The Best VPNs for Linux

Unlike most VPNs, PIA provides a VPN app on Linux with a bespoke GUI and integrated features.

Most notably, PIA includes its kill switch on Linux. This saved us from having to manually configure one in our Linux’s network settings which can be time-consuming.

You also have access to PIA’s ad-blocker, split tunneling, and full server network. This level of feature parity is exceptional and makes it worthwhile to use a VPN on Linux.

We found PIA a lot easier to use than most VPNs we test on Linux. You only need to click the power button once to connect and most of its extra features are neatly hidden within a drop-down menu.

Though user-friendly, PIA’s advanced features can be confusing if you’re unfamiliar with VPNs, but the learning curve isn’t too steep.

PIA is compatible with most popular Linux distros, making setup straightforward. It also works on both 32-bit and 64-bit systems, allowing for wider compatibility.

Using a compatible distro, the setup process took us less than 1 minute. This is due to PIA using an easy-to-use installer to download the bulk of its software unlike Mullvad, for example, which requires entering multiple inputs into your CLI.

PIA tunnels your traffic with the open-source WireGuard protocol and encrypts it with ChaCha20. This is a highly secure configuration that’s enabled by default within PIA’s Linux app.

We tested PIA’s encryption by running our VPN traffic through a packet analyzer:

Each data packet displayed incoherent symbols indicating that PIA successfully encrypted our connection.

PIA does not log any of your data which has been confirmed by multiple court cases and a Deloitte audit. As such, your online activity while using PIA cannot be traced back to you.

For added reassurance, PIA also operates its own DNS servers which are enabled by default within the Linux app. This prevents your Internet Service Provider (ISP) from seeing which websites you visit.

You can also set a custom DNS within PIA’s Linux app if you want complete agency over your DNS requests. To do this, go to Settings > Network and select Custom from the drop-down menu.

Using WireGuard, PIA slowed down our local download speeds by just 5%. This is exceptionally fast and ensures you can use the internet without noticing any drop in load speed.

Over longer-distances PIA had a much greater impact on our connection speeds. For example, our US to Australia connection slowed down by 18%.

While this is slightly worse than competitors like ExpressVPN and NordVPN, it didn’t affect our streaming experience. Video quality remained consistent, even when accessing geo-blocked content.

This reliability is useful, as PIA consistently unblocks US Netflix, Max, BBC iPlayer, and more. In contrast, Proton VPN Free doesn’t work with any streaming service, and Mullvad only unblocks a few.

We found Mullvad one of the easiest VPNs to use on Linux. Its main screen is simple, with only a few essential buttons, and its map interface was far less obtrusive than the typically cluttered designs in similar interfaces.

Within its settings, Mullvad includes more advanced features than many Linux VPNs. You can customize its WireGuard protocol by port number and IP address type, and there’s even options for multi-hop and obfuscation.

However, we noticed that the VPN selects ‘Automatic’ as its default protocol, which often uses OpenVPN. For optimal performance, click the cog icon in the top-right corner and click ‘VPN settings‘ and then scroll down to ‘Tunnel protocol‘ and select WireGuard.

Mullvad is only compatible with Ubuntu, Debian, and Fedora distributions and 64-bit systems. This is disappointingly narrow compared to Astrill or Proton VPN’s selection.

Though the setup process isn’t overly complicated, we were disappointed by the lack of an installer for less tech-savvy users.

Mullvad uses WireGuard or OpenVPN to establish a VPN tunnel and encrypts it with ChaCha20 or AES-256 respectively.

We experienced no connectivity issues with Mullvad and our encryption tests showed that it successfully encrypted our internet traffic:

Mullvad also includes a standard kill switch and a permanent kill switch called “Lockdown mode”. The latter cuts your internet until you connect to the VPN making IP leaks virtually impossible.

We tested both kill switches on its Linux app and detected no data leaks.

Mullvad excels at privacy with a genuine no-logs privacy policy.

Unlike most VPNs, Mullvad does not require you to provide account details or pay for a regular subscription. Instead, you make an anonymous payment and set up your account with a randomly generated code. This ensures complete anonymity.

We’ve set up Mullvad countless times in testing and personal use, and we’ve always found its unique sign-up process straightforward enough.

Moreover, Mullvad operates a diskless server network which makes it impossible for anyone to extract your personal data.

Mullvad barely impacted our local speeds with an average decrease of 7%. Over longer-distances, our speeds dropped slightly with an average international speed loss of 15%

We found this sufficiently fast for most activities on our Linux. However Mullvad doesn’t work with most streaming services so it was difficult to test the impact on video quality when bypassing geo-blocks.

Astrill provides a dedicated Linux app with a GUI and full VPN functionality. While this is better than a command line interface, it isn’t the easiest app to use and it took us several hours to get used to.

Unlike most VPNs, Astrill does not restrict Linux users to a single protocol. You can choose from WireGuard and OpenVPN, plus proprietary options OpenWeb and StealthVPN.

Alongside essential features, such as a kill switch, Astrill provides more advanced features on Linux than any other VPN.

These features include custom proxies, Tor over VPN, Port 443 support, and port forwarding.

Astrill is compatible with a wide range of Linux distros. This includes Debian, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, and more on both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems.

That said, we were unable to launch Astrill’s installer on our Ubuntu build and instead had to use CLI to manually open it.

This may not be the case for you, but if you encounter any problems we suggest contacting Astrill’s 24/7 live chat as they solved our issue within minutes.

Astrill is safe to use on Linux. It uses WireGuard with ChaCha20 to tunnel and encrypt your network traffic.

We confirmed this ourselves by inspecting our VPN traffic with Wireshark, a packet analyzer:

Astrill also includes IPv4 and IPv6 leak blocking which is enabled automatically in its Linux app.

The one downside is that, unlike every other VPN featured in this list, Astrill’s Linux app is not open-source. This means its code can’t be audited by anyone to identify security vulnerabilities.

Astrill temporarily logs some sensitive data, including your IP address, but deletes it once your VPN session ends.

While we’d prefer Astrill to adopt PIA’s ‘no-logs’ approach, this is still a private logging policy.

Astrill’s logging policy is unaudited, but the VPN service has never experienced a server breach, security leak, or any other controversy.

It also accepts anonymous payment methods, like cryptocurrency, to minimize the paper trail between yourself and the VPN service.

Astrill excels in P2P speeds, outperforming every other VPN we tested.

With its port forwarding feature enabled, we were able to download torrent files as quickly as when the VPN wasn’t connected at all.

For regular internet use, Astrill slowed our download speeds by 8% when connecting to a nearby server.

Although this is slower than most top-rated VPNs, we found Astrill’s speeds fast enough for most activities.

For instance, we used Astrill on Ubuntu for private browsing and found that webpages loaded seamlessly and without any interruptions.

That said, Astrill slowed down our speeds substantially over international connections with an average speed loss of 25%. If you need to connect to a server in a distant country, we suggest using PIA instead.

Proton VPN Free’s Linux app includes a GUI, but it falls short of the polish and user-friendly design found in the paid VPNs on our list.

Unlike our top 3 recommendations, Proton VPN’s Linux app differs significantly from its Windows counterpart. Most notably, it lacks a map interface and does not incorporate any icons.

Previously, its Linux app displayed the connected country’s flag, but now it only shows a text confirmation. We found this much harder to quickly tell if the VPN was connected, especially when the app was alongside another window.

For a free Linux VPN, Proton VPN has an excellent number of basic and advanced features such as an integrated kill switch, WireGuard support (although it’s labelled ‘experimental’ on Linux), an auto-connect tool, and its proprietary VPN ‘Accelerator’.

That said, we were disappointed by the amount of paywalled features including port forwarding and access to Proton VPN’s full server list.

From our recommended VPNs, Proton VPN is compatible with the most Linux distros.

You can install its free tier on the following distros:

• Debian 10
• Ubuntu 20+
• Mint 20+
• MX Linux 19+
• Kali Linux
• Elementary OS 6.0+
• Fedora 31+ (excluding Rawhide)
• Archlinux/Manjaro

There are also OpenVPN and IKEv2 config files, in addition to a CLI installation guide.

It took us slightly longer to set up than PIA’s Linux app at just under 3 minutes.

Proton VPN Free is one of the most secure VPNs available. It tunnels your traffic with WireGuard, encrypts it with ChaCha20, and uses Perfect Forward Secrecy for key exchange.

We tested this with a packet analyzer and found that Proton VPN securely encrypted our traffic on Linux.

Proton VPN also includes IPv4 and IPv6 leak protection built into its Linux app. We tested this with our in-house leak test tool and detected no data leaks.

Proton VPN has a zero-logs policy which logs no identifiable data. The only information it retains is your email when you create an account, which can easily be bypassed with an anonymous email address.

In 2019 Proton VPN proved its policy in court, when it was asked to submit user data. Since no relevant data had been stored, it had nothing to hand over.

The final factor that makes Proton VPN such a strong choice for privacy is its jurisdiction.

Being based in Switzerland, which isn’t part of the 14 Eyes and or the EU, makes Proton VPN a very good choice for privacy-conscious users.

Proton VPN Free’s speeds are exceptional, with an average speed loss of 13% on same-country connections.

We’ve regularly used Linux with Proton VPN running in the background, sometimes for multiple hours, and have never noticed an impact on performance or our download times.

That said, Proton VPN Free only has 200 servers which can easily become congested, reducing your speeds. For context, PIA has 18,651 servers and Mullvad has 674.

To avoid this, we suggest using the VPN at non-peak times or upgrading to its paid version.