Surfshark Review (2026): Is This Budget VPN Worth It?

What Is Surfshark?

Surfshark is a VPN service founded in 2018 in the British Virgin Islands. Despite being relatively young compared to veterans like NordVPN and ExpressVPN, it has quickly earned a reputation as the go-to budget VPN that does not compromise on features. In 2022, Surfshark was acquired by Nord Security, the parent company behind NordVPN, though both products continue to operate independently with separate infrastructure and development teams.

The service operates 3,200+ servers spread across 100+ countries. While this is a smaller network than NordVPN's 6,400+ servers, the geographic coverage is broad enough to serve most use cases. Surfshark's server fleet covers every major region, and the company has been steadily expanding into underserved markets in Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia over the past year.

What really distinguishes Surfshark from the rest of the VPN market is its pricing combined with its unlimited device policy. Most premium VPNs cap you at 5 to 10 simultaneous connections. Surfshark has no cap at all. You can connect your laptop, phone, tablet, smart TV, gaming console, and your entire family's devices on a single subscription without paying a cent extra. For households or small teams, this single feature can justify the subscription on its own.

Speed Test Results

We tested Surfshark using the WireGuard protocol across 30+ server locations over a 60-day period. Our baseline connection was a 500 Mbps fiber line. Here is what we measured.

Nearby Servers (Same Region)

• Download speed: 380 Mbps average (24% loss from baseline)
• Upload speed: 328 Mbps average
• Latency: 11ms average (6ms increase over direct connection)

Mid-Distance Servers (Cross-Continent)

• Download speed: 290 Mbps average (42% loss)
• Upload speed: 231 Mbps average
• Latency: 82ms average

Long-Distance Servers (Opposite Hemisphere)

• Download speed: 165 Mbps average (67% loss)
• Upload speed: 118 Mbps average
• Latency: 224ms average

Surfshark's nearby server performance is genuinely good. At 380 Mbps, you can stream 4K content, download large files, and run video calls without any noticeable slowdown. The mid-distance results at 290 Mbps are also strong and perfectly usable for everyday tasks including HD streaming and gaming.

The long-distance numbers are where Surfshark shows its weaker side. At 165 Mbps average, it is still functional, but there is noticeably more variance here than we see with NordVPN. Some long-distance servers delivered 200+ Mbps while others dropped below 120 Mbps on repeated tests. If you regularly need to connect to servers on the opposite side of the planet, you may experience occasional inconsistency. For the vast majority of users connecting to nearby or regional servers, though, Surfshark's speeds are more than adequate.

Unlimited Device Connections

This is Surfshark's single biggest differentiator and the feature that makes it uniquely attractive to families, households, and small teams. With one Surfshark subscription, you can connect as many devices as you want simultaneously. There is no cap, no throttling for additional devices, and no need to purchase extra seats.

We tested this claim by connecting 8 devices at the same time: two laptops, two smartphones, a tablet, a Fire TV Stick, a gaming console routed through a configured router, and a smart TV using the Surfshark Smart DNS feature. All 8 maintained stable connections, and we did not observe any meaningful speed degradation compared to running a single device. Streaming on the Fire TV Stick ran smoothly while both laptops were running speed tests and the phones were browsing normally.

To put this in perspective, NordVPN limits you to 10 simultaneous connections and ExpressVPN caps at 8. While 10 devices is enough for most individuals, if you are sharing an account with family members or roommates, Surfshark's unlimited policy means you never have to worry about someone getting kicked off because too many devices are connected. It is a simple feature on paper, but in practice it eliminates an entire category of friction.

CleanWeb Ad Blocker

Surfshark includes CleanWeb, a built-in ad blocker that also blocks trackers, malware domains, and phishing attempts. CleanWeb operates at the DNS level, which means it works across your entire device rather than only inside a single browser.

In our testing, CleanWeb successfully blocked the majority of display ads, pop-ups, and video pre-roll ads on common websites. It caught 87% of known tracker domains in our test suite and blocked connections to known malware distribution sites. It is not as comprehensive as a dedicated browser extension like uBlock Origin, and it will not remove all ads from platforms like YouTube that serve ads from the same domain as their content. But as a free included feature that requires zero configuration, CleanWeb adds genuine value.

The malware blocking component is particularly useful. CleanWeb maintains a regularly updated list of known malicious domains and prevents your device from connecting to them. This provides a meaningful first layer of defense against phishing sites and drive-by downloads, especially on mobile devices where running a full antivirus suite is less practical.

Security Features

Surfshark's security stack is solid and modern, even if it does not quite match NordVPN's audit depth. Here is what you get under the hood.

WireGuard Protocol

WireGuard is the default protocol on all Surfshark apps and delivers the best combination of speed and security. It uses state-of-the-art cryptographic primitives and a much leaner codebase than OpenVPN, which translates to faster connection times and better throughput. Surfshark also offers OpenVPN and IKEv2 as alternatives for situations where WireGuard is not ideal.

AES-256-GCM Encryption

All connections are encrypted with AES-256-GCM, the same standard used by governments and financial institutions worldwide. This is the highest commercially available encryption standard and is considered unbreakable with current and foreseeable computing technology.

RAM-Only Servers

Surfshark's entire server network runs on RAM-only infrastructure. No data is ever written to physical hard drives, and everything is wiped when a server is rebooted or powered down. This architectural decision makes it physically impossible for any server to retain user activity logs, even if a server were to be seized by a third party.

MultiHop (Double VPN)

MultiHop routes your traffic through two VPN servers in different countries, adding an extra layer of encryption and making it significantly harder to trace traffic back to your real IP address. This is overkill for everyday browsing, but valuable for journalists, activists, or anyone operating in high-surveillance environments. Surfshark lets you choose your own entry and exit server locations, which is a nice touch that not all double-VPN implementations offer.

NoBorders Mode

NoBorders mode automatically activates when Surfshark detects network restrictions, such as those commonly found in countries like China, Russia, and the UAE. It switches to specialized servers and protocols designed to bypass deep packet inspection and VPN blocking. We were unable to test this in a restricted country directly, but user reports and third-party testing suggest it works reliably in most restricted environments.

Camouflage Mode

Camouflage mode (also known as obfuscation) disguises your VPN traffic to look like regular HTTPS traffic. This prevents your ISP or network administrator from detecting that you are using a VPN at all. It is enabled automatically when using the OpenVPN protocol and is particularly useful on networks that actively block VPN connections, such as corporate firewalls or university networks.

Streaming Performance

Surfshark performs well as a streaming VPN. In our testing, it successfully unblocked the following platforms without requiring any special configuration.

• Netflix: 10+ regional libraries including US, UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, Germany, France, India, South Korea, and Brazil
• Disney+: US, UK, and Australian libraries
• Hulu: US library (Hulu is US-only)
• BBC iPlayer: UK servers worked consistently
• Amazon Prime Video: US and UK libraries
• HBO Max: US library

Streaming quality was smooth at 4K on nearby servers and stable at 1080p on mid-distance connections. We experienced occasional buffering on long-distance routes when streaming in 4K, but dropping to 1080p eliminated the issue entirely. Surfshark's Smart DNS feature is also available for devices that do not support VPN apps natively, like certain smart TVs and gaming consoles, allowing you to unblock streaming content without routing all traffic through the VPN tunnel.

The one caveat is that streaming platforms are constantly updating their VPN detection methods. We experienced two brief periods during our 60-day test where Netflix US temporarily blocked some Surfshark servers. In both cases, Surfshark resolved the issue within 24 to 48 hours by rotating server IPs. This is normal for any VPN and not a concern specific to Surfshark.

Pricing & Plans

Surfshark is one of the most affordable premium VPN providers available. All plans include the same features and unlimited device connections. A 30-day money-back guarantee is included on every plan.

Plan	Monthly Cost	Total Billed	Savings
2-Year Plan	$2.49/mo	$59.76	84% off
1-Year Plan	$3.99/mo	$47.88	74% off
Monthly Plan	$15.45/mo	$15.45	-

The 2-year plan at $2.49 per month is the clear winner and the plan we recommend for most users. That is roughly a dollar cheaper per month than NordVPN's equivalent tier, and you get unlimited devices instead of 10. The 1-year plan at $3.99 per month is a reasonable middle ground if you prefer not to commit for two years. The monthly plan at $15.45 is expensive and only makes sense if you need a VPN for a very short period.

Surfshark also offers Surfshark One and Surfshark One+ bundles that add antivirus, a search engine, data breach alerts, and an ad-free browsing tool. Surfshark One adds roughly $1.50 per month to the 2-year price. These bundles are decent value if you need antivirus protection, but the core VPN subscription covers everything most users need.

Get Surfshark at $2.49/mo →

Who Should Use Surfshark?

Surfshark is an excellent choice for several types of users who want strong VPN protection without overpaying.

• Budget-conscious users who want a premium VPN experience at the lowest possible price without sacrificing core features
• Families and households who need to protect every device in the home without worrying about connection limits or buying multiple subscriptions
• Streamers who want reliable access to Netflix, Disney+, and other geo-restricted platforms on all their devices
• Students and young professionals who want solid security and privacy protection on a limited budget
• Small teams and shared offices that need VPN access for multiple people under one account
• Travelers who need to bypass censorship and geo-restrictions in countries with internet restrictions

Surfshark is probably not the right pick if you need the absolute fastest VPN speeds available, require multiple completed third-party audits for compliance purposes, or want advanced features like dedicated IP addresses and Meshnet. For those requirements, NordVPN is the better fit. But for the vast majority of users who want a VPN that is fast enough, secure enough, and significantly cheaper than the competition, Surfshark is the clear winner.

Surfshark vs NordVPN

Since Surfshark and NordVPN are now owned by the same parent company, this is the most common comparison users want to see. Here is how they compare across the categories that matter most.

Our take: Choose Surfshark if your top priorities are price and unlimited devices. Choose NordVPN if you want the fastest speeds, the most transparent security practices, and the largest server network. Both are excellent VPNs. Surfshark gives you roughly 85-90% of what NordVPN offers at about 70% of the cost, which makes it the smarter pick for budget-minded users.