing your real IP, do not get to do so.
You especially need to worry about this happening if you were downloading some torrent files and your VPN disconnects in the process.
Your torrent client should pause and wait until your VPN reconnects.

Private Internet Access and VyprVPN both have VPN kill switches in their applications that will ensure that all your internet traffic is first encrypted and then channelled through your VPN tunnel.
It will prevent your IP from being revealed by terminating all internet access when your VPN app disconnects from the server.
A disconnection could occur when your wifi connection drops or even when you are switching servers.
Split Tunnelling
Do you want the ability to exempt certain apps from your VPN tunnel?
Say your VPN is causing massive speeds drops that is affecting your application that runs backups in the background…
In that case, you might think of whitelisting this app so that its traffic runs as usual through your ISP. This way, it will be able to maximize on the full speeds that your ISP gives you.
That’s what we call split tunnelling.
So do VyprVPN and PIA support split tunnelling in their apps?

Unfortunately, neither PIA nor VyprVPN support split tunnelling in their apps at the time of writing this VyprVPN vs Private Internet Access comparison.
However, since split tunnelling makes some of your traffic transparent to your ISP it is not something you want to be doing a lot.
If you are looking for a VPN that supports split tunnelling then I don’t recommend PIA or VyprVPN.
You should check out the split tunnel in Surfshark or NordVPN.
Works in China?
So you want a VPN that you can use to access censored websites in China, right?
Well, not so fast… most VPNs are blocked and will not work in China.
Heck, even popular VPNs like CyberGhost struggle to bypass the great firewall of China.

The thing is, China is one of the countries where internet access is heavily controlled by the government.
Since the government wants to keep tabs on their citizens and see what they are up to online, they also ban the use of VPNs to access the internet.
So China’s firewall has a deep packet inspection technology that is very smart enough to detect and block all VPN traffic. It takes some sweat to make your VPN traffic look like normal HTTPS traffic and not be detected by the firewall.
VyprVPN, luckily, is able to make its traffic undetectable by the great firewall of China and enable you to access censored content in China without any problems.
However, for this to work out, you need to connect to the internet using the Chameleon protocol.
Since the firewall is better trained to detect the OpenVPN protocol that most VPNs use, changing the protocol to Chameleon makes you fly under the radar undetected.
PIA, unfortunately, is completely blocked in China and will not work at all.
So I recommend VyprVPN if you are looking for a VPN that will work in China.
Pricing
As we near the end of this PIA vs VyprVPN comparison, let’s compare their pricing plans to establish the cheaper VPN service provider.

Both VyprVPN and PIA offer you the best discounts if you opt for their longest subscription plans.
VyprVPN has its longest plan being the 2-year plan that costs $ 2.71/month, while PIA has a 1-year plan that costs $ 3.33/month.

It is therefore evident that VyprVPN is a cheaper VPN and also offers longer subscription plans that save you the hassle of having to find a disposable email address and create a new account every year…
That is if you are an anonymity freak.
If you are looking for a VPN that will save you money in the long term, as well as provide longer subscription plans then VyprVPN it is.
Payment Options
So how do you get to pay for your PIA or VyprVPN subscription plan?
Let’s finish this VyprVPN vs Private Internet Access comparison by looking at the payments options that each one provides.

If you want to stay anonymous, look for payment methods that require less information like gift cards or crypto payments.
Since these payment options do not require a billing address, you don’t get to share your street address, which is a personally identifiable information.
VyprVPN only accepts payments through all the major credit cards and PayPal… no cypro payments support.

PIA, on the flip, will accept payments through PayPal, all credit cards and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
So if you are looking for a VPN that accepts cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin then I recommend PIA over VyprVPN.
In Conclusion
I hope this VyprVPN vs PIA comparison has helped you learn about the strong points and weak points of these two VPNs.
Are you now ready to make a choice between either VyprVPN or Private Internet Access?
If you are willing to pay a few more bucks for a VPN with excellent speeds, a bigger server collection and supports more connected devices then I recommend PIA.
However, if you are looking to save some bucks for a VPN that unblocks all major streaming platforms, supports anonymous torrenting and works in China then I recommend VyprVPN.
Have you used either VyprVPN or PIA before?
Please share your experience in the comments below.