Speed
SUMMARY:
Surfshark and NordVPN are both fast. They use a proprietary version of the WireGuard protocol and cause negligible speed loss on local and international connections. However, we recorded slightly faster ping and international download speeds using NordVPN.
Winner: NordVPN
Here’s a comparison of NordVPN and Surfshark’s speed test performance:
Surfshark | NordVPN | |
---|---|---|
Speed Rating | 9.1 | 9.7 |
Local Download Speed | 95Mbps | 95Mbps |
Average International Download Speed | 83Mbps | 86Mbps |
Local Upload Speed | 92Mbps | 94Mbps |
Ping | 9ms | 8ms |
Time to Connect | 3.4 seconds | 8.4 seconds |
Fastest VPN Protocol | WireGuard | WireGuard (NordLynx) |
On local connections to servers in the US, both VPNs are incredibly fast, with speed losses of just 2% and 15% for NordVPN and Surfshark respectively.
However, NordVPN has the edge internationally — just. Its average international speed loss was 13% less than Surfshark. It’s not a big difference, but if you’re planning on connecting to far away servers often, it could add up over time.
As you might expect, this difference is greater over longer distances. Connecting from the US to Australia, we measured average download speeds of 87Mbps with NordVPN and 85Mbps with Surfshark, which are both impressively fast results.
Both VPNs also delivered ping speeds of under 100ms between the US East Coast and the US West Coast, Canada, Germany, and UK. With latency times like this, you can expect a smooth, responsive experience with either VPN.
Put simply: both VPNs are optimized for speed. They both use protocols based on WireGuard, which can be twice as fast as OpenVPN thanks to more efficient data transmission.
They’ve taken measures to avoid congested servers, too. Surfshark caps its server load at 40% to prevent slowdowns, while NordVPN automatically connects you to the least-congested server.
If speed is your priority, you won’t have any issues with either VPN.