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ExpressVPN vs. IPVanish

Last updated: November 4, 2019

Muhammad Hamza Shahid

Read this in-depth comparison guide of ExpressVPN vs. IPVanish from BestVPN.co and learn which provider takes the victory cup home!

Selecting a VPN service has become a difficult task, with a multitude of options available online, all of which claim to be the best in the marketplace.

So, if you are contemplating about selecting a service from ExpressVPN and IPVanish, you are at the right place. BestVPN.co performs a thorough analysis of both providers below:

Pricing and Discounts

In terms of pricing, ExpressVPN leans over to the more expensive side, whereas IPVanish tends to be incredibly budget-friendly. If you plan to subscribe to ExpressVPN, you will have three plans available: 1 month, 12-months, and 6-months.

Users who go for the monthly package will have to pay $12.95. For those who go for the 6-months plan, you receive a 22% discount.This lowers the monthly pricing to $9.99, which totals to $59.95 biannually.

For the best value, users can go for the yearly package, which gives a massive 35% discount. This reduces the per month pricing to $8.32, which is billed $99.95 every 12-months.

IPVanish tends to be cheapest vpn in all durations with their monthly pricing starting at $5. There is no biannual deal, but users can opt for the 3-months, which gives you the ability to leverage an amazing 63% discount on the monthly pricing

If you want to receive the best value from IPVanish, then you can go for their most popular, 1-year package, which gives users a 73% discount (totaling to $39 only).

Get This Best Deal for ExpressVPN: Cut the costs by 35%

Get This Best Deal for IPVanish: Save 73% on their 1-year special

Features

In terms of features, ExpressVPN offers great value for your money. It has apps for all major platforms/devices, including preconfigured routers and an app that runs on DD-WRT and Tomato routers as well.

IPVanish, on the other hand, does offer the same apps compatibility. However, they do not offer a browser extension for Mozilla Firefox users, which does affect its overall value.

You also have more features available with ExpressVPN, including StealthVPN servers, Obfuscation, Media Streamer Smart DNS, and plenty more, where as IPVanish is quite basic.

The only advantage of signing up with IPVanish is that you can get more simultaneous connections. Where ExpressVPN supports only 3 multilogins, IPVanish grants more than 10 multilogins.

Unblocking Capabilities

As you can see above, ExpressVPN offers more functionality to streamers by unblocking all of the above streaming services. Whereas IPVanish fails at unblocking Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer, and Amazon Prime.

These VoDs are among the most popular and the lack of unblocking capabilities kind of make IPVanish a poor choice. You receive no value for the cheap pricing, and that gives the VPN quite a negative impression.

China

When it comes to bypassing the “Great Firewall”, you need a strong provider that does not skimp on security. The Great Firewall service  implements algorithms that instantly block repeat IP addresses suspected to be part of a VPN provider.

It also disables the connection to any device that tries accessing content outside China or vice versa. Upon testing the two providers, only ExpressVPN proved incredibly successful in overcoming the challenges set by the “Great Firewall”

The BVI-based provider even offers a dedicated chinese mirror site that enables residents to download apps in the country. IPVanish, on the other hand, offers no such features for access in China specifically.

Setup and Interface

Both ExpressVPN and IPVanish offer intuitive apps that work smoothly on larger and smaller screens. They have a neat outlook with a one-click connection interface with easy location selection feature.

ExpressVPN uses a more compact style than IPVanish though and unlocks most of its features hidden upon clicking on the menu button, on the top right corner.

IPVanish, on the other hand, has a more broader design with accessibility to more features than its mobile counterparts. Users can choose to block LAN access, use split tunneling, or scramble OpenVPN traffic.

By comparison though, it still falls behind ExpressVPN’s barebones automatic reconnection and Smart Location feature, along with kill switch and split tunneling availability.

Servers and Performance

Determining the winner in this category is quite easy. As you can see above, ExpressVPN offers way more diversity in servers selection as compared to the US-based IPVanish.

Where ExpressVPN offers 3,000+ servers in 94 countries, IPVanish only reaches 1,300+ in 51 countries. As a result, users may face server load and latency issues.

Security

For users who sign up with ExpressVPN, you can feel assured to receive better security than IPVanish. The VPN supports OpenVPN, SSTP, L2TP/IPSec, and PPTP protocols.

For security, you receive protection via AES-256-CBC and AES-256-GCM ciphers. The difference between the two is of something called “chosen ciphertext attacks”. AES-256-CBC uses a secure Message Authentication Code (MAC), along with AES.

Conversely, AES-256-GCM has built-in authentication codes, which makes the process a whole lot faster! For added security, ExpressVPN utilizes Perfect Forward secrecy via the DH-2048 Diffie-Hellman key exchange.

Added features include “Stealth Servers” from the provider located in Hong Kong, which allow for defeating censorship and geo-restrictions in mainland China!

IPVanish, on the other hand, uses the same technologies and encryption but falls behind because of using the old RSA-2048 control channel encryption, which is not as effective as ExpressVPN’s RSa-4096!

Privacy

Excluding ExpressVPN’s incredibly safe British Virgin Islands location (away from EU and US jurisdictions), the provider has an incredibly strong zero logs policy.

Though some account information is recorded like name, email address, and payment information, the VPN does not store session/connection information, timestamps, and IP activity.

In fact, even the Turkish authorities could not find anything on ExpressVPN servers, following a seizure after the assassination of the Russian Ambassador of Turkey.

IPVanish, on the other hand, has its headquarters in a five eyes alliance country, the US. As such, it automatically loses a lot of its credibility, as the government mandates data retention.

Therefore, if IPVanish receives a court order accompanied by a gag request, they will have to comply with the law, as to not get in legal hassles.

Configuration

Both VPNs adopt a similar configuration of using shared IP addresses. Neither gives the ability to access dedicated/static IPs and this emits a huge audience that may want to safely indulge in banking transactions or access remote networks.

ExpressVPN and IPVanish also lack Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection, and this may prove detrimental especially for those users who may be using the VPN for gaming.

As a positive, Express and IPVanish do use NAT firewalls to block unsolicited incoming traffic, by decrypting packet headers, getting the relevant IP address, and only sending traffic from that IP where its needed!

Customer Service

Both IPVanish and ExpressVPN offer support via live chat, email, and a ticket system. Testing the live chat services revealed that responses were quite fast.

Email/ticket support did take some time with IPVanish (averaging at 3 hours per reply), whereas ExpressVPN cut it shorter (averaging at 40 minutes).

We conducted these tests by sending each VPN three questions via email. Among them, two were general queries and two were a little more technical. See the statistics below:

ExpressVPN

IPVanish

The Winner: ExpressVPN

While both ExpressVPN and IPVanish are great services, the BVI-based provider definitely wins this comparison. It is located in a safer juridiction, has a verified no logging policy, and unblocks all major streaming platforms.

Not to mention, you have great functionality for accessing the VPN in China, and exceptional support for apps including one for routers that work on both: DD-WRT and Tomato.

If you are in search for an alternative to ExpressVPN, the best option would be to go for Surfshark. It is a newcomer that offers the same functionality as ExpressVPN, but at a minimal of $1.99/mo. on a 2-year plan.