UltraVPN Review 2024: Initially Cheap, but Is It Any Good?

UltraVPN (not Ultra VPN) is known as one of the cheapest services, but there’s a big catch. Its cheapest tier actually triples in cost after one year. At that point, it’s nearly the same price as some of the best VPNs around, like ExpressVPN or NordVPN.

With that in mind, is it actually worth the money? To find out, the team and I thoroughly explored all of its features. That meant performing extensive tests on its speeds, security, and more. I also learned everything there is to know about its privacy policy.

Our tests showed that UltraVPN is a decent service with some high points, but it can’t compare to the best VPNs. They all surpass it in terms of speeds, server networks, compatibility, and value. Plus, it has some troubling security issues that make it a questionable choice at any price.

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UltraVPN can securely access a few platforms from anywhere, but it’s incompatible with many popular services. The streaming quality with the services my global testing team and I could watch was good for the most part. However, since it didn’t work with 3 of the best platforms out there, I can’t get too excited about its abilities in this category.

Works With: Netflix

We were able to watch Netflix in several countries, including the US, Canada, and the UK.

The quality remained very good throughout the whole episode

However, we had problems with the Japan and New Zealand libraries. When we connected to servers in these countries, Netflix would only show us Netflix Originals.

Works With: Hulu

We could stream Hulu without any buffering and we were impressed with how quickly videos loaded as well.

We found the best results with the protocol set to "Auto"

Works With: Max

UltraVPN also accessed Max and played back videos without drops in quality.

We could even skip forward without any additional buffering

If you have any issues, you can try switching browsers. Sometimes that can improve the quality, although we were impressed that we could stream the platform in 4K on both Chrome and Firefox.

Also Works With: Peacock TV and DAZN

We had similar results with Peacock TV and DAZN. Sometimes it can take a while to load the main menus on these platforms while connected to a VPN, but we were impressed that they popped up instantly. The playback was great, and we didn’t have to do any troubleshooting. Unfortunately, we ran into some unsolvable issues with the next batch of services.

Doesn't Work With: Disney+, Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer

We could never stream Disney Plus, Amazon Prime Video, or BBC iPlayer on UltraVPN’s UK servers. We attempted several times using different protocols. When we contacted support, we were told that the issue would get the highest priority and that they would get back to us as soon as the issue was solved.

We never received the email response they promised to send us

Overall, UltraVPN isn’t a bad choice for streaming, but there are many VPNs that perform better. If you want to safely access your favorite platforms from anywhere without buffering or long load times, check out our list of the best VPNs for streaming.

UltraVPN is a little quicker than average on closeby locations, but speeds can drop significantly at a distance. Although the speeds we experienced were pretty stable, the fact that UltraVPN uses mostly virtual servers can hypothetically render the speeds unpredictable.

While testing a VPN’s speed, these are the three metrics we take into consideration:

• Download speed determines how quickly data can be retrieved from the internet, impacting activities like streaming, loading web pages, and downloading files. A higher download speed ensures smoother, buffer-free experiences.
• Upload speed measures how quickly data is sent from your device to the internet, crucial for tasks such as video conferencing and adding large files to cloud storage.
• Ping, or latency, indicates the reaction time of your connection — how quickly a data packet can travel to a server and back. Lower ping is vital for online gaming and real-time voice or video communications, where a delay can result in a laggy, disjointed experience.

Our tests are done by our speed expert in the UK. They record the results for our charts from the same location with the same internet connection, so they’re easier to compare. The following tests were done with the Hydra protocol since it was the fastest.

Speeds dropped 21% on nearby servers and 61% on distant ones

Compared to its top competitors, UltraVPN’s speeds aren’t that impressive. It can’t match the speeds of some high-quality services like ExpressVPN or NordVPN which often offer average speed losses of around 10% or less on nearby locations. These services also rarely lower our speeds by more than 45%, no matter how far away the server is.

Local Speed

The closest server wasn’t the fastest, which is probably due to its virtual servers. We received our best speed result on the Kyiv location, which only lowered our rates by 10%. This isn’t a huge deal, but when a VPN has physical locations, it’s easier to find the fastest location without annoying trial and error.

The top VPNs only lower speeds by 2–10% on servers this close

For most activities, a speed reduction like this probably wouldn’t be too noticeable. However, if you already have low base speeds, this could cause you some issues.

Long-Distance Speed

Once servers were over 5,000km away, the speed drops became significant. At this point, we almost always lost more than 50% of our base speed. That’s about the maximum damage you’d want a VPN to do, but it got much worse.

A drop like this could make your connection unusable

Some of these speed losses could also be due to server load (how crowded they are). Sadly, UltraVPN doesn’t display this information, so I’ll just have to assume it’s due to its infrastructure. In the end, there are much slower VPNs. However, if you need the best speeds available with an encrypted connection, check out our list of the fastest VPNs.

You can enjoy smooth gameplay with UltraVPN as long as your base ping rates are low.
In gaming, the most important stat is ping. It measures the time between your commands and the server response — the lower your ping, the less laggy your gaming will be. For lag-free gameplay, a ping below 100 is necessary.

The top VPNs can give you around 10ms of ping on nearby servers

Our gaming expert used a nearby server that allowed them to continue playing online competitively. There was no delay between their inputs and movements on screen because the ping never went above 80ms. However, if his base rates were a bit slower, our tester probably would have run into issues. They also couldn’t play on distant servers, but that’s common with VPNs.

While it’s not at the very top in this category, UltraVPN performed above average for gaming. Still, you may want to seek out a competitor with better server options to get the best experience during safe gameplay.

UltraVPN only gives you 830 servers, but they’re spread out across an impressive 125 countries. You can connect to city-level locations in 7 countries. The US offers the most, with 25 individual locations in the country.

However, city-level locations are less useful because UltraVPN offers a lot of virtual servers. Connecting to a city, rather than a country, lets you optimize your location better with some VPNs.

I appreciate that it offers a search function as well

The servers are decently distributed. You get 43 in Europe, 34 in North America, and 26 in Asia, while there are only 3 in Africa and 2 in Oceania. Compared to top-ranking VPNs, the number of servers is minimal. CyberGhost offers about 10 times as many servers and Private Internet Access has 3 times as many.

On the bright side, it does offer some rare VPN locations like Brunei, Bhutan, and Nepal. Plus, it owns all of its servers. I always appreciate this because it eliminates a middleman that could potentially access your data.

But, the variety in these servers is also lacking. Many VPNs have servers optimized for different purposes like streaming, P2P, or gaming. UltraVPN doesn’t offer optimized servers or dedicated IPs, not even for an additional fee.

I also asked support about obfuscation technology, which hides your VPN use, and I was never able to get a solid answer about whether UltraVPN offers it. Overall, you can find VPNs with much larger networks that offer more features in this list.

Virtual Servers

A customer support agent told me that UltraVPN offers a combination of both physical and virtual servers. Currently, the company doesn’t disclose the locations of its servers, however, the customer support agent told me that they were planning to release the list soon. I suspect that most of its servers are virtual because it used to use them exclusively.

The use of virtual servers means that you’re never really sure how far away a server is from your location, so it can impact your speeds. On the other hand, it also means that you can find servers in locations with strict VPN laws, for example, India.

Quick Access

The desktop app doesn’t have a feature that would recommend the best available server for you based on your location (the option is available for iOS and Android). However, the desktop app remembers the last three servers you connected to. So, if you often use the same server location, you don’t need to manually search for it in the menu, which is nice.

As you can see, UltraVPN doesn’t offer a ton of unique server features. I hope it decides to upgrade to RAM-only servers in the future. These erase all of their data after every reboot, which makes them more privacy-friendly. Offering things like this could allow it to compete with the best VPNs in the future.

UltraVPN offers all the necessary security features, but it failed one of my leak tests, so I can’t consider it completely safe. Although this only happened in one out of my 20 tests, it worried me because that’s the last thing you want to see with your VPN.

To be fair, I didn’t encounter the problem again after clearing my browser, but I’ve tested dozens of VPNs that didn’t leak my IP, even with an extensive cache.

It only happened on the Austria server, but that's still concerning

While it offers advanced security features that worked well during my tests, I just couldn’t completely trust the VPN after the IP leak I experienced. I’ll detail its main security features below, but I also wanted to mention a few more things.

I was curious how the obfuscation works on its servers, and the customer support agent told me obfuscation is automatic. It turns on any time you establish a connection. They didn’t specify if the choice of protocol matters and implied that it works with each one. This is nice as obfuscation hides your VPN use, which is helpful for restricted networks like schools.

Its Tor Over VPN feature is also a bit confusing. I found it under its Special Features tab. But, customer support seemed to have no idea what it is, and it’s not discussed on UltraVPN’s website. The VPN did work in conjunction with Tor, but I can’t say for sure if this feature within the app actually does anything.

Overall, UltraVPN comes with military-grade encryption, a kill switch, PassWatch (password manager), and secure protocols, but the results of my test make me worried it can’t keep me safe. To make sure your IP, online activities, and VPN use are always hidden, check out these tips.

Encryption & Security Protocols

UltraVPN comes with AES 256-bit encryption, the same level used by banks and militaries around the world because it’s nearly impossible to break. You also get the choice between 3 protocols.

The "Smart" option automatically picks a protocol for you

Besides the industry-standard WireGuard and IKEv2 protocols, UltraVPN also offers its proprietary Hydra protocol, which gives the best speeds. Although not as fast as ExpressVPN’s Lightway or NordVPN’s NordLynx, I was quite satisfied with the speeds it provided on nearby servers for streaming or torrenting.

Split Tunneling

This feature lets you choose what traffic goes through the VPN tunnel. It’s useful if you want to keep up with local news or access your banking app while you encrypt the rest of your traffic.

You can add websites to UltraVPN's split tunneling, but no apps

The Split Tunneling feature includes two options: you can use both Bypass VPN and Route via VPN features. The first one allows you to select websites that will connect to the internet without a VPN. The second lets you choose websites that will go exclusively through a VPN connection.

Kill Switch

UltraVPN’s kill switch can only be used with the protocol set to automatic or Hydra. So, that’s a little disappointing. However, it’s still good that it offers this feature, which blocks your internet connection if the VPN suddenly disconnects (which is a possibility with UltraVPN).

Dark Web Scan

UltraVPN’s Dark Web Scan is a unique option that you don’t often get with VPNs. This feature monitors the dark web for any signs of your personal data being compromised or exposed.

When I tested this feature with one of my email addresses I was shocked to learn that it was found in 9 data breaches. However, the breaches were not recent and since then I have already changed my password a few times.

I was shocked I hadn't seen any of these breaches in the news

If your data has been breached, you should immediately change your password. If possible, you should also apply steps that will give you additional protection; for example, enabling multi-factor authentication.

UltraVPN claims it won’t keep identifiable logs, but it records more information than the top VPNs. While most of this information is anonymized, it seems a bit excessive, and you can find more privacy-friendly VPNs.

On a more positive note, UltraVPN is owned by internet privacy and security company AnchorFree. The company is part of the Aura/Pango group, which also owns Hotspot Shield VPN and OVPN. It maintains a good reputation, and so far hasn’t been involved in any scandals regarding security or privacy issues.

Does UltraVPN Keep Logs? No

The company states it will not log your IP address long-term or track your online activities. However, it admits it collects your IP address when you connect to a server. UltraVPN further states the IP is immediately encrypted and is always deleted at the end of your sessions.

The VPN also collects how often you use the VPN, how much bandwidth you consume, and the duration of your sessions. This is in addition to a large amount of information on your device, like its OS, the browsers you use, settings, and more.

As you can see, it records a serious amount of your data. Like every VPN, it also holds on to the information you give them directly to sign up, like payment details, emails, and more. I understand that the VPN must record some data to maintain its services. But, with this amount of data stored, you’d really want to see an independent audit.

Was UltraVPN Audited? No

UltraVPN has never undergone an independent audit, so its policies haven’t been verified. The best VPNs have their privacy claims put to the test by reputable third parties. I hope UltraVPN undergoes this process in the future.

Based in the US

I confirmed with UltraVPN support staff that the company is under US jurisdiction. The US is a founding member of the 14 Eyes Alliance. This is an agreement between several governments to share data from their citizens. It also means there’s a possibility the company could be asked to change its policies in the future.

Does UltraVPN Work in China? Maybe

I couldn’t get a definitive answer on whether the VPN works in China. It does have a virtual server in Hong Kong and uses obfuscation on all its servers. However, China implements severe blocks on Western VPNs, which might be difficult for some providers.

The customer support agent was prudent while discussing the topic but mentioned that some users in China claim it works for them. The representative also sent me a direct download link which can be used to get the service in case the official website is blocked in a particular location.

If you’re already in a country where it’s impossible to download the VPN, you can always ask a friend to send you the link via email (reportedly Hotmail still works in a few censored countries).

They didn't offer any useful tips for how to make it work

The Chinese government has banned several VPNs, but there have been no publicly reported cases of them going after individuals. However, I recommend you read up on the laws and regulations before you decide to use a VPN in the country. My team and I don’t condone any illegal activities and urge you to use your VPN responsibly.

To find a VPN that’s been proven to work, read up on our list about the best VPNs for China.

UltraVPN hasn’t always allowed torrenting with its service, but it does at the moment. It works decently for these purposes.

While connected to the Poland server, I could download a 1GB file in about 30 minutes. It’s a good result, although without a VPN I can normally download a file of this size in half this time. Also, the VPN doesn’t offer features like port forwarding, which some VPNs allow to let you download torrents even faster.

With that said, the security issues I encountered with UltraVPN, make me wary of using it for torrenting. You never know who you’re connecting to on a P2P network, and it’s easy to download a mislabeled file.

Torrenting is legal in most countries, but downloading copyrighted files isn’t. We recommend you only access torrents within the public domain, so you never break any laws.