Disclosure: VPNFin is reader-supported. If you buy a VPN through links on this page, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. This never affects our ratings — here’s how we research.
Across four years CyberGhost costs about $152 and TunnelBear about $160. Eight dollars — two dollars a year — which makes this the closest pair we have compared.
Both also publish their audits openly, findings included, which most providers do not. So the usual arguments are unavailable: price is a rounding error, and neither is hiding its verification behind a login.
What separates them is what happens when you want your money back. CyberGhost gives 45 days, the longest window anyone offers. TunnelBear gives none.
The Short Answer
CyberGhost wins, at 4.3 against 4.0, and the refund window is the largest single reason.
TunnelBear’s case is unlimited devices against seven, plus the longer unbroken audit run — it commissioned the first public VPN audit anyone had done, in 2016.
Test TunnelBear free before paying, because its free tier is the trial rather than a bonus.
Head to Head
| CyberGhost | TunnelBear | |
|---|---|---|
| Refund window | 45 days | None — case by case |
| Devices | 7 | Unlimited |
| No-logs audits | 3, by Deloitte Romania | Annual since 2017 |
| First public VPN audit | No | Yes, 2016 |
| Transparency reports | Quarterly since 2011 | Not published |
| Countries | 100 | ~47 |
| Streaming | Reliable | Netflix usually fails |
| Smart DNS | Yes | No |
| Free trial | No card: 24h–7 days | 2 GB a month, no card |
| Jurisdiction | Romania | Canada, US parent |
| Four years | ~$152 | ~$160 |
| Our rating | 4.3 | 4.0 |
The Refund Difference
With eight dollars between them, this carries more weight than it usually would.
CyberGhost gives 45 days on six-month and two-year plans, bought directly rather than through an app store. Monthly billing gets 14 days. That is still fifteen days beyond the category standard, and long enough to test through a full billing cycle on the networks you actually use.
TunnelBear considers refunds case by case. No fixed window and no guarantee, which sets it apart from every other provider we cover.
So the free tier is the evaluation period rather than a bonus. Two gigabytes a month with no payment card and full server access — roughly two hours of HD video. Enough to confirm the apps work on your machines; not enough to test streaming or sustained use.
⚠️ Practical order: run TunnelBear free for a week, then treat the subscription as non-refundable. Our free trial guide covers what each provider’s conditions mean.
⚠️ CyberGhost also runs card-free trials — 24 hours on desktop, three days on Android, seven on iOS. That is a smaller allowance than TunnelBear’s two gigabytes a month, and it requires no commitment either.
Winner: CyberGhost.
Audits: Two Records, Both Published
Worth separating, because they measure different things and both deserve credit.
CyberGhost has three no-logs audits by Deloitte Audit Romania — 2022, 2024 and 2025, the most recent under the ISAE 3000 Revised standard. It has also published a transparency report every quarter since 2011, documenting legal requests received and how it responded. In the first quarter of 2025 it recorded 105,332 DMCA complaints and three police requests, complying with none.
TunnelBear has the longer unbroken audit run and the earlier start. Cure53 did the work in 2016, the report appeared in 2017 with two critical findings published intact, and it has repeated annually since — the eighth by 2024.
⚠️ Both publish, which most providers do not. NordVPN’s six reports go to account holders through their account rather than onto the website.
The difference is what each record covers. CyberGhost’s transparency reports say what happened when someone came asking. TunnelBear’s audits say what the architecture does. Neither substitutes for the other, and CyberGhost has both.
Winner: CyberGhost on breadth, TunnelBear on cadence and on starting it.
Devices: TunnelBear’s Real Advantage
TunnelBear allows unlimited simultaneous connections on every paid plan, changed from a previous cap of five that many reviews still quote.
CyberGhost allows seven. For one person that is ample; for a household with two phones, two laptops, a tablet, a television and a console, seven is exactly at the limit.
⚠️ At eight dollars’ difference, this is a genuine argument. It is also the strongest one TunnelBear has here.
Winner: TunnelBear.
Streaming, Coverage and Hardware
CyberGhost operates in 100 countries. TunnelBear covers about 47.
Streaming favours CyberGhost, which maintains platform-optimised servers and ships Smart DNS for televisions and consoles that cannot run an app. Published testing reports Netflix failing on most TunnelBear servers, which maintains no streaming servers at all — our streaming guide covers why access shifts monthly.
⚠️ Neither has an Apple TV app, so Smart DNS is the difference between working and not on that device — our Apple TV guide covers which providers built one.
CyberGhost also runs NoSpy servers from its own Romanian data centre with staff-only physical access, included free on plans of six months or longer.
Winner: CyberGhost.
Price: The Closest Pair We Have Compared
CyberGhost’s two-year plan costs about $56.94 for 28 months, then renews at $56.94 a year.
⚠️ That is often described as a flat renewal, and it is not. The dollar figure repeats while the period halves, so the monthly cost goes from roughly $2.03 to $4.75. We made the same error and corrected it — our renewal price table sets out the arithmetic for all ten providers.
Across four years that comes to roughly $152.
TunnelBear runs about $3.33 a month on the three-year plan, $4.00 annually and $9.99 month to month. Across four years, roughly $160.
A gap of about $8 — two dollars a year, or seventeen cents a month.
⚠️ When price is this close, everything else decides. Across nine providers we found price and rating unrelated; here the prices are effectively identical and the ratings still differ.
Winner: a draw, at seventeen cents a month.
Ownership and Jurisdiction
CyberGhost belongs to Kape Technologies, alongside ExpressVPN and Private Internet Access — three brands we cover under one board. Its jurisdiction is Romania, which has no mandatory data-retention law; its constitutional court struck down the EU directive in 2009 and again in 2014.
TunnelBear was acquired by McAfee in March 2018, a publicly traded US security company. The team stayed in Toronto and the audit programme survived intact, which is real evidence. Canada is a Five Eyes member and the corporate parent is American.
⚠️ Nothing has gone wrong at either, and neither is independently owned. We name these structures because the pattern repeats.
Winner: CyberGhost on jurisdiction, neither on independence.
Winners by Category
| Category | Winner |
|---|---|
| Refund window | CyberGhost |
| Transparency reporting | CyberGhost |
| Country coverage | CyberGhost |
| Streaming and Smart DNS | CyberGhost |
| Jurisdiction | CyberGhost |
| Devices | TunnelBear |
| Audit cadence | TunnelBear |
| First public VPN audit | TunnelBear |
| Free tier | TunnelBear |
| Four-year cost | Draw — $8 apart |
| Audits published openly | Draw — both do |
| Corporate independence | Neither |
When to Choose TunnelBear Instead
You have more devices than seven. Unlimited connections at the same price is the clearest argument on this page.
It is your first VPN. The interface is the friendliest in the category by a distance.
You will test on the free tier first, and streaming is irrelevant to you.
The unbroken run convinces you more than the count. It has published every year since 2017 without missing one, and it started the practice.
⚠️ Do not choose it for streaming, and do not choose it expecting to change your mind afterwards.
How We Research
This comparison draws on both providers’ full reviews on this site, where every figure was verified against named primary sources — CyberGhost’s published quarterly transparency reports and its three Deloitte Audit Romania engagements, the Cure53 reports TunnelBear commissions annually, contemporaneous coverage of the March 2018 McAfee acquisition, and each provider’s own pricing terms. We don’t run our own speed tests, and where sources disagree about a provider’s infrastructure, as they do about CyberGhost’s server fleet, we do not repeat a claim we cannot verify. Our full approach lives on the About Us page.
CyberGhost vs TunnelBear FAQ
Neither, meaningfully. CyberGhost comes to roughly $152 and TunnelBear to about $160 — a gap of eight dollars, or two dollars a year. That makes this the closest pair we have compared, so the price cannot decide it the way it decides most comparisons.
Not through a standard guarantee. It considers requests case by case rather than offering a fixed window, which sets it apart from every other provider we cover. CyberGhost gives 45 days on request, the longest window available anywhere.
TunnelBear allows unlimited simultaneous connections on every paid plan, changed from a previous cap of five that many reviews still quote. CyberGhost allows seven, which suits one person comfortably and a busy household exactly at the limit.
It depends what you count. CyberGhost has three no-logs audits by Deloitte Audit Romania plus quarterly transparency reports going back to 2011. TunnelBear has the longer unbroken audit run, publishing annually by Cure53 since 2017, and it commissioned the first public VPN audit anyone had done.
Usually not. Published testing reports Netflix failing on most TunnelBear servers, and it maintains no streaming-optimised servers and no Smart DNS. CyberGhost unblocks reliably and ships Smart DNS for televisions and consoles that cannot run an app.
The Verdict
Eight dollars apart across four years, both publishing their audits openly, both owned by larger companies. On the numbers that usually decide these comparisons, this one is a tie.
CyberGhost takes it on the refund window, and that matters more here than anywhere else — when price is identical, the ability to change your mind is what you are actually choosing between.
TunnelBear’s unlimited devices are a real answer, and for a household of eight screens it may be the deciding one.
But you commit on two gigabytes of evidence. With CyberGhost you get 45 days of the real product. Against NordVPN and against Surfshark, TunnelBear faces the same objection each time.