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Both allow unlimited devices. Both price below the premium field. That’s where the similarity ends.
In testing published in March 2026 on a 940 Mbps baseline, Surfshark retained about 813 Mbps and Windscribe about 168. Nearly a five-fold difference on the same connection with the same protocol.
Windscribe answers with something Surfshark doesn’t have at all: a permanently free tier, and pricing where you buy countries individually.
Full detail on each: our Surfshark review and our Windscribe review.
The Short Answer
Choose Surfshark for speed, streaming reliability, a larger network and published audits.
Choose Windscribe if you want to test before paying, need only a couple of countries, or want port forwarding.
⚠️ And check Windscribe’s refund terms yourself before buying — sources contradict each other badly, and we explain why below.
Speed: The Widest Gap We’ve Measured
Published testing from March 2026 ran both on WireGuard from a 940 Mbps baseline.
Surfshark: roughly 813 Mbps retained.
Windscribe: roughly 168 Mbps.
That’s about 86% against 18% — the largest gap we’ve recorded between two providers in this category.
Separate testing agrees on direction. Another reviewer found Surfshark consistently faster, with Windscribe showing large dips specifically on long-distance connections to Japan, Hong Kong and Australia.
⚠️ Context worth keeping. Windscribe’s 168 Mbps still clears 4K streaming several times over — our streaming guide explains why speed matters less there than people assume. It matters for large downloads, and it matters if you pay for gigabit.
Why the gap exists: Windscribe runs roughly 480 servers against Surfshark’s several thousand. Congestion on a small fleet is the likely explanation.
Winner: Surfshark, decisively.
Refunds: Sources Contradict Each Other
This is the section we’d normally skip, and it’s the most useful thing on the page.
One source states Windscribe offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans.
Another states the refund window is three days, with a one-day trial of the paid version.
⚠️ Those cannot both be right, and the difference is material. Thirty days is enough to test streaming, speeds and your specific use case. Three days is enough to check the app opens.
What we recommend: read the refund terms on Windscribe’s own checkout page before paying. We’ve flagged the same uncertainty in our Windscribe review rather than picking whichever number reads better.
Surfshark’s terms are consistent across sources: 30 days on every plan, plus a 7-day trial through mobile app stores requiring no card.
Winner: Surfshark, on clarity if nothing else.
Devices: A Tie
Both allow unlimited simultaneous connections on every paid plan, including Windscribe’s Build a Plan subscriptions.
That puts them alongside IPVanish and against NordVPN’s 10 or CyberGhost’s seven.
No winner. If device count brought you here, it won’t settle this.
Price: Two Different Questions
Surfshark: about $1.99 a month on a two-year plan, $3.19 annually. Renewal converts to roughly $79 a year.
Windscribe: $5.75 a month on an annual plan, or Build a Plan at $1 per country plus $1 for unlimited data.
The comparison depends entirely on what you need. Two countries on Windscribe costs $3 a month billed monthly. Surfshark’s full network costs $1.99 a month if you commit two years upfront.
Over four years, Surfshark works out cheaper for full-network use. Windscribe wins if you genuinely only need two or three locations and dislike long commitments.
⚠️ Windscribe’s free tier is the real differentiator. Surfshark has none — its trial requires an app store and a payment method on file.
Winner: split. Surfshark on total cost, Windscribe on flexibility and on being testable for nothing.
Privacy and Audits
Surfshark: two Deloitte assurance reports under ISAE 3000, in 2023 and June 2025, available to subscribers. Netherlands base — inside 9 Eyes. RAM-only servers.
Windscribe: one Packetlabs audit in 2024, with sources disagreeing on whether it examined the logging claim specifically. Canada — a Five Eyes founder. RAM-only servers too.
But Windscribe has been tested in reality. Ukrainian authorities seized two servers in 2021 and found no user data, and a 2025 court case in Greece reportedly tested the claim under legal pressure.
⚠️ One detail from the free tier’s terms: published analysis notes Windscribe records total bytes transferred and activity timestamps for free users specifically, to prevent abuse. Paid accounts aren’t described this way.
Winner: Surfshark on documentation and audit count. Windscribe has more real-world evidence and a weaker paper trail.
Features
Surfshark carries: CleanWeb ad blocking, MultiHop, Alternative ID, Bypasser split tunnelling, plus antivirus and Incogni on higher tiers. Browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox and Edge.
Windscribe carries unusual ones: R.O.B.E.R.T. with rules you write yourself, Time Warp for time-zone matching, Location Warp for browser geolocation, port forwarding, static IPs, MAC spoofing, plus TCP socket termination and decoy traffic for restrictive networks.
⚠️ Port forwarding is the practical difference. Surfshark doesn’t offer it, and among providers we cover only PureVPN and Windscribe do — it matters if you seed on private trackers.
Winner: Surfshark on breadth, Windscribe on specialist tools.
Which Should You Buy?
Surfshark if speed matters, you stream widely, you want audits with dates attached, or you’re covering a household on one subscription.
Windscribe if you need port forwarding, use a VPN occasionally, want only two or three countries, or want to try before paying anything.
The practical route: Windscribe’s free tier costs nothing and needs no card. If its speeds work for you, the cheaper flexible plan follows. If they don’t, you’ve learned that for free.
How We Research
This comparison draws on published testing from named sources including Cybernews, Cloudwards, vpnMentor and fahimai, alongside our own full reviews of both providers — cross-checked and verified at publication. We don’t run our own speed tests. Where sources contradicted each other — most significantly on Windscribe’s refund window, where figures range from three days to thirty — we say so and recommend checking the provider’s own terms rather than trusting any review. Our full approach lives on the About Us page.
Surfshark vs Windscribe FAQ
Surfshark on speed, streaming, network size and audit documentation. Windscribe on flexibility — it offers a free tier, per-country pricing, and port forwarding that Surfshark lacks. Device counts are identical at unlimited, so that won’t decide it.
Surfshark, and the gap is large. Testing published in March 2026 on a 940 Mbps baseline retained about 813 Mbps with Surfshark against roughly 168 with Windscribe. Separate testing found Windscribe dipping heavily on long-distance servers to Japan, Hong Kong and Australia.
Sources contradict each other. One states 30 days on paid plans; another states three days with a one-day trial of the paid version. That difference matters enough that we recommend reading the refund terms on Windscribe’s own checkout page before paying rather than trusting any review, including this one.
Yes, on every paid plan, including Windscribe’s Build a Plan subscriptions. That places both alongside IPVanish and against NordVPN’s 10 or CyberGhost’s seven. If unlimited connections is your requirement, either provider satisfies it.
Windscribe. Surfshark doesn’t offer it, and among the providers we cover only PureVPN and Windscribe do. If you seed on private trackers and need healthy upload ratios, that single feature settles the comparison regardless of the speed gap.
As a way to test, yes — it costs nothing and requires no payment card. Sources disagree on the details, citing between three and eleven country locations and 10 GB of monthly data. Note that published analysis says Windscribe records bytes transferred and activity timestamps for free accounts specifically, to prevent abuse.
The Short Version
The speed gap is the widest we’ve recorded — 813 Mbps against 168 on the same 940 Mbps line, using the same protocol.
Devices are a tie. Both unlimited, on every plan.
Windscribe’s refund window is genuinely unclear, with sources citing three days and thirty. Check the checkout page before paying.
And Windscribe has port forwarding, which Surfshark doesn’t — the one feature that settles it outright if you seed.