CyberGhost Review

CyberGhost logs its users’ connection attempts — and whether those attempts are successful — to manage its service. Since your connection is one of many, it’s kept anonymous.

It also stores your username and payment details. This is standard practice and can easily be sidestepped by using an alias email and an anonymous payment method, like cryptocurrency.

Based on these claims alone, CyberGhost doesn’t pose a risk to your online privacy, but I can’t provide a full guarantee until its policy is proven by a court case or server seizure.

That said, the VPN has published transparency reports since 2011 and has never recorded an instance of complying with an information request.

It has also invested in a RAM-only (diskless) server network, which means any data is stored virtually and periodically wiped. For me, this is a strong indicator that CyberGhost’s claims are truthful.

Clarifying CyberGhost’s Ownership

Initially founded by a tech entrepreneur in 2011, CyberGhost was eventually purchased by a company called Crossrider in 2017.

This generated some controversy, since Crossrider had a past association with an ad-injector platform. Crossrider then rebranded to Kape Technologies, shifted in focus to privacy and security, and overhauled its entire senior management team.

CyberGhost has actually improved its privacy practices under Kape’s ownership, which includes undergoing two independent audits by Deloitte to prove its no-logs infrastructure.

Today, Kape has evolved into a digital privacy heavyweight, adding ExpressVPN and Private Internet Access to its portfolio of VPN services.

Having reviewed CyberGhost for 10 years, I’ve always been impressed by how many streaming services it can access.

I’m confident it maintains this consistency through its focus on specific platforms. Unlike some other VPNs, which provide streaming-optimized servers for entire countries, CyberGhost goes one step further with servers for individual content platforms.

I used these dedicated servers myself to access services like CBC Gem (Canada), Canal+ (France), and NBC (US).

While connected to its Netflix servers, I unblocked 10 regional libraries, including the US, UK, and Canada. This is more than most VPNs can unblock, but it’s still far below ExpressVPN’s and NordVPN’s totals.

Another trend I’ve noticed is CyberGhost’s effectiveness at unblocking US and UK streaming services. This includes bypassing BBC iPlayer’s notoriously strict geo-blocks.

I streamed BBC iPlayer on-demand using CyberGhost’s UK servers.

Despite its excellent unblocking capabilities, there’s a fair amount I don’t love about CyberGhost. First of all, it can’t access a single DAZN region and it struggles with some major European platforms, like Mediaset Infinity (Italy) and RTVE Play (Spain).

CyberGhost also struggles during peak periods, and I ran out of patience with the occasional buffering, switching to ExpressVPN for much smoother viewing.

What makes this so frustrating is that CyberGhost has the potential to be among the very best streaming VPNs, but these performance and UX issues hold it back.

Based on our internal speed results, and my personal use, I’m confident you won’t notice a difference in internet speed when using a nearby CyberGhost server.

It’s a slightly different story when connecting to servers continents away. A speed loss of 44% while connected to a South African server is understandable, but compares poorly to Private Internet Access’ 26% dip over the same distance.

The issue isn’t just the raw numbers themselves, but the instability of the connection over long distances. Whenever I test CyberGhost, my download speed fluctuates wildly, especially when I’m streaming live events.

Not only did my video stream buffer here and there, but on a couple of occasions it outright froze!

CyberGhost provides two options for protecting your connection: the WireGuard protocol with ChaCha20 encryption, or OpenVPN with AES-256. Both are highly secure, open-source solutions, backed by industry experts.

I used a packet analyzer (Wireshark) to ensure its encryption worked as advertised. The result: CyberGhost encrypted my device’s connection, and left me feeling reassured.

CyberGhost encrypted my internet connection and displayed it as meaningless symbols.

As part of my testing, I also checked for IP, DNS, and WebRTC leaks. I didn’t detect any major issues, apart from an IP leak when I switched servers.

While it does activate during an unintended VPN disconnection — the more critical use case — I’d like to see the kill switch also cover the period between server switches.

That aside, my only other criticism is that CyberGhost isn’t keeping pace with its rivals.

While I appreciate the bug bounty program to crowdsource vulnerability reporting, I’d love to see open-source apps and post-quantum encryption introduced to level up the VPN’s security.

I’m also waiting to see security-specific independent audits carried out, to complement the privacy-focused ones commissioned a few years ago.

Since I’ve been using CyberGhost I’ve seen its server network gradually expand to 100 countries.

Though the vast majority of its servers are concentrated in North America, Europe, and Asia, the VPN provider has made significant headway in Oceania by expanding its reach into Australia and New Zealand.

CyberGhost’s server locations are easy to find in the desktop app.

CyberGhost lets you connect to specific cities in 10 locations, most notably in the US, UK, and Canada. The US locations are especially useful to bypass US sports blackouts.

My only critique here is the lack of city-level choice in Asia or Africa. By contrast, Proton VPN lets you choose between Abuja or Lagos in Nigeria, or Johor Bahru or Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia.

CyberGhost’s interface isn’t pushing any boundaries, but its simplicity works in its favor. Power users and beginners alike will have no problem using it.

Its apps feature a gray background with a midnight blue power button, which turns yellow once connected. There’s nothing wrong with this color palette from a functional standpoint — you can easily tell when the VPN is on — but it looks dull compared to its rivals.

Read how CyberGhost looks and feels on each platform in the sections below.

In terms of keeping your identity hidden, CyberGhost is good for torrenting: its privacy policy protects you against copyright trolls and the kill switch stops your real IP ever being accidentally exposed.

The sticking point is the VPN’s sluggish P2P speeds. Despite most of CyberGhost’s servers being optimized for P2P traffic, its average bitrate (torrenting speed) of only 3.9MiB/s is woefully slow. That’s a 61% slowdown compared to the baseline.

I had to wait over an hour for larger downloads to complete.

For context, the best VPNs for torrenting lose less than 10% in P2P speed. PIA, for instance, has an average bitrate of 9.6MiB/s.

I could really feel the speed difference using CyberGhost: it took me 81 minutes to download a 20GB file. Without the VPN running it took me 32 minutes. With PIA it took me 33 minutes, so just one extra minute.

You can’t even try to boost your torrenting speed with port forwarding, since CyberGhost doesn’t offer it.

I was surprised by CyberGhost’s ungenerous allowance of 7 simultaneous connections. Once you go over the limit you’ll be asked to log out of one device, otherwise you can’t use the VPN.

Given most VPNs are increasingly offering unlimited simultaneous connections, CyberGhost’s device policy feels dated and out of step.

By contrast, CyberGhost’s Smart DNS is a real standout feature. Unlike most Smart DNS proxies that only provide access to the US, CyberGhost offers proxies for five countries: the US, UK, Japan, Germany, and the Netherlands.

This makes it so easy to stream on devices that don’t natively support VPN apps, such as older Smart TVs and game consoles.

CyberGhost lets you customize your VPN connection using its Smart Rules setting. You can use it to decide when your VPN connects, what it connects to, and which apps it protects.

This includes split tunneling functionality, specifically the option to exclude specific websites from entering the VPN tunnel and forcing the VPN to always connect when opening designated apps.

For example, I excluded Amazon from my connection to ensure I always had access to my local account when shopping.

You can find CyberGhost’s split tunneling feature in the app’s settings.

For an additional fee, you can add a dedicated IP to your VPN. This is a fixed IP address that only you, and you alone, can access.

Its main benefits include avoiding CAPTCHAs and ensuring secure access to a remote server.

Unlike NordVPN, which links your dedicated IP to your account, CyberGhost randomly generates a token to activate your IP. This process is completely anonymous and eliminates any link between yourself and your online activity.

Dedicated IP is available on CyberGhost’s desktop and mobile apps.

NoSpy servers are unique to CyberGhost. They are essentially first-class servers, reserved in a private data center and, according to CyberGhost, a lot safer. They use top-shelf hardware, dedicated uplinks, and come with more bandwidth.

NoSpy servers are only available on its 6-month and 26-month plans. I personally don’t like this approach, as all paying customers should get access to the full suite of core VPN features.

Proton VPN’s Secure Core servers, for instance, are very similar in nature and are available on every subscription plan.