CyberGhost VPN Review – In-Depth Breakdown (2025 Edition)

CyberGhost was born in a region famous for cybercrime, which is perhaps why it knows how to successfully counteract bad actors.

Haunting data harvesters, government censors and other browsing snoopers all over the world, it is one of the most experienced VPN providers on the market, having been around for almost 15 years.

For digital nomads, the company’s broad array of servers makes it an attractive choice. The company services most regions, with a particularly strong presence in Europe and the Americas, as well as a decent spread in Asia. Even people traveling to African and the Middle East will find more options than most VPNs provide.

If you’re looking for a virtual private network to shield your browsing activity and bypass firewalls, CyberGhost is one of many options on the market. So, how does it stack up against the competition?

Company Background

CyberGhost was founded in 2011 in Romania. Six years later, it was bought by Kape Technologies (formerly Crossrider), which later went on to acquire ExpressVPN and PIA.

Today, it boasts around 38 million customers around the world, with 162,000 average active connections – that’s up from 122,000 in 2020. Most users are based in France and Germany, although there are also many subscribers in the US and the UK.

CyberGhost may have grown and evolved over the years, even adding antivirus software to its arsenal, but it remains incorporated in Romania. This privacy-friendly jurisdiction doesn’t require companies to store user logs, which is a massive plus for anybody who’s getting a VPN to keep their browsing private.

Even though it might have been superseded in popularity by some younger VPN companies in recent years, CyberGhost continues to have a good rep on the market.

Core Features

CyberGhost supports most operating systems, including Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux and Smart TVs. It also has browser extensions for Chrome and Firefox.

Subscribers can use the VPN on up to 7 devices.

Security & Privacy

WireGuard, OpenVPN and IKEv2 (the three most popular VPN tunneling protocols) are supported by CyberGhost on most operating systems. These are encrypted with either ChaCha20 or AES-256, depending on the protocol, both of which are top-of-the-line ciphers.

The company has a strict no-logs policy, which covers both activity logs and connection logs, so that your online browsing is completely anonymous.

The VPN also comes with standard security features like:

• Kill switch. Toggle on this feature to automatically block traffic any time your VPN connection drops. This prevents data passing through an unprotected tunnel.
• DNS leak protection. Built into the VPN, this stops your internet service provider (ISP) snooping on your activity by encrypting your activity.
• Antivirus for an additional fee. CyberGhost’s partnership with Intego allows it to offer 24/7 protection against malware, spyware, adware, ransomware, trojans and other security threats.

Performance & Server Network

Because VPN providers encrypt data and route traffic through their own servers, they inevitably slow down the speed of your connection. What sets the best ones apart is that they only mildly affect your download and upload rates.

One way a company can ensure a good speed is to have many servers, as this allows for better load balancing, splitting users across the network. It also helps to have the servers distributed around the world to reduce latency (the time it takes for data to travel from your computer to the VPN server and back).

CyberGhost claims to have one of the largest networks on the market. More than 9,000 servers are spread across around 100 countries. The company began upgrading these from 1 Gbps to 10 Gbps a couple of years ago, increasing the maximum speed.

Like NordVPN, Mullvad and PIA, the servers are RAM only, which essentially means any data traces are wiped each time they are rebooted.

On our 100 Mbps connection, we were able to reach an average download speed of about 90.8 Mbps connecting to a local server. We’ll go into a bit more detail about speeds across continents further down the page, but those numbers are up there with the best.

Special Features

Almost all VPNs these days offer split tunneling. This allows you to segment internet traffic into websites and apps that pass through the VPN tunnel and ones that bypass it, in order to optimize speed. For example, you might want all your torrenting to go through the VPN but be happy for your Candy Crush game to bypass the VPN.

There are also all the usual auto-connect options, such as whether you want CyberGhost to connect when your device starts up or just when using an unsecured network.

For people that want their own, dedicated IP, CyberGhost offers this feature for an additional fee. A dedicated IP can help you avoid all those annoying CAPTCHAs that sometimes plague VPNs – and are definitely an issue for CyberGhost. It also helps with reliable access to internet banking and other secure sites.

Speed, Streaming & Torrenting Performance

CyberGhost has dedicated servers for streaming, torrenting and gaming, which is pretty cool. Overall, these work well, although we did have some issues with one streaming site, as we’ll explain in a second.

We also had problems on some servers with getting endless CAPTCHAs, including on Google. Although it’s not uncommon for VPNs to experience this issue due to the volume of people sharing an IP address, we found CyberGhost was affected worse than most.

Speed Test Results

CyberGhost can get up to some very impressive speeds, even when connecting to servers that are further away. However, this varied a lot according to the server we connected to – which doesn’t speak greatly to the VPN’s consistency.

However, if you find the right server, you’re golden.

We started off connecting to a couple of German servers, since there were quite a few options there. The average percentage decrease in speed was minimal, on par with the best VPNs we’ve tried.

Downloading: 3.06%

Uploading: 5.50%

Latency: 107.69%

We then tried a few UK servers, as CyberGhost is also very popular in Britain. Despite a smaller latency, we experienced a greater slowdown in speeds.

Downloading: 4.62%

Uploading: 11.47%

Latency: 85.71%

Finally, we tried several servers in the US.

Downloading: 1.72%

Uploading: 16.51%

Latency: 630.77%

As you can probably tell from the comparative latency, we were connecting from a European country, which makes it all the more surprising that we experienced faster download speeds connecting to the US. Go figure!

Streaming & P2P Support

CyberGhost provides streaming-optimized servers all over the world. These are labeled according to which services they allegedly help you view, including Netflix, 9Now Amazon Prime, ESPN and Disney+.

To be honest, the label seemed to be a bit of a gimmick. Either we could access a streamer or we couldn’t – and in most cases we could, including different Netflix libraries, Amazon Prime and Disney+.

However, all the servers stalled when trying to connect to BBC iPlayer, including the UK server that was supposedly optimized for iPlayer. Judging from other comments online, we’re not the only ones that have experienced this bizarrely specific issue recently.

As for torrenting, CyberGhost heavily advertises its capabilities in this area, with the majority supporting P2P connections. The speeds we saw were solid – no complaints in this area, even without port forwarding.

There are also dedicated gaming servers that are focused on CyberGhost’s 4 most popular user geographies: US, UK, Germany and France.

Security and Data Protection

When it comes to encryption and logging, CyberGhost is very much in line with the major VPN providers on the market. It provides a couple of secure tunneling protocols, while operating out of a privacy-friendly jurisdiction.

Encryption & VPN Protocols

WireGuard is CyberGhost’s primary tunneling protocol. Encrypted using the 256-bit, symmetric cipher ChaCha20, it’s considered highly secure, but its main advantage is that it’s fast and easy to debug.

OpenVPN is also available on most platforms. This is older and slower than WireGuard but has been around for longer and so is preferred by some VPN users. Plus, OpenVPN offers more manual configuration options. It’s encrypted using AES-256, which, like ChaCha20, is a very secure, 256-bit symmetric cypher.

IKEv2 is the final tunneling protocol supported by CyberGhost. This isn’t as secure or as fast as the other two options, but it does tend to boast greater stability, which can be useful when you’re using mobile data rather than a Wi-Fi connection. Like OpenVPN, it’s secured using AES-256.

No-Logs Policy & Audit History

The company has a no-logs policy that covers both activity logs and connection logs. That means that CyberGhost doesn’t record things like browsing history, IP addresses, connection timestamps or DNS queries.

It does record some limited details for account management and to track technical issues, including your email address, billing information, frequency of VPN usage and the number of successful/unsuccessful connection attempts.

In a similar vein to sister company PIA, CyberGhost has only recently begun having its no-logs policy audited. This was first done in 2022, followed by a second audit in 2024 that also examined the incident management process and the token-based IP system.

Full details of the audit are available through the CyberGhost VPN account portal.

The company has also provided a transparency report ever since it was founded in 2011. This is now published quarterly and displays the number of DMCA complaints, malicious activity flags and police requests received.

Jurisdiction & Privacy Implications

While parent company Kape Technologies is headquartered in the UK, CyberGhost continues to operate out of Romania.

That’s good news in privacy terms because Romania doesn’t have any laws requiring VPN suppliers to keep records. This facilitates CyberGhost’s no-logs policy, which ensures that even if there was a legally enforceable request for data, the data isn’t stored and so can’t be handed over.

Romania also isn’t part of any known intelligence-sharing organizations like the Fourteen Eyes, unlike the US, the UK and the Netherlands.

Pricing and Subscription Plans

CyberGhost has a single plan option, with discounts based on the length of your subscription. Prices are displayed as a monthly rate, but the whole fee must be paid upfront.

Weirdly, instead of offering a 1-month, 1-year or 2-year subscription, the company offers a 1-month, 6-month or 2-year subscription. That’s an unwieldy gap between the middle-term and long-term option, which is clearly designed to funnel customers towards being locked in – especially since the difference between signing up for 6 months and 2 years is only $15.

Plan Breakdown

The standard plan includes access to the entire VPN infrastructure, including all the specialist servers for streaming, gaming and torrenting. It’s also possible to purchase a dedicated IP and/or the antivirus suite for Windows as extras.

Single-month subscription: $12.99 plus tax.

6-month subscription: $6.99 per month ($41.94 total plus tax).

24-month subscription (plus 2 bonus months): $2.19 per month ($56.94 total plus tax).

Dedicated IP add-on:

Single-month subscription: $5 plus tax.

6-month subscription: $4 per month ($24 total plus tax).

24-month subscription: $2.50 per month ($60 total plus tax).

Security Suite add-on:

Single-month subscription: $4.50 plus tax.

6-month subscription: $3.25 per month ($19.50 total plus tax).

24-month subscription: $1 per month ($24 total plus tax).

CyberGhost has a free trial for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS devices, but the length varies by operating system. Windows and macOS users get just 1 day, while Android users get 3 days and iOS users get 7 days.

While the PC trial is only for 24 hours exactly, no payment details are required, so you don’t have to worry about forgetting to cancel and getting locked in.

Payment Options & Refunds

CyberGhost accepts PayPal, credit cards and bitcoin, as well as Google Pay and Apple Pay.

There’s a very generous 45-day money-back guarantee on 6-month and 2-year subscriptions. On monthly signups, the refund window is an equally generous 14 days – that essentially means that you could use a monthly subscription for almost half its duration and still request a full refund.

FYI, the money-back guarantee only applies to first-time users. Subscriptions via Apple aren’t covered.

There are 3 ways to request a refund: by email, by raising a ticket through the support center or by using the live chat.

Customer Support Experience

The live chat feature was our first port of call for support. It’s easily accessible on the CyberGhost website for both subscribers and guests, booting up initially with an AI bot. However, we found it very easy to connect to a human being when we requested assistance.

There’s also a form that you can access via the website footer if you prefer to communicate with the team using email – although this does take longer to get a response. We probably would only recommend this as a backup option, since it’s less convenient and less immediate.

For standard setup guides and simple troubleshooting, there’s also a solid help center with step-by-step instructions for the different supported devices. This covers the basics but isn’t as comprehensive as some of the knowledgebases we’ve seen. Still, no complaints.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

✅ Fast speeds.

✅ Broad server network

✅ 24/7 live chat

✅ Free trials on Windows, macOS, Android and iOS

Cons:

❌ Limited features

❌ No annual subscription

Comparison With Other VPNs

*Where available, we’ve selected the midrange option for each service listed above, rather than the basic or premium plan. Speeds and prices will vary according to geography.

CyberGhost is one of the cheapest options on the market IF you go for a 2-year subscription. For shorter-term options, you’re basically stuck with the 6-month option, which is way more expensive than the competitors.

The company claims to have one of the largest server networks on the VPN market. While we can’t verify that claim, it is true that we were presented with a diverse range of country options, even if the product doesn’t let you drill down into city-level servers like NordVPN.

As for speed, we can’t complain. It’s not the fastest on the market, but certainly within the range of what we’d be happy with for browsing and high-def streaming.

User Reviews and Ratings

Scoring a respectable 4/5 on Trustpilot, CyberGhost has a remarkably low number of 1-star reviews at just 6% – that’s even better than top-rated VPN Surfshark. In fact, 91% of people have given the company at least 4 stars.

Scores on the Apple App Store tend to be quite high for VPNs, so the 4.2/5 that CyberGhost gets is just so-so. On the Google Play Store, its 3.9/5 rating it on the lower end of the spectrum.

What people like:

It’s user friendly. People find it easy to install and use out of the box.

The customer service. For the most part, reviewers are pleased with the level of customer support, which is always friendly and professional.

It’s affordable. Users are particularly happy with the bargain pricing for a 2-year subscription.

What people don’t like:

The human-verification processes. CyberGhost servers are bad for being flagged as questionable traffic, which means enduring a lot of CAPTCHA.

The developers are slow to fix bugs. Dissatisfied reviewers note that glitches often take a long time to rectify.

Final Verdict & Recommendation

So, here’s the thing. CyberGhost performed well on most of our streaming tests, but it didn’t do well with iPlayer. That could have been a temporary issue, it could be that the company just particularly struggles bypassing BBC blocks. BUT most of the other VPNs we tried didn’t have any issues at all, which makes us nervous to recommend CyberGhost to people who are getting a VPN for streaming – especially when the company is notably slow to deploy fixes.

For travelers that are looking for speedy browsing, however, we have no reservations. The WireGuard protocol performed beautifully, with stable connections and good download rates.

Sure, CyberGhost is a little feature-light, which might be a problem for people who want more advanced options like multi-hop and obfuscated servers. However, it gets the job done.

While we’re not sure it quite justifies its 6-month subscription price, which is higher than more feature-rich competitors like NordVPN and Surfshark, it’s definitely worth trialing if you want a VPN long term and don’t mind committing to a 2-year plan.

After all, there’s no harm in taking advantage of the 45-day money-back guarantee!