CyberGhost is a popular VPN that offers fast speeds and high levels of security and privacy. You can use the app on up to seven different devices and choose from more than 7,000 servers. Even better, CyberGhost is one of the most affordable VPNs available, starting at about $2 per month.

We like that CyberGhost has a strict no-logs policy and is headquartered in a country (Romania) that’s against data retention laws. And its no-logs policy passed an independent third-party audit conducted by Deloitte in March 2023.

We don’t love the few hiccups we experienced with specific CyberGhost VPN connections, including trying to unblock Netflix on certain servers. However, the overall experience was still positive, especially for the price. Check out our CyberGhost VPN review to see our complete assessment with test results, features, and pricing.

CyberGhost VPN overview

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Overall Rating:

“We had some issues with connecting to a few CyberGhost servers, but second attempts were often successful. And although CyberGhost generally passed our speed tests and unblocked streaming content, it wasn’t as flawless an experience as we’ve had with other popular VPNs. Even so, CyberGhost is the cheapest option among popular VPNs, providing loads of features and benefits at a fraction of the price.”

Who is CyberGhost best for?

• Recommended for people who want a fast and secure VPN that’s affordable, offers plenty of servers, and can unblock certain streaming services.

CyberGhost is a top virtual private network (VPN) provider because it hits many of the right notes for its millions of users. This includes fast connection speeds as well as high levels of privacy due to the CyberGhost no-logs policy.

In general, CyberGhost’s no-logs policy means it doesn’t collect, store, or share any of your personal information and your personal data can’t be accessed by your internet service provider (ISP) or the government.

Note that the parent company for CyberGhost is Kape Technologies. Kape is a large company focused on privacy and security that’s acquired multiple VPNs, including CyberGhost, ExpressVPN, Private Internet Access, and ZenMate VPN.

CyberGhost pros and cons

CyberGhost VPN features

CyberGhost VPN highlights include its high number of servers and the fact you can select from more than 90 countries. The VPN app interface is also generally user-friendly and easy to navigate.

However, we didn’t love how some of the settings were located in different areas within the app. For example, you have to navigate to “Privacy settings” after clicking on the VPN tab if you want to find the kill switch feature. But the VPN protocol options are located in the general settings and then the “CyberGhost VPN” tab.

You would normally find all the VPN settings together in one spot for a better user experience. This isn’t a huge deal, but it’s still slightly annoying.

It’s also strange that CyberGhost doesn’t have a split tunneling feature, which is a common feature that allows you to disable your VPN connection on certain apps to potentially help save on bandwidth.

Consider Surfshark for a smoother user experience and access to split tunneling (called Bypasser on Surfshark). Check out our Surfshark VPN review for more details.

Server count and countries

• 7,000+ servers in 90+ countries

CyberGhost has more than 7,000 servers in more than 90 countries. That’s both a high number of servers and country locations compared with other popular VPNs such as ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and Surfshark.

Over 7,000 servers and 90-plus countries should be more than enough to choose from for the average users’ VPN needs, including accessing regional streaming libraries. The server list includes options for Germany, France, China, and more. You can also select from loads of U.S. servers such as New York, Las Vegas, and Seattle.

Depending on your plan and app, CyberGhost provides different types of servers:

• Favorites: Servers you mark with a star for easy access
• All servers: The full list of available servers

• Dedicated IP: A dedicated IP address that costs extra
• NoSpy Servers: Secured servers in the CyberGhost Romania headquarters
• For gaming: Servers optimized for gaming
• For torrenting: Servers optimized for torrenting
• For streaming: Servers optimized for streaming

No-logs policy and headquarters

• CyberGhost logs policy: No logs
• CyberGhost headquarters: Romania

CyberGhost states that it doesn’t keep any logs of your IP address, DNS queries, browsing history, accessed content, session duration, bandwidth usage, timestamps, and more.

CyberGhost supports its no-logs claims by being headquartered in Romania, which is a country that’s against data retention laws. This location also backs up the company’s claim of having a no-logs policy because Romania isn’t part of the Five, Nine, or 14 Eyes Alliances. These are known global surveillance groups that many countries are involved in.

Along with quarterly public transparency reports, CyberGhost passed an independent audit of its no-logs policy that was conducted by Deloitte in March 2023, 

These reports show how often CyberGhost receives requests for its users’ personal data from police departments and other authorities. But because CyberGhost doesn’t store this type of information, it can’t comply with these requests.

Kill switch

CyberGhost has a kill switch feature that you can find in “Privacy settings” in the VPN area of the app.

We tested the kill switch with a few mock scenarios. This included turning on airplane mode on our laptop, manually disconnecting the VPN in the app, and ending the CyberGhost process using the Windows Task Manager.

The airplane mode test was inconclusive as we couldn’t tell whether the kill switch was working. There was no indication from CyberGhost that it had done anything (ExpressVPN notifies you if internet traffic is being blocked).

Also, our internet continued to work after manually disconnecting from CyberGhost and shutting down the CyberGhost app using Task Manager. This is unfortunate because that’s not how the kill switch feature is supposed to work according to a page on the CyberGhost support website about VPN connection drops.

CyberGhost definitely did not end all incoming and outgoing internet connections when we disconnected from the VPN.

Split tunneling

CyberGhost doesn’t have a split tunneling feature. This might not matter if you don’t need split tunneling, but it’s a common feature you can find with other VPN providers.

CyberGhost does provide an option to whitelist specific websites with its VPN. This is similar to how split tunneling works because it will let you choose websites that you don’t want using the VPN. However, it’s still not quite the same as full split tunneling functionality that also works with apps.

Find this option in “Smart rules” and then “Exceptions.”

Encryption

CyberGhost uses AES-256 encryption, which is the best encryption available. CyberGhost estimates that a normal computer would take much longer than billions of years to crack this level of encryption.

VPN protocol

CyberGhost uses these VPN protocols:

• OpenVPN
• WireGuard
• IKEv2/IPsec

Note that the type of protocol available to you in the CyberGhost app typically depends on the type of app you’re using. For example, you might not have the same options available in the Android app compared with the Windows app.

We were able to see options for IKEv2 and WireGuard when using the iPhone app, but then able to see options for OpenVPN, IKEv2, and WireGuard when using the Windows app. Find the different protocols in the CyberGhost VPN settings of your app.

It’s recommended to let CyberGhost automatically choose your VPN protocol so it can select the best one based on your connection. However, all three of the available options are considered secure or very secure.

CyberGhost VPN test results

We conducted a speed test, a DNS leak test, and a WebRTC leak test to help determine whether CyberGhost performs as advertised and deserves our recommendation. We specifically used these tests to see if CyberGhost affects your internet speeds or overall privacy.

CyberGhost eventually passed all three tests, with a bit of a hiccup on one part of the speed test. We also experienced a few hiccups with the Netflix test. Here are the results.

Speed tests

• CyberGhost speed test results: CyberGhost passed its speed tests.

We run speed tests to see whether using a VPN affects the speed of your internet connection. Most VPNs will have a small impact on your internet speeds, so we only consider significant impacts in our assessment.

For a fair review, we first tested our internet speed without using CyberGhost. We then used CyberGhost to connect to different servers worldwide and tested our internet speed with each server we tried.

These tests were run using a MacBook Pro running macOS Monterey from a physical location in the U.S.

CyberGhost speed test results

You can expect your internet speed to drop when using just about any VPN service out there. But the drop is usually small, as you can see from most of the results in the table.

It’s normal to see more of an impact the farther away the VPN server is from your location, which is the pattern we saw until we tested a server in Melbourne, Australia. Connecting to this server absolutely devastated our internet speed, resulting in an unreasonable drop of 152 Mbps in download speed compared with having no VPN connection.

To test this further, we tried connecting to another server in Australia, but in a different city (Sydney). The Sydney server results were:

• Download speed: 128.4 Mbps
• Upload speed: 4.6 Mbps
• Latency (ping): 367 ms

These results were much more in line with what we expected and not indicative of a significant drop in internet speeds considering the server was halfway around the world. So maybe the issues with the Melbourne server were simply a fluke.

Still, we did have some issues with connecting to a few servers, but second attempts were often successful. But although CyberGhost generally passed our speed tests, it wasn’t as flawless an experience as we’ve had with other popular VPNs.

This includes ExpressVPN, which is often recommended as one of the fastest VPNs available, though a bit expensive.

CyberGhost Netflix tests

• CyberGhost Netflix test results: CyberGhost initially had a few issues connecting to Netflix using different servers. Later tests had no issues at all.

If you want to watch Netflix with CyberGhost, you might want to do some testing of your own. This is because we initially ran into multiple errors and slow loading while testing different servers and trying to access Netflix.

For example, this is an error we saw when trying to watch Netflix while connected to the CyberGhost server in Sydney, Australia.

We also experienced this error when connecting to a server in Montreal, Canada. And although we did get Netflix to work in most of the regions we tested, it wasn’t always the best experience.

For instance, we got Netflix to work while connected to a server in the U.K., but the speeds were basically the equivalent of dial-up internet. Needless to say, definitely cringeworthy.

CyberGhost VPN Netflix test result: June 2022

We like how CyberGhost has loads of specific servers that are optimized for streaming. This is potentially more helpful than trying random servers until you find one that works for the streaming service you want to use.

But if the optimized servers don’t work or are laggy, you still have to find another solution.

For the most part, we did have success testing out different streaming services while using CyberGhost. But there were a few instances where the experience could have been much better and this has left us wondering whether another VPN might be an easier (and thus better) option for streaming.

One of the VPNs we recommend for Netflix and other streaming services is ExpressVPN. It’s on the pricier side, but we had no issues using ExpressVPN to unblock Netflix content in other countries. Learn more in our ExpressVPN review.

Updated CyberGhost VPN Netflix test results: October 2022

We decided to run the Netflix test again to see if the results would change. And they definitely did. On this test run, we had no issues loading Netflix while connected to the VPN using servers in the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia.

The previous tests were run from a location in the U.S. on a MacBook Pro running macOS Monterey. These updated tests were run from a location in the U.S. on a desktop computer running Windows 10.

DNS leak tests

• CyberGhost DNS leak test results: CyberGhost passed its DNS leak tests.

We run a domain name system (DNS) leak test to see whether any of your private information is being leaked online while a VPN connection is active. We used the DNS Leak Test service from BrowserLeaks to test whether we had any DNS leaks before and after connecting to CyberGhost.

We were able to see private information while running the test before connecting to CyberGhost. This included our actual IP address, internet service provider (ISP), and server locations.

After connecting to the CyberGhost VPN, our information was masked by information about the VPN server we were connected to. This means the leak protection test was a success since our information was kept private.

WebRTC leak tests

• CyberGhost WebRTC leak test results: CyberGhost passed its WebRTC leak tests.

A WebRTC leak is a vulnerability in certain web browsers and applications that could expose your true IP address. We used the BrowserLeaks website to test for WebRTC leaks before and after connecting to the CyberGhost VPN.

Our device’s IP address was clearly visible when running the test before connecting to CyberGhost. After connecting to CyberGhost, our IP address was successfully masked.

CyberGhost VPN compatibility

It’s easy to set up the CyberGhost app on a number of different devices, operating systems, mobile apps, and browser extensions, including:

• Windows
• macOS
• Linux
• Android
• iOS
• Chrome
• Firefox
• Android TV
• Amazon Fire TV
• PlayStation
• Xbox
• Routers and other devices

CyberGhost VPN mobile app review

We tested the CyberGhost VPN using an iPhone to see how it performed. Overall, our CyberGhost VPN iPhone review went smoothly, allowing us to surf the web and unblock streaming content.

Certain streaming services aren’t available in non-U.S. countries or have different content libraries. This includes Hulu, Netflix, HBO Max, Paramount+, and Disney+. We tested each of these apps on our Apple iPhone 12 mini while we were located in the U.K.

CyberGhost VPN iPhone app test results

CyberGhost VPN Fire TV Stick review

We tested the CyberGhost VPN using an Amazon Fire TV Stick while located in the U.K. There’s nothing fancy about the CyberGhost VPN Fire Stick app, but it worked for everything we tried other than Hulu and Prime Video.

CyberGhost VPN Amazon Fire TV Stick test results

CyberGhost customer support

Access support options on the CyberGhost website, through email, and 24/7 live chat. You can also submit feedback or bugs through the CyberGhost app or website.

You can email CyberGhost at [email protected].

Live chat

CyberGhost advertises 24/7 customer support (including live chat), so we initiated a live chat with a CyberGhost customer representative to assess the overall customer support experience.

We started the live chat by finding the support button in the corner of one of the CyberGhost support pages.

We then clicked on the “Live chat” button.

We entered a name, email, and query to start the live chat. It’s nice that you can choose between different languages such as English, German, and French. However, French was grayed out because we assume no French-speaking agents were available at the time.

We also expected to see Romanian based on the CyberGhost headquarters, but that wasn’t an option (though, it’s an option in the feedback form).

It took about 10 minutes before an agent joined the chat even though I was first in the queue. Compared with other VPN live chats we’ve tested, that’s about 10 times more waiting. Unfortunately, the experience didn’t speed up after Antonia made first contact.

Responses were quite slow, often between one to three minutes or longer. This made for a longer chat experience than we’d expected and hoped for.

And the responses weren’t always helpful. We asked a question about NoSpy servers and we were eventually given a canned response of checking out a webpage for more information. That’s potentially helpful, but we wanted a personalized experience, not to be shuffled along elsewhere.

Our query was also real, as we wanted to know why NoSpy servers were showing up on one CyberGhost account and not another. We had two accounts because I (Ben) already had one personally and then we had another for testing purposes.

Both accounts were being accessed via the Windows app and NoSpy servers are supposed to be freely included, but the app views were different. Here’s what we mean.

CyberGhost Windows app on an account that shows NoSpy and gaming servers:

CyberGhost Windows app on a different account that doesn’t show NoSpy and gaming servers:

We imagine the issue lies with the sort of plan attached to each account or something similar. You can still access a NoSpy server on the account that doesn’t show the NoSpy server list by manually navigating to the Romania server list. It’s just strange that the NoSpy and gaming server lists weren’t showing up.

In the end, there was no resolution with Antonia other than choosing to uninstall and reinstall the Windows app. This didn’t make sense to us because we were having success with the app on one account, but not another. So the issue seemed to lie within the accounts, not the app.

At this point, we opted to end the chat and move on because we’d already spent over 40 minutes chatting. Antonia was nice and easily understood, but the responses were slow and, ultimately, not helpful.

Support website

The CyberGhost support website offers guides, troubleshooting tips, FAQs, announcements, and more. You can also access the chat and live chat features here, though the standard chat feature isn’t super helpful.

The step-by-step guides can be especially helpful if you want to install the CyberGhost app on a specific device or operating system. They could also be helpful if you’re running into a specific problem with your device.

For example, you might want to use CyberGhost’s Smart DNS service to configure your PlayStation for watching regional streaming content. Turns out there’s a guide for that.

CyberGhost VPN prices and subscriptions

CyberGhost offers subscription plans for one month, one year, two years, and three years. There’s no difference between the plans as far as what features you receive. But you’ll notice that the price per month goes down as the length of the subscription increases.

The cheapest option for CyberGhost: Two-year plan for $2.19 per month

The most expensive option for CyberGhost: Monthly plan for $12.99 per month

Paying one month at a time is typically the most expensive option for any VPN service. If you want to save money on VPN costs, it’s best to choose the longer subscriptions for cheaper monthly rates.

Here’s how CyberGhost compares to other popular VPNs and their lowest monthly rates (at the time of writing):

• CyberGhost: $2.19 per month for 2 years
• Surfshark: $2.39 per month for 2 years
• NordVPN: $3.99 per month for 2 years
• ExpressVPN: $8.32 per month for 1 year

CyberGhost is the cheapest option among these VPNs, providing loads of features and benefits at a fraction of the price (compared with ExpressVPN). However, you might find it’s worth paying a little extra for the reliability of NordVPN or the unlimited simultaneous connections you get with Surfshark.

CyberGhost cost

CyberGhost payment options include:

• Credit card (Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover)
• PayPal
• Google Pay
• Amazon Pay
• Bitcoin

CyberGhost FAQs

Bottom line: Is CyberGhost VPN good?

Yes, CyberGhost VPN is a good service that does just about everything right. It’s fast and secure, offers an automatic kill switch, and is cheaper than many other popular VPNs. You can also use CyberGhost to unblock streaming content with Netflix and other similar services.

Learn More

On CyberGhost's website

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• Cheaper than ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and Surfshark
• Optimized servers for regional streaming

• No split tunneling feature

But we can't say CyberGhost is the best VPN out there since the experience isn’t always seamless. We had a few issues connecting to certain servers, which could mean there are a few duds in the massive CyberGhost server list.

If you want proven and tested reliability at a slightly higher price point, consider NordVPN. We like Nord because it strikes a balance between being ultra-reliable and affordable at the same time. Check out our NordVPN review for more details.

Learn More

On CyberGhost's website

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• Cheaper than ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and Surfshark
• Optimized servers for regional streaming

• No split tunneling feature

Author Details

Ben Walker

About the Author

Ben Walker is a writer at All About Cookies with a passion for all things internet and technology, whether it's using VPNs while away from home or organizing his life with password managers.