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Both of these were built on Switzerland. Both have now moved away from it. And they moved in different directions, for the same reason.
Switzerland proposed extending identification duties to VPN providers. So PrivadoVPN relocated to Iceland. Proton VPN kept its Geneva headquarters and began moving its servers into the European Union instead.
That is where the similarity ends. Over the same six years, one of them published five audits. The other published none.
The Short Answer
Proton VPN, on almost every measure. Five audits published in full, open-source clients, a non-profit owner, and a free tier with no data cap.
PrivadoVPN only if the free allowance suits you. Even then, Proton’s free tier has no cap at all.
⚠️ And PrivadoVPN has never been audited. Six years of operation, no report — which removes it from our privacy ranking outright.
Two Ways to Leave a Jurisdiction
Proton announced its move in July 2025. The company cited a proposed surveillance ordinance requiring user identification and six months of address retention.
Its headquarters stayed in Geneva. Meanwhile the infrastructure began relocating into the European Union. So the paperwork is still Swiss, and the servers increasingly are not.
PrivadoVPN moved outright instead. Published accounts place the relocation to Iceland in early 2026. Iceland also sits outside the intelligence-sharing arrangements.
⚠️ Those are different acts. Moving the registration changes which courts apply. Moving the servers changes where the data physically sits. Only the second one is hard to reverse.
The Detail That Says the Most
PrivadoVPN’s own no-logs page still referenced Switzerland after the company had left. We found that when writing its review, and we noted it there.
That is a documentation failure rather than a privacy failure. However, it is the kind that matters. A no-logs claim is a legal statement about a jurisdiction, so naming the wrong country undermines the statement.
⚠️ Proton announced its own move publicly, in its own words. Therefore a reader could check the claim against the company’s stated reasoning, rather than discovering the change afterwards.
One provider told you. The other did not update the page. Both changed country in the same period.
The Evidence Gap
Proton has five audits, published in full and without an NDA. Its clients are open source on every platform, so the code can be read rather than trusted.
A non-profit foundation has controlled the company since June 2024. That structure is unique among the providers in our ownership table — which lists every parent we have traced.
⚠️ PrivadoVPN has published nothing comparable. No audit in six years, and no open-source clients. Its no-logs claim therefore rests on its policy page alone, which is the weakest form of claim in this category.
The Free Tiers Are Not Alike
This is where the comparison gets closest, so it deserves care.
PrivadoVPN’s free tier has a monthly data cap and a limited choice of servers. For occasional travel that works.
Proton’s free tier has no cap at all. Paying subscribers fund it, so the free users are not the product. In exchange it assigns your server automatically, and it excludes streaming and torrenting.
⚠️ The funding model is the difference that matters. Our free VPN guide explains why, and why so few free services are safe to use.
Where Our Own Data Is Thin
PrivadoVPN is absent from our device table. So are seven other providers we have reviewed. That is a gap on our side.
We also have no renewal figure for it. Therefore the four-year comparison we normally publish is missing here — our renewal table shows which providers we track.
⚠️ We are saying that rather than estimating. A made-up number would look complete and be worse than nothing.
Who Each Is For
Proton VPN for almost anyone reading this. It wins on audits, code, ownership and the free tier. Besides, its move was announced rather than discovered.
PrivadoVPN if you want a capped free allowance and a named server choice. Even so, that is a narrow reason.
⚠️ And neither if you need a court record. Private Internet Access answered three federal demands with nothing. Mullvad had its office searched. Audits are not the same as being tested.
How We Research
Audit counts, jurisdictions, ownership and device limits come from our own published tables. For the Swiss ordinance, Proton’s July 2025 announcement and PrivadoVPN’s relocation to Iceland, this comparison draws on our reviews of both providers and on our Switzerland page, which name their sources. The observation that PrivadoVPN’s own no-logs page still referenced Switzerland after the move is our own, recorded when we wrote that review. PrivadoVPN is absent from our device and renewal tables, so some figures that would normally appear are missing, and we say so instead of estimating. We do not run our own tests. Our method lives on the About Us page.
PrivadoVPN vs Proton VPN FAQ
Proton VPN, and the gap is wide. It has five audits published in full, open-source clients on every platform, and a non-profit foundation in control since June 2024. PrivadoVPN has published no audit in six years of operation.
No. Published accounts place its relocation to Iceland in early 2026. Iceland also sits outside the intelligence-sharing arrangements. Notably, the company’s own no-logs page still referenced Switzerland after the move.
Its headquarters remain in Geneva. In July 2025 the company announced it was moving most of its infrastructure out of Switzerland, citing a proposed ordinance that would require user identification and six months of address retention. The rule is not yet in force.
Proton’s, for most people. It has no data cap at all, funded by paying subscribers, though it assigns servers automatically and excludes streaming and torrenting. PrivadoVPN’s free tier has a monthly cap but lets you pick from a limited server list.
It depends which move. Changing the registration changes which courts apply to the company. Moving the servers changes where data physically sits. Proton did the second; PrivadoVPN did the first. Only one of those is hard to reverse.
The Verdict
The same threat produced two different answers. PrivadoVPN changed country. Proton changed hardware and told everyone why.
Over six years one published five audits and the other published none. That decides this comparison before the jurisdictions are considered at all.
And one of them forgot to update its own page. A no-logs claim names a country. So naming the wrong one is not a small clerical matter.