Based in Romania, CyberGhost is owned by its parent company, UK-based security firm Kape Technologies. The service itself has seen enormous growth in recent years and is now firmly entrenched as one of the leading VPN providers.
It offers solid VPN features including seven simultaneous device connections, secure protocol options, and a great server spread. In fact, boasting an absolutely colossal number of servers, sitting at over 11,500, it dwarfs most of its competitors in this area. I’ve been impressed with CyberGhost in the past and decided to take it for another spin to see how it stacks up in an increasingly competitive VPN market.
Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best VPN for comparison.
CyberGhost did some work in 2025. It further expanded its already impressive server network to over 11,500 servers across more than 100 countries. It added more physical servers in South America and Asia as well. Physical servers are typically seen as more secure and reliable than virtual servers as the dedicated hardware has no other resources to compete with—making this a more important upgrade than overall server count in my mind.
Additionally, and most importantly, CyberGhost began the process of upgrading its 1Gbps servers to 10Gbps. This upgrade should—and as my latest speed tests prove, does—improve performance both in faster connection speeds and lower latencies. The process of converting all servers to 10Gbps will take awhile, but it’s a big step in the right direction that will help address one of CyberGhost’s main weaknesses: speed.
The CyberGhost Windows app has an easy-to-use interface that’s pleasantly simple and straightforward. It opens with just a small connection window anchored to the Windows taskbar, which can be expanded into a larger, fully disconnected window by clicking the arrow button.
On the furthest-most left rail you have options for My Account and Settings. To the right of that you have all of the different server options. These include menu items for Favorites, All Servers, Dedicated IP (if you pay for one), NoSpy Servers, For Gaming, For Torrenting, and For Streaming servers.
Many of these server options come from CyberGhost’s rather unique legacy as a VPN that offers servers based on use rather than location. While these options are all pretty self-explanatory, the For Streaming section is noteworthy. Each server listed in this menu is optimized for a specific service and CyberGhost supports unblocking for more than 35 services. For just the U.S. alone this includes Amazon Prime, Fox, HBO Max, Sling TV, Hulu, PeacockTV, Netflix, and others. When you’re going overseas, or you’d like to access an overseas service from the U.S., CyberGhost offers an excellent selection.
The NoSpy Servers are also worth mentioning as they are all servers owned and operated in-house by CyberGhost. This is rather unique as most VPN providers work with third-party data centers to host their servers. CyberGhost claims that by managing these servers end-to-end it provides users with an extra layer of privacy.
The idea here is that CyberGhost, and by proxy the user, knows exactly who has access to these servers at any given time, and should an intrusive government come knocking, they aren’t obliged to cough up your data. This is theoretically true, but considering that Romania where these NoSpy servers are housed has strong personal data privacy laws, it likely doesn’t matter anyways.
Below these server options you’ll find Privacy settings and Smart rules. The first has just a few basic features such as preventing DNS leaks, an automatic kill switch option, and a blocker option for domains that are known to serve ads, trackers, and malware.
While the service doesn’t offer a ton of tools for power users, the Smart rules section does offer a few areas to tweak. Here you can set launch rules for the app, as well as access CyberGhost VPN’s split-tunneling feature to include or exclude certain websites or apps from the VPN.
These are interesting, but other top VPN providers such as NordVPN and Proton VPN offer considerably more extra features, which can be useful depending on your needs. Things such as multi-hop connections, onion-over VPN, and IP address rotation are all offered by competitors but lacking with CyberGhost.
When you choose an option from the server tabs, you’ll find a list of all the servers available which you can sort alphabetically by name, distance from your home IP address, and any favorite servers you’ve chosen.
This is where CyberGhost shines. It offers a dizzying number of server locations—more than 11,500. That’s more than pretty much any of the other top VPN companies. The abundance of choice here means you have more options to choose servers that suit your needs whether that be location or speed or something else.
While connected to any of its servers you’re able to clearly see the server’s IP address and location, data downloaded and uploaded while connected, the protocol being used, and the time duration of the connection. All of this information is displayed in a very clear and tidy manner. While this may seem like a minor detail, some other VPN providers bury this pertinent information deep down in the settings or side menus.
Included with a subscription, you’ll also have access to CyberGhost’s Identity Guard feature that will scan for your email in known data breaches and alert you if it’s found. This tool can be found separately on CyberGhost’s website under “My Account.”
CyberGhost’s VPN app is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, Fire Stick TV, Android TV, and some routers.
CyberGhost offers three subscription plans: one month, six months, and two years. The one-month plan is $12.99 per month and the six-month plan is $41.94. The two-year plan will set you back a total of $56.94, or a very reasonable $2.37 per month. With the two-year plan you’ll receive an additional two free months and it will change to a yearly subscription after the initial period. It’s also worth noting that CyberGhost offers a generous 45-day refund policy on its long-term subscription plans (six months or more) so you can give it a full test run before committing.
For an additional $1 per month you can add CyberGhost’s Security Suite which includes antivirus protection, and for $2.50 per month you can get a dedicated IP for your VPN—currently there are 20 locations across 13 countries to choose from for the dedicated IP.
The monthly price for CyberGhost is a bit above the industry standard, and while I wouldn’t say it’s expensive, it is towards the high end. When you opt for the two-year plan, the price becomes much more affordable and makes CyberGhost one of the cheapest long-term subscriptions on the market. Additionally, CyberGhost’s dedicated IP is one of the cheapest you’re likely to find from any VPN provider and it comes with a great number of locations to choose from as well.
When signing up for CyberGhost you need to supply an email address and password, and payment is accepted via credit card, GPay, PayPal, or Bitcoin.
During my testing, I rated connection speeds across CyberGhost’s servers in different countries all around the world and then compared them to my baseline internet speed. CyberGhost server speeds were pretty good, although it didn’t quite fall into our top five fastest VPNs. Across all locations tested, the speeds averaged just over 51 percent of the base download speed and a much more impressive 87 percent of the base upload speed.
That doesn’t appear great at first glance, but take those averages with a grain of salt. I saw significantly different speed averages across regions. For example, of the servers I tested, those located in Asia and Aftica were particularly slow while the European and U.S. servers were much faster.
CyberGhost’s upgrade from 1Gbps to 10Gbps servers seems to be working. The speed results I saw during this test were about 10 percent faster on average than when I tested before the upgrade. I can only imagine that the averages will continue to climb as more 10Gbps servers are implemented.
In regards to streaming, CyberGhost’s speeds shouldn’t necessarily be a worry. When I tested its For streaming servers, even with the slowdown, all of the content loaded without issues and streamed in buffer-free high-quality. The caveat here is that your ability to stream HD quality content will depend almost entirely on your home internet speed to begin with.
Interestingly enough, even while using any non-streaming servers, I never came across an issue accessing major streaming sites. I believe this makes CyberGhost a great VPN for those looking to bypass geo-restrictions or stream while out of the country. Being able to utilize its huge server network to stream anywhere in the world is a nice bonus.
CyberGhost uses the industry standard AES 256-bit encryption. For protocols, it provides WireGuard, IKEv2, and OpenVPN. WireGuard is your best bet in most circumstances as it’s newer and more secure and typically faster as well. IKEv2 and OpenVPN protocols are older, but still have their uses. IKEv2, for example, has wide compatibility and can be a good option should you want to use CyberGhost on your mobile device instead.
As mentioned previously, there is also the option to turn on an automatic kill switch which will sever your connection to the internet should your VPN drop out for any reason. It’s a nice feature to have to ensure your actual address is never revealed should there be connection issues. In my tests the kill switch triggered successfully when the VPN lost connection.
As for privacy, CyberGhost lays it all out in its privacy policy. The basics are pretty straightforward. Right at the top, the company says it does not track browsing history or traffic. It also says it doesn’t store connection logs or timestamps, your IP address, or session durations.
It does, however, collect data on connection attempts including the time they happened, country of origin, and the CyberGhost software version. It also tracks successful connections. CyberGhost does say that some of this data is shared with its parent company Kape Technologies, and payment data is shared with “trusted vendors to carry out a transaction.” The limited data that CyberGhost does store is used to maintain its service and none of the data collected contains personally identifying features.
To further back up its claim of privacy, CyberGhost regularly produces transparency reports on legal requests made for user data and how the requests were handled. Additionally, it had its no-logs policy confirmed via a successful audit by Deloitte most recently in January of 2024. I always like to see a company that takes steps like this to increase transparency and foster trust among its user base.
While this is now the second no-logs audit CyberGhost has completed since 2022, I hope that in the future they begin conducting them more frequently. Top competitors such as ExpressVPN and NordVPN conduct one or two audits every year.
CyberGhost operates out of Romania, which is a privacy-friendly country. While a member of the EU, it is not a member of the Five, Nine, or Fourteen Eyes data sharing alliances. You can feel safe knowing that as long as CyberGhost remains in Romania, your data will remain private.
CyberGhost is a very well-rounded VPN. The service has an incredibly vast server network and the interface is well designed and easy to use. It also supports a wide range of streaming services all over the world, and it ultimately makes the right privacy promises (and backs them up too).
Admittedly, the service isn’t the fastest—even with the 10Gbps upgrades—and outside of the two-year plan can be a bit expensive. Power users who are dead set on optimizing and tweaking their connections might also feel a little out in the cold as configuration options with the service can be a bit sparse. But for the vast majority of VPN users, CyberGhost is still a great VPN service.
Editor’s note: Because online services are often iterative, gaining new features and performance improvements over time, this review is subject to change in order to accurately reflect the current state of the service. Any changes to text or our final review verdict will be noted at the top of this article.
Author: Sam Singleton
Source: PCWorld
Reviewed By: Editorial Team
