The Best VPNs for Apple TV

ExpressVPN’s tvOS app is highly intuitive, just like the other applications released by the VPN provider.

Differently to its other software, ExpressVPN has chosen to group locations by continent, which made it easier for us to find desired locations.

Testing ExpressVPN’s Apple TV app.

Also, you can log in to the app using a QR code from another device. This saved us a lot of time compared to other apps, like IPVanish and Hide.me, where we had to insert our login credentials using the remote.

The only limitations of the tvOS app is that it’s only available in dark mode, and doesn’t offer any customizable settings.

This means you can’t change protocol (the app uses Lightway by default) or enable split tunneling, for example.

If you have an Apple TV model that doesn’t support tvOS 17, you can also use ExpressVPN on Apple TV without using its app.

Thanks to its Smart DNS tool called MediaStreamer, you can route your DNS requests through a proxy server to stream geo-blocked TV shows and movies.

Using ExpressVPN’s MediaStreamer in our tests, we were able to unblock US Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, and many more content platforms.

The only issue with using MediaStreamer is that you can only unblock US and UK apps.

Alternatively, you can share content from your iPhone or Mac to Apple TV via AirPlay.

ExpressVPN has the most user-friendly iOS and macOS apps, making this a simple task. However, keep in mind that Netflix is not compatible with AirPlay.

We regularly test ExpressVPN’s speed, both locally and internationally, and the results are always exceptional.

In general, your download speed has to be over 5Mbps to stream in HD on your Apple TV.

We recorded average international download speeds of 85Mbps in our latest ExpressVPN tests. That’s just a 15% drop from our regular internet speeds.

Using ExpressVPN we have yet to experience buffering or lag unblocking content on our Apple TV 4K.

The fact IPVanish is has an app available in the tvOS App Store made it far easier to use and set up the VPN compared to many of the other VPNs we evaluated.

We particularly appreciated searching for a server location using Siri on the remote.

We also favorited certain server locations and pinned them to the app’s home screen.

In doing so, we avoided scrolling through a large server list using the Apple TV’s remote.

Having said that, ExpressVPN’s server locations grouping by continent is a lot more effective to find specific countries.

Annoyingly, we also couldn’t activate the app via another device and had to insert our login details via our remote.

We had to enter our login details manually.

Using IPVanish on our Apple TV, we consistently accessed US Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Hulu, Disney+, and several other streaming services.

IPVanish’s international download speed loss of just 12% resulted in Full HD and 4K streaming without any buffering.

But, IPVanish doesn’t unblock as many video apps as ExpressVPN. For instance, we couldn’t make it work with Max (HBO) and Prime Video.

Though user-friendly, we were disappointed with the lack of features on IPVanish’s tvOS app compared to its other applications.

While the app’s Settings menu is accessible, it only allows you to log out of your account.

Also, Only the older IKEv2 protocol is available, with no support for advanced protocols such as WireGuard or OpenVPN.

Moreover, weren’t able to configure split tunneling, a kill switch, and all other security features.

Exceptionally for a free VPN, Windscribe unblocks almost every streaming service. This includes BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Disney+, and Max.

However, unless you set up the VPN on a router, you won’t be able to access any geo-blocked Netflix content on Apple TV.

Since Windscribe does not have a native Apple TV app, you’ll need to use AirPlay. Unfortunately, AirPlay is not supported by Netflix, which resulted in a black screen when we attempted to stream.

Sadly, Windscribe hasn’t released a tvOS app. When we reached out to the VPN provider, they informed us that the release “will take some time as the mobile operating system has different libraries compared to its TV counterpart.”

This is disappointing, especially since other VPNs, like IPVanish, launched their tvOS apps the same day as tvOS 17. We had hoped Windscribe would utilize the 2023 beta cycle to ensure their app was ready by now.

For now, the simplest way to use Windscribe with your Apple TV is to use AirPlay. However, we found this to be frustrating as it requires pulling out an iOS device and it’s also not compatible with Netflix.

Alternatively, you’ll have to configure it using a virtual router, but this requires a Windows PC and a certain degree of technical knowledge.

The free version of Windscribe imposes many constraints. Firstly, it only allows you to access 11 server locations, which is 95 fewer than ExpressVPN.

Using Windscribe, we were unable to get an IP address from many popular countries, like Australia and Japan.

Plus, data usage is also capped at 10GB per month. We could only stream four hours of video on our Apple TV before using up all of our data allowance.