Best VPNs for iPads in 2024

1. NordVPN - Best iPad VPN App

SecurityScore:

9.7 /10

View Plans

How We Review

Product Specs

Multihop	Yes
Camouflage Mode	Yes
Kill switch	Yes
Split Tunneling	Yes
Netflix	Yes
Torrenting	Yes

View Plans

What Makes NordVPN Good for iPads?

NordVPN’s plans support only 10 devices, but its apps are some of our favorites. When you’re using a VPN on your iPad, you’ll always be using the app. We’ll get into why the app is so good in a bit, but that’s the main reason it’s ideal for iPads.

Beyond that, NordVPN makes a solid VPN overall. It created its own VPN protocol, called NordLynx, that keeps it fast on all platforms, including iPads. We noticed the speed difference when we switched to the OpenVPN protocol. OpenVPN is one of the top VPN protocols that many of our favorite VPNs use, but NordLynx simply performed better speed-wise.

iPad App User Experience

NordVPN makes good apps. The app sits at an impressive 4.7 out of 5 rating on the App Store, and we saw why firsthand.

After guiding you through the setup process in three steps, you’re greeted with a nice, clean, familiar interface. We’ve all seen it before, with the icons at the bottom of the screen for different sections of the app. Here’s an overview of the screens.

• Server selection: The main screen shows you which server you’re connected to, as well as its location. You can choose a server to connect through by swiping up, pause your VPN connection, and disconnect the VPN. We liked that the screen made it clear whether our VPN was connected.
• Meshnet: The second menu button from the left — with four circles connected in a diamond shape — opens your Meshnet. It lets you connect two devices as if they’re in the same local area network, even though they’re in different locations. You could use it to, for example, transfer files securely. You can also use the other device as a makeshift VPN server. We connected our iPad to our MacBook Pro at home. That way, all traffic from the iPad is routed through the MacBook, making it appear as though we’re connecting to the internet from our home network.
• Profile: We’re used to a Settings section in VPN apps, but the section is called Profile on NordVPN. It’s where you can change all the settings and features in NordVPN, such as switching among the three VPN protocols. Basically, it’s for everything other than selecting a server and your Meshnet.

Streaming Capabilities

We like NordVPN a lot for streaming. It makes it easy to see which regions’ streaming platforms we can connect to and change the region. The auto-connect feature came in handy for streaming too. With it switched on, every time we pulled up Netflix on our iPad, we connected to U.K. Netflix instead of U.S. Netflix. That let us resume our “Friends” binge immediately.

Of course, a VPN needs to be able to access streaming services to use them. That’s where NordVPN’s obfuscated servers came in. From the Specialty Servers menu, we clicked “Obfuscated Servers” on the home screen, and then every server NordVPN showed was obfuscated. Streaming services often try to prevent VPN use, so the feature helped us access streaming services since the servers hid that we were connecting through a VPN.

All those factors put NordVPN at the top of our list of favorite VPNs for streaming.

Privacy

On the privacy front, NordVPN encrypted our web traffic well, but the same can be said about all the VPNs we recommend. What made NordVPN stand out as an iPad app was its Threat Protection feature. It protects against web trackers, phishing sites, and malicious websites. It also blocks ads and scans downloads for malware. We commonly see those features only from antivirus software.

Threat Protection isn’t antivirus software, but those features are exactly what iPad users need. Malware can’t penetrate the iPadOS, but your iPad can’t protect you if you enter your information on a fake phishing site. It also doesn’t stop all ads and trackers, although Safari does a decent job blocking some of those. Overall, Threat Protection adds just the right amount of online protection to your iPad.

>> Related: The Best VPNs for Safari

2. Surfshark - Best for Streaming

SecurityScore:

9.5 /10

View Plans

How We Review

Product Specs

Multi-hop	Yes
Camouflage Mode	Yes
Kill switch	Yes
Split Tunneling	Yes
Netflix	Yes
Torrenting	Yes

View Plans

What Makes Surfshark Good for iPads?

NordVPN offers obfuscated servers, but we found them easier to use on Surfshark, with its easy-to-understand Camouflage Mode. It’s our favorite option for streaming, since we could quickly turn it on right before watching Netflix as we fell asleep.

It also helped that the app worked with native widget support, letting us turn it on without opening the app. The app is also lightweight, so we could still install it even though we have less than a gigabyte of storage left after a week of taking pictures on vacation. All of Surfshark’s plans support unlimited devices as well.

iPad App User Experience

Surfshark has native widget support, so it’s no surprise that its app as a whole is great to use. It has a 4.8 rating on the App Store, which is the highest we’ve seen across the industry. Surfshark also offers features in its app that most VPNs make available only on desktop, such as:

• Multihop: When you turn on multihop, your connection gets routed through multiple VPN servers. It provides more privacy, but we don’t use it because it slows down our connection speeds. It’s useful, however, for whistleblowers, political activists, journalists with sensitive information, and anyone else who values privacy above all else. We tested it on Surfshark, and it exceeded our expectations with dynamic multihopping that let us choose which two servers we connected to and in which order they connected. Most competitors — including NordVPN — allow us to select between only predetermined pairs.
• IP rotator: Cracking the encryption VPNs provide takes time and resources, but some threat actors are able to track VPN users through their IP addresses. That’s where the IP rotator comes in handy. It gives you a new VPN IP address every five to 10 minutes without having to connect and disconnect.
• Kill switch: A kill switch lets your VPN software disconnect you from the internet if your VPN disconnects. That’s useful for anyone from people who use their iPads for confidential work to file torrenters hiding from their internet service provider (ISP). We always turn it on to ensure our IP address doesn’t leak if our VPN suddenly disconnects.

Streaming Capabilities

We can’t overstate how much native widget support improves the experience of using Surfshark for streaming. We used a Smart Stack, which changes the widget shown in a certain place on your iPad’s home screen, to always show Surfshark from 8:30 p.m. and 10 p.m. That’s the time I set aside to watch Netflix at night before going to sleep. Otherwise, the widget spot shows the weather. That lets me use Surfshark from my home screen without it taking up precious real estate on the first page.

Beyond useability, Surfshark did a good job at reliably letting us log in to our favorite streaming services, such as Netflix, Hulu, and ESPN+, from our iPad while connected to the VPN. It gave us good download speeds, too, which prevented buffering. The only issue was the spike in latency, but that only affects online gaming, not streaming.

Privacy

Surfshark offers unique privacy features, such as its IP rotator and multihop. Those features help prevent your IP address from being identified and your browsing activity from being exposed. The company’s commitment to privacy showed when we tested its ability to protect our browsing with a WebRTC and DNS leak test. It didn’t leak our private IP address or browsing activity.

Surfshark also has a strong data-protection policy that allows it to collect only the data necessary for you to use your account, such as your username, password, and payment information. Although it can collect your IP address, it gets deleted within 15 minutes of you ending your session. Both aspects of Surfshark’s data policy have been audited by a third party, which gave us confidence that our data was safe even though the company logged our IP address temporarily.

3. Private Internet Access VPN - Best for U.S. IP Addresses

SecurityScore:

9.4 /10

View Plans

How We Review

Product Specs

Multihop	Yes
Camouflage Mode	No
Kill switch	Yes
Split Tunneling	Yes
Netflix	Yes
Torrenting	Yes

View Plans

What Makes Private Internet Access Good for iPads?

When we tested Private Internet Access, we could connect to a server in any of the 50 states. That means we could spoof our IP address to make it look like we were in any state we wanted. That comes in handy for logging in to accounts that use geolocation to block login attempts.

Our credit card, for instance, blocks purchases made from IP addresses outside the state we live in. To buy anything online while connected to a VPN, we need a VPN with a server in our state. It could also be useful for logging in to work accounts that block login attempts from anywhere out of state.

iPad App User Experience

Compared to NordVPN and Surfshark, the Private Internet Access iPad app had a much simpler interface. There wasn’t a big map on the home screen showing me which server I was connected to, like with NordVPN, or a bunch of features to select, like with Surfshark. Instead, there were only a handful of buttons on the main screen.

That initially made us feel like the app lacked some of the features we like most. When we considered that the lowest price for a Private Internet Access subscription is under $2, our concerns only grew.

But we just needed to do more digging. Private Internet Access’ app puts most of its features in the three-bar menu in the top-left corner. That kept the main screen uncluttered, and we ended up liking the layout. The quick settings on the home screen gave us immediate access to the features we use most. Here’s a quick overview of the features on the main screen and the features tucked away in the three-bar menu.

Streaming Capabilities

With such a huge server count, we could always find one to work with any of our streaming services, but it typically took longer than with NordVPN and Surfshark since it doesn’t offer obfuscated servers. That means we needed to reconnect a few times until we found one that worked.

We liked using Private Internet Access with ESPN+ more than NordVPN and Surfshark, since the company has a server in each U.S. state plus two streaming-optimized servers for the East Coast and West Coast. That let us watch local games restricted to the state or region from anywhere. We got to watch our college’s latest hockey games, even though we moved across the country.

Privacy

Similar to NordVPN, Private Internet Access also maintains a rock-solid privacy policy. It never collects IP addresses, unlike Surfshark, and it collects less anonymized performance data than most others. Private Internet Access collects only:

• Email addresses
• Payment information
• Country of origin
• Server uptime
• Global number of users
• Server bandwidth capacity

Most other VPNs also collect connection timestamps, bandwidth logs, and more. As the name suggests, Private Internet Access gives top-tier privacy and tops our list of the best no-log VPNs.