Best VPN for Australia

ExpressVPN is the best VPN for Australia and it’s our top-rated VPN overall.

ExpressVPN is extremely fast, super safe, and reliable. It also offers city-level servers in Australia to maximize speed potential.

Within Australia, ExpressVPN has VPN servers in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth, providing coast-to-coast coverage. There are a further 26 countries to choose from in Asia-Pacific, more than 3,000 VPN servers worldwide.

Being able to drill down to city-level in Australia is not only great for speeds and performance, but it means you can access geo-specific content too.

Whether you connect to a VPN server in Australia or one further afield, ExpressVPN’s download speeds are fast and, above all, reliable. ExpressVPN is more than fast enough for HD streaming, and it works reliably with both US and Australian Netflix, as well as BBC iPlayer.

ExpressVPN is just as strong on privacy with a sensible minimal-logs policy and some great extra security features including a VPN kill switch and DNS/IPv6/WebRTC leak protection. It’s one of the safest VPNs around.

You can install ExpressVPN in a matter of minutes onto pretty much any device you can think of. If you need a little extra help, ExpressVPN’s live chat team are on hand to help you out 24/7.

NordVPN is a smart pick for Australia if your budget doesn’t stretch to ExpressVPN.

NordVPN has servers in five Australian cities (Sydney, Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Melbourne), allowing you to experience the best possible speeds.

NordVPN has even more city-level server choice in Australia than ExpressVPN, so why is it second in our list of recommendations? Well, NordVPN doesn’t quite beat ExpressVPN’s rock-solid reliability.

NordVPN’s download and upload speeds within Australia don’t match up to those delivered by our top VPN pick, and it’s less reliable over long-distance VPN connections. There are fewer VPN locations available in Asia-Pacific, too, with 11 in total.

Nevertheless, if you connect to a nearby VPN server, NordVPN will be more than fast enough for HD streaming and torrenting.

With NordVPN, you can watch US Netflix hassle-free (but not the Australian library), and torrent on many of its 200+ Australian VPN servers.

Is NordVPN safe enough for torrenting though? Yes, it is! A strict no-logs policy and strong security make NordVPN great (and safe) for P2P.

However, we feel it’s important to make you aware of a security incident involving NordVPN. In October 2019 it came to light that a NordVPN server had been breached by a hacker. No user information was taken, no data was logged, and the VPN encrypted tunnel wasn’t compromised.

That said, it exploited a worryingly simple vulnerability, and we were disappointed by NordVPN’s delayed response.

NordVPN is still a very good VPN, but it’s something to consider before you buy. You can find out more information in our full NordVPN review.

It’s possible to download custom VPN apps for a range of platforms, and NordVPN provides 24/7 live chat support to help you out as and when you need it.

IPVanish is the best VPN for torrenting and P2P in Australia thanks to its raw upload and download speeds on nearby VPN servers, as well as its strong privacy features and no-logs policy.

Like our other top picks you can choose from multiple Australian city: Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney. There are also fewer VPN servers in Australia with 74 in total.

IPVanish is very fast on these Australia VPN servers, even if it falls down on long-distance VPN connections (there are eight other countries available in Asia-Pacific).

The desktop VPN apps could be more user-friendly but IPVanish makes up for it with powerful privacy features like IP, DNS, and WebRTC leak protection and a strict zero-logs policy.

You can watch US Netflix on a few servers but unfortunately, IPVanish doesn’t support Australian Netflix or BBC iPlayer.

Live chat support is also available 24/7 but IPVanish’s money-back guarantee is much shorter than our #1 and #2 VPN services, with just seven days to change your mind instead of 30.

Cyberghost is a great budget VPN for Australia, particularly for US Netflix streaming fans as there are VPN servers optimized for that purpose. You can’t watch Australian Netflix, though.

With CyberGhost you can expect very fast speeds on VPN servers within Australia, and it’s pretty quick over long-distance connections, too.

CyberGhost has over 100 VPN servers located in three Australian cities: Brisbane, Melbourne, and Sydney. There are a total of 13 countries available in Asia-Pacific.

A strict zero logs policy and a set of robust security tools also make CyberGhost a top privacy pick, so why isn’t it further up our list of VPN recommendations for Australia?

Unfortunately, CyberGhost isn’t a great choice for P2P users and torrenters located in Australia.

CyberGhost only allows torrenting on its VPN servers labeled ‘for torrenting’.

CyberGhost doesn’t permit P2P activity on any of its Australian servers, so you’ll have to connect over a fairly long distance in order to torrent, which will slow down VPN speeds.

Even if it comes in fifth place in our list of our best VPNs, PrivateVPN remains a great VPN choice for Australia. It’s ideal if you’re on a budget and need strong privacy protection.

PrivateVPN’s download speeds are very quick in Australia and VPN connections into east coast USA are also pretty fast too.

However, a small VPN server network lets PrivateVPN down somewhat.

There are just 150 VPN servers available across PrivateVPN’s worldwide network and only three of those are in Australia (located in Melbourne and Sydney).

The small number of VPN servers in Australia could lead to server congestion and decreased speeds, but we haven’t experienced that in our tests so far. There are 13 countries available in Asia-Pacific, so you can always test a few out to find the best speeds.

Regardless of its small VPN server network, PrivateVPN is still a very good choice for privacy.

A strict zero logs policy and first-party DNS servers means PrivateVPN has no data to identify you even despite its base in privacy-unfriendly Sweden.

Unlike our other top VPN picks, PrivateVPN doesn’t have 24/7 live chat support (it’s available intermittently), which can be frustrating. However, responses to email support are general quick.