CyberGhost VPN review: Secure versatility

We’ll let you in on a virtual private network (VPN) secret: a lot of the big-name services are the same. Ultimately, which VPN you pay for can be determined by the price you want to pay, the key numbers (servers, countries, locations, simultaneous connections), and enhanced security/privacy features.

CyberGhost VPN may not be as much of a household name as NordVPN and ExpressVPN, but it’s still a popular contender. Though pricey, CyberGhost VPN offers great versatility with a massive server count, a decent number of countries and locations, as well as beyond-the-standard simultaneous connections. It has great encryption and some nice advanced features with a commitment to zero logs (meaning it doesn't track or share what you do online).

CyberGhost VPN is a great starting place for VPN comparisons if you’re after a versatile VPN service. That versatility starts with a 8,000+ server count, which is spread across 100 countries and 125 locations. That server count is the highest among CyberGhost’s closest competitors, while the country count is on par with Surfshark and the number of locations is also closely behind ExpressVPN and Surfshark.

While the industry standard is for five simultaneous streams per VPN account, CyberGhost VPN offers a bit of breathing space by allowing for seven. That number beats NordVPN’s six and ExpressVPN’s five, but lags behind ProtonVPN’s 10 and the unlimited simultaneous streams on offer from Surfshark VPN.

In terms of privacy, CyberGhost VPN has an admirable no-log policy, plus it’s based in Romania, which doesn’t have data-retention laws and it’s not a member of any surveillance alliance. It even underwent a third-party audit by Deloitte in 2022.

In-app privacy is a lot easier to manage, with easy-to-find toggles for preventing DNS leaks and an automatic kill switch (both on by default), plus the option to block ads, trackers, and malware (disabled by default). For a stacking extra monthly fee, you can also add the CyberGhost Security Suite for Windows and/or a dedicated IP.

While CyberGhost VPN strangely only supports split tunnelling for Android, it does boast top-tier data and channel encryption: Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) 256-bit and RSA 4096-bit. There’s also 24/7 support if you have issues, and the 45-day money-back guarantee for any plan (except for monthly) is half a month better than its peers.

Most of our time was spent with the Windows and Android versions of CyberGhost VPN, and they’re both incredibly easy to use. We appreciated the handholding of the Windows installation, which includes a tour of the CyberGhost VPN login account hub, as well as the straightforward links to downloadable apps for the various supported devices.

Unlike ExpressVPN, you have to keep device installations to seven for your account, which means CyberGhost VPN has both an identical device and simultaneous-streams limit. On Windows, there’s a slimline default view of the app that automatically snaps to the corner of your screen, but you can move it around. Connect by tapping the giant power button and you’re ready to go in a few seconds; strangely, disconnecting takes about 10 seconds (most others disconnect almost immediately).

By default, CyberGhost VPN will connect you to the “best server location”, which is shorthand for the closest one. Hit the arrow next to this, though, and the app opens in full, showing servers you’ve favourited. Alternatively, you can manually sort or search through all servers, or peruse dedicated options for streaming or torrenting.

Despite the comparatively high server count, CyberGhost VPN only has three Australian locations: Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. While these are the three most populous cities in Australia, this lags behind the competition.

If you want to venture beyond, though, you can have an idea of how fast your connection will be with the distance estimates. The farther the distance, the bigger the impact on speeds. We’re based in Sydney and received incredibly speedy results, admittedly from a server that was an estimated one kilometre away. Impressively, latency remained unchanged with CyberGhost VPN connected to the Sydney server, with around a 5% change to download speed and a 6% drop in upload speed, which makes it incredibly speedy when you’re near a server.

For our tests, this is what makes CyberGhost VPN such a fantastic invisible background protector, given it has such a marginal impact on connection speed. Additionally, there are tweakable ‘Smart rules’ to personalise or better automate your CyberGhost VPN experience, plus advanced users can manually select between OpenVPN, IKEv2, and WireGuard protocols if you don’t want CyberGhost VPN to automatically do this for you. Switching between TCP or UDP is also just a toggle away.

Thankfully, the default settings for CyberGhost VPN are great for most users. On top of this, CyberGhost VPN passed our DNS and IP leak tests without any issues.

CyberGhost’s monthly pricing is comparatively high to the point where it incentivises you to buy in for longer. If you don’t mind investing, CyberGhost VPN is a versatile service that’s easy to use and boasts plenty of versatility.

While the lack of third-party auditing isn’t ideal, CyberGhost VPN ticks all of the other major security and privacy boxes to diminish the impact of this concern. Ultimately, CyberGhost VPN is a speedy service that works in the background to keep your connection private and secure, with some great extras for those who want to tweak their experience.

We compare VPNs on several factors, starting with the price and whether you’re paying in Australian currency. After this, we weigh up the numbers: servers, countries, locations, and simultaneous connections for a single account. The bigger the number, the better the ranking. Most VPNs don’t offer a truly free trial, but we like when they do, and we value a reasonable money-back guarantee.

In terms of all-important security and privacy, a no-log policy is considered essential, and we look favourably on VPN providers that are open to third-party security audits. From here, encryption is evaluated alongside meaningful inclusions, such as antimalware and antivirus features, as well as the inclusion of a kill switch and split tunnelling.

Testing is conducted with the VPN running in the background and evaluated through a variety of everyday tasks to rate it in terms of convenience. We also run tests for speed and latency, IP address and DNS leaks, as well as for a kill switch (where available).

Below are the answers to some of the most pressing CyberGhost VPN questions.