The Best VPNs for Germany

While ExpressVPN’s network only covers two German cities, with significantly fewer servers than CyberGhost, its performance is unequivocally faster and more consistent.

Connecting to a server and changing our IP address to either Frankfurt or Nuremberg took less than 3 seconds, which is faster than all other VPNs we’ve reviewed, including NordVPN.

Thanks to this outstanding server performance, we instantly streamed live and on-demand content with no buffering, glitches, or picture degradation.

We tested ExpressVPN with all of Germany’s popular streaming services. Here are the results:

Unblocking geo-restricted platforms globally is ExpressVPN’s specialty, and German streaming services are no exception.

The VPN accessed every single German streaming service with a 100% success rate. Every attempt resulted in immediate access, with videos loading quickly and consistently at the highest possible resolution.

ExpressVPN worked instantly with ARD Mediathek.

The exceptional usability of ExpressVPN’s apps is its secret weapon, providing a uniform and intuitive experience across every device, including computers, smartphones, Fire TV Stick and Apple TV.

The home screen is clutter-free and gives you access to the essentials: a large connect button accompanied by options to select a different server location, connect to the fastest (nearest) server, or your previous last location.

While there are no German TV dedicated streaming servers, every German server we tested connected instantly and worked perfectly, eliminating any need for dedicated options.

ExpressVPN has also developed the industry’s only dedicated router application, which allows you to use the VPN on devices that don’t normally support VPN software, like game consoles and Roku Stick.

With one simple configuration, you’ll be able to connect unlimited devices to the VPN, and even assign different IP locations to each one.

NordVPN’s 425 German servers are spread across 3 cities: Berlin, Frankfurt, or Hamburg. This conveniently covers the North, West, and East of the country.

While it isn’t the largest German server network on the market, it’s still extensive enough to provide extremely fast and stable connections into Germany.

In fact, over thousands of tests connecting into Germany, our internet speed slowed down by only 8% compared to ExpressVPN’s 13%.

Moreover, we’ve never experienced any server overloads or inconsistent connections.

We tested NordVPN with Germany’s most popular streaming services. Here are the results:

We were delighted to see NordVPN successfully unblock so many German streaming services. It’s a shame it couldn’t work with DAZN’s German content, though.

Streaming ZDF from abroad using NordVPN.

Every German server worked smoothly, with videos loading quickly and streaming in high definition, without any noticeable loss in frame rate or quality.

NordVPN’s apps are available on all popular devices and platforms, including Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Fire TV Stick and Apple TV.

All the apps are easy to install and relatively easy to navigate. You can also have the VPN running on up to 10 devices at once.

There are some minor issues, though, like not being able to manually resize the desktop apps, whose home screen prominently feature add-ons like Threat Protection and Dark Web Monitor.

NordVPN’s desktop apps aren’t as user-friendly as ExpressVPN’s.

There are also many advanced settings that beginners may never use because they’re not labeled or explained properly.

There is no router application, either, so if you happen to be using an Xbox, PlayStation or Roku for streaming, then you’re much better off with ExpressVPN.

CyberGhost has more servers in Germany than any other VPN: 1,300 servers across Berlin, Frankfurt, and Düsseldorf.

With so many servers in Germany, it’s rare to see CyberGhost’s server load go over 70%. Keeping the congestion low means there is less chance of running into CAPTCHAs, or your VPN being detected by German content platforms.

Despite such a large amount of German servers, we were slightly disappointed with the speeds they produced.

A speed reduction of 15% is not the end of the world, but it certainly pales in comparison to the performance of NordVPN.

Just like with ExpressVPN and NordVPN, we tested CyberGhost with Germany’s main streaming services. Here are the results:

CyberGhost didn’t perform badly in our streaming tests, but its German IP addresses were detected and blocked by DAZN and RTL+.

But, unless you need to access those two services, CyberGhost worked rather well with all the other major platforms.

Unblocking JOYN proved a little trickier, with the standard German servers failing to work, but luckily the ‘DE Android TV’ server worked fine.

Sky Sports mit CyberGhost schauen.

Also, due to the VPN’s slower download speeds, our stream did go blurry on rare occasions, but certainly not as much as using a free VPN like Windscribe.

CyberGhost is compatible with most popular platforms, including Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Fire TV. However, it still hasn’t developed an Apple TV app.

While the apps are user-friendly, we’ve encountered connection bugs and responsiveness issues, forcing us to restart the app a few times. The Mac app is particularly temperamental.

The browser extensions are outdated in design and offer only four server locations. They are free to use, though, and Germany is included so you can use them to get a free German IP address.

Moreover, CyberGhost is also the only VPN with a Smart DNS proxy that unblocks German streaming services.

You can use the proxy to update your device’s DNS settings and change your geolocation to Germany without having to use the VPN software. This is particularly useful on PlayStation and Xbox.

You can get a free German IP address by connecting to either of Windscribe’s two free German servers.

Both are based in Frankfurt, but the ‘Frankfurt – Wurstchen’ server is a 10Gbps server, with greater bandwidth and faster speeds.

Quite frustratingly, though, both servers trigger many CAPTCHAs especially on search engines.

While Windscribe’s current offering is not to be sniffed at, we’d like to see one or two additional cities added, for a more even spread across the country.

Speed wise, we recorded an average loss of 20% connecting to Germany from abroad.

This is a considerable slowdown, especially when PrivadoVPN delivered much quicker Internet speeds on its free German server.

Here are the results of our unblocking tests using the free version of Windscribe:

Windscribe successfully bypassed all German streaming geo-restrictions, and it’s the only free VPN to do so.

That being said, Windscribe’s 10GB data cap limits your streaming experience to approximately 4 hours of Full HD content, which severely handicaps its effectiveness.

Windscribe’s free German servers unblocked ARD Mediathek.

And because of Windscribe’s underwhelming speeds into Germany, we occasionally experienced poor picture quality and low FPS, particularly during live streams.

Windscribe’s apps look rather dated, but they are nevertheless easy to use. You can use them on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Fire TV, and Apple TV. There are also free Chrome and Firefox extensions.

The UI is relatively intuitive, despite the apps being packed with an extraordinary range of free settings: multi-hop servers, split-tunneling, ad blocker, and even an Android GPS spoofer.

Every setting is clearly labeled so that you know what it does.

PrivadoVPN operates a small server network in Germany, with only one free server location available: Frankfurt.

It’s clearly a very limited offering, but then again this is not that surprising from a free service.

In spite of this, PrivadoVPN’s speeds were shockingly good (a 7% slowdown) and even better than NordVPN!

Below are the latest results of our streaming tests using PrivadoVPN:

PrivadoVPN can access free-to-air German TV services without issue, but its connections keep getting blocked by subscription services like DAZN, Sky and Netflix.

PrivadoVPN’s free German server unblocked RTL+.

Rather than developing feature-rich apps, PrivadoVPN has opted for a bare-bones approach focused on handling core functionality.

While the UI is beginner-friendly, making server selection and connection simple, the apps lack many of the advanced settings>/b> you’ll find in Windscribe.