Numbers-wise, PureVPN and IPVanish are pretty similar services — featuring a comparable number of servers. At the same time, the two VPNs offer slightly different experiences with PureVPN boasting nicer looking apps with a more modern design.
But the design alone is not enough for us to vote for one VPN over the other. As you’re about to find out… Read on for details.
Comparing the features
Here’s how PureVPN and IPVanish compare on a feature by feature basis:
Servers & Locations
PureVPN has more than 2,000 servers across 180+ locations in 140+ countries, giving it an edge over many VPNs out there, IPVanish included — which has 1,400+ servers. Both services rock an enormous number of IP addresses – PureVPN has more than 300,000 while IPVanish has 40,000+. This will make it hard for anyone to track you down as you will be getting a different IP address pretty much every time you connect. Also, the sheer number of IP addresses means that it is hard for authorities to block the two services as there will always be a “spare IP” that was missed in the process.
Platforms
All major platforms are supported by both PureVPN and IPVanish. This includes Windows, macOS, Android, iOS and Linux. Furthermore, both VPNs can work with routers, so that you could make your entire home/office network more secure and private. However, PureVPN offers browser extensions for both Chrome and Firefox, whereas IPVanish only has the one for Chrome. A single license lets you use PureVPN on up to 5 devices while IPVanish offers unlimited simultaneous connections.
Speed
We call this round a tie. One day we got faster downloads with PureVPN and the other day, it was IPVanish that got the crown. Both services managed to get us a buffer-free streaming experience in 4K. And both provided us with an experience we could rely on. Which we think is what a good VPN service should be all about — consistency, rather than occasional peaks in download speeds.
Security & Privacy
As the industry’s “top dogs,” both PureVPN and IPVanish support the most popular VPN protocols, OpenVPN being one of them. However, neither of the two services includes WireGuard, which is the latest darling of the industry. Guess its support will be added in the (near?) future. For the time being, OpenVPN gets the job done for most users (if not all), delivering both speeds and security you can rely on. When it comes to privacy, it is important to know that PureVPN is based in Hong Kong (part of China) whereas IPVanish has headquarters in the U.S. Not the perfect situation but considering that both services have a zero-logs policy, I guess you can trust them.
Ease of Use
PureVPN is easier to use, with its apps looking more modern than those of IPVanish. That being said, you will hardly be lost in IPVanish’s apps – it’s just their design feels somewhat dated. Sure, there are better-designed apps out there, but that doesn’t mean you will have a hard time using either of the two VPNs. Connecting to most such services is simple – select a country, then server (or city) and click “connect.” That’s it.
Streaming & Torrenting
Another tie round as both PureVPN and IPVanish deliver the streaming and torrenting experiences (read: speed) you can rely on. As we’ve mentioned above, you’ll be enjoying buffer-free videos even if you’re streaming in 4K. That, in case you wonder, is what most VPNs can deliver these days, with modern codecs shrinking the number of megabytes you’re downloading when watching videos in the background. And the situation is similar with torrenting — expect solid download and upload speeds from wherever you’re connecting from.
Bypassing censorship
We would give a slight edge to IPVanish here even though we haven’t been able to properly test the two services. It’s just what we’re reading and what people tell us that is working from countries around the world. However, we doubt you will be able to rely on any of these services from China; this is especially true for PureVPN which HQ in Hong Kong isn’t that appealing anymore with the Chinese authorities moving to re-establish their authority on there. Still, considering how many servers and IP addresses the two services have, we would assume there will always be one that will let you bypass the Great Firewall of China.
Pricing
Most VPNs are similarly priced, but what PureVPN has is rather awesome. It lets you test out its service for a week for $0.99. That option is available with a 1-year plan, after which you can either cancel the service or continue using it. PureVPN will also take your crypto assets whereas such an option is not available with IPVanish. If this means something to you, well, you know which service to get. Right?
Which VPN is better?
No matter how cool PureVPN is, we would give a slight advantage to IPVanish. Hence, it has a place on our Best of the Best VPNs list.
Sure, its apps look dated, but the consistency it offers is amazing. That being said, we must also add that PureVPN is almost equally cool, but… we wanted to select a single winner. And that is IPVanish. Except if you insist to pay for a VPN service with cryptocurrency, that is.
