The best VPN for gaming might seem like some serious oxymoronic phraseology, and that's because of the age-old truism of the ol' virtual private network: don't use one while gaming online, they'll only slow you down. Now, that is definitely still the case when you're using a bandwidth-limited free service, such as Hola or the basic TunnelBear package, but if you pick wisely you might actually find the best VPN for gaming can improve your online performance.
Should I use a VPN for gaming?
If you're undecided on Virtual Private Networks, check out our guide on the subject.
Wait, what? Yes, a good VPN service will keep you safe and secure, and can actually improve your ping results in-game. Now, it's not always some magic bullet that will suddenly turn a slow internet connection into a lightning quick one, but you will find that the best VPNs for gaming will often have superior routing compared to your current internet service provider (ISP). That means you may find that you get less packet loss via a VPN and you might even see a lowering of your ping, making your connection more responsive in-game.
I run a generally reliable, 100Mbit+ fiber connection at home, and yet I still experience some packet loss when I've got boots on the ground in Battlefield V. My ping isn't bad, but hey, it can always be better, right? Running a VPN does, however, take a bit of a chunk out of your overall download and upload speeds, but maybe not as much as you might think, and picking the best VPN for gaming will minimize that impact too.
There are other reasons you might want to run a VPN on your own PC, the number one being online security. If you don't want a network tracking your every move then the best way to avoid that is to use a virtual private network. The best VPNs run a 'no log' policy which means they'll store no data about you or your activity, helping you stay secure in the face of any data breach too. It will also help you get around geoblocking, handy if you want to unlock the purchase of a new game early or want to subscribe to a service only available in another country.
To get the best VPN experience you're going to need to pay for a service, but on a per-month basis that doesn't have to add up to much. They do, however, differ in cost, performance, and features. So we've tested a bunch of the top VPN services to find out what impact they might have on your gaming experience to help you pick the right one for you.
Surfshark is my boy. For me it's the best VPN for gaming that we've tested, offering a great combination of lower ping than my non-VPN'd connection, and a relatively minor hit when it comes to overall download speeds. It's ever so slightly more taxing on the uploads than NordVPN, which comes out top on that score, but not by enough to put me off. For streamers, you'll probably want to prioritise that upload speed, making NordVPN the go-to option. But then, as a streamer, you'd probably rather have the full bandwidth available to you at all times…
For everything else Surfshark will happily remain practically unnoticed in the background while you do anything game-related with your PC. It helped make my gaming experience reliable, with anecdotally fewer instances of dropped packets, and kept me safe while doing it. Though it does have to be said I'm probably not the most obvious target for swatting, stalking, DDoS-ing, or other such nefarious cybercrimes.
The only issue I've encountered is that it doesn't seem like a happy fit for torrenting. I struggled to get anything to function, so if that's a deal-breaker for you, then you'll probably want to look at Nord instead.
The app is straightforward, the company offers a strict no-logs policy, and seems to be reliable on that front, and has neat features such as an optional kill switch (disabling your internet connection if the VPN drops for any reason), and a whitelister to allow banking apps and such through the VPN block.
Surfshark is also the only service tested that offers access to an unlimited number of devices from a single account. And that's pretty impressive considering the relatively low cost compared to some of its peers.
It's a close-run thing between Surfshark and NordVPN, but the toothy one just about wins out thanks to its unlimited devices, lower price, and lower ping. NordVPN, however, is the high-performance option if download and upload speeds are the be-all and end-all for your PC experience. In my testing it delivers the one of the highest relative download speeds, compared to an untouched connection, and the absolute highest upload speed.
That seems to be where a lot of VPN services fall down, in just how much they tank your upload connection. My upload speed is already 10x slower than my downloads, so I can ill afford to lose any more. But NordVPN still delivers around 85% of that connection, while Private Internet Access actually dropped down to 35%.
It's also your best option if you find torrenting your go-to method of accessing content online. Surfshark seems to block everything in my experience, making Nord the next best thing.
The service also delivers an impressive ping performance too, getting close to my unfettered ping score and consistently beating my game ping scores too. NordVPN is using the latest WireGuard VPN protocol, which it's calling NordLynx. It's reportedly the fastest around, and does seem to help it run consistently well. It is, however, one of the more expensive services, and you only get a maximum of six different devices you can connect at any time. But if you want the performance, you will have to pay for it.
IPVanish is one of the most affordable VPN services we've tested, but that doesn't mean you're missing out. It might not have the full feature set of Surfshark or NordVPN, but you do get 250GB of SugarSync encrypted storage and backup for free with a new subscription, which could give you a little extra peace of mind over your more sensitive documents.
But it performs well too. The impact on my upload and download speed is impressively minimal, and it also manages, for the most part, to drop down the in-game ping when I'm gaming online. There was a little spike in CS:GO, but nothing worrying, and still with fewer packet drops than with my standard connection.
If you're after a quality VPN service to run on your gaming machine, and potentially on nine other devices simultaneously, but don't want to spend big, then IPVanish is a great alternative to the top two on our list.
The second most expensive service on our list is also the one with the broadest reach across the globe. With servers in a staggering 94 countries across the planet, if you're looking to play with friends abroad, or find yourself travelling a lot, then ExpressVPN could be your best bet for a solid, secure, and relatively speedy connection.
In my testing, ExpressVPN isn't bad when it comes to in-game ping performance, regularly giving me a lower millisecond count than my standard connection in Battlefield V, but it sometimes struggled in CS:GO. It was, however, the weakest when it came to download speeds—not that 94% of my regular connection is bad—but the upload hit was second only to the dreadful performance of PIA.
Of the top four it also has the fewest number of simultaneous devices allowed, though at five devices you can still share the load across PC, laptop, phone, and significant other. But ExpressVPN is still a quality, reliable service that may not have the top-level performance I've measured from some of the others, but is still a decent option for PC gamers.
Also tested...
VyprVPN
Private Internet Access
CyberGhost
How we tested
Testing VPNs is a fun game, and doesn't always end up with you bricking your internet connection each time you uninstall one to install another. Honestly. Not every time, anyway… We've sourced accounts for each of the services and tested them all on the same 100Mbit connection, at the same time of day, to ensure a fair reflection as to the performance of each of them.
Obviously there are free VPNs as well, and some VPN services with free tiers, but you won't find they're particularly suitable for connecting through while gaming online. They almost always introduce latency to your experience and severely hamper the overall performance of your network connection.
That's why we haven't included any of the free options, such as Hola or TunnelBear, in this list. They're also not necessarily an effective choice if you're trying to get around geo-blocked services such as video streaming as you may still find them restricted.
As for testing, first I took a Speedtest.net measurement of my standard, unfettered internet connection, using that as a baseline against which to test each of the different services. Then I installed each VPN and tested in turn, before uninstalling to add a new VPN fresh.
Using the fastest available server, and fastest protocol settings, I again tested the straightline performance using Speedtest, before testing game pings, using the same servers, in Battlefield V and CS:GO.
My benchmarks are presented as a percentage of the baseline performance of my current network as that should give a more representative illustration of how each service will perform for you.