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Both of these operate from Sweden. So the usual argument about Fourteen Eyes membership applies equally to each, and it cancels out. What remains is what either can show you.
Police searched Mullvad’s office in 2023 and left with nothing. Asked why it has never published an audit, PrivateVPN’s support said there is nothing to audit because no logs are stored.
⚠️ And one of these two pays us nothing. Mullvad bans affiliate marketing outright. We recommend it here anyway, which is the only useful way to read a recommendation on a site like ours.
The Short Answer
Mullvad if privacy is the reason you are buying. Annual audits published in full, an account number instead of an email address, and RAM-only servers.
PrivateVPN if streaming is the reason. Netflix and iPlayer work reliably, port forwarding costs nothing extra, and ten devices connect at around $2 a month.
⚠️ They barely compete. One is built so that nothing exists to hand over. The other is built to unblock services cheaply. Neither does both.
One Country, Two Outcomes
Sweden belongs to the Fourteen Eyes arrangement. Reviews raise that against both providers, and the point is accurate for both.
In 2023 Swedish police searched Mullvad’s office. Officers left without data, because the architecture holds none. The chief executive noted it was the first such visit in fourteen years.
PrivateVPN has had no equivalent test. No known demand, no public event, nothing to examine.
⚠️ Absence of a failed test is not a passed one. The same law reached both companies. Only one had built for the day it arrived — which is the distinction between a policy and an architecture.
What Each Knows About You
Mullvad issues an account number. No email address, no name. You can post cash in an envelope with the number written on it.
PrivateVPN stores an email address and payment details. That is a lean footprint by ordinary standards, and it is still more than a number.
⚠️ The difference matters when something is demanded. A company cannot disclose an email address it never collected.
And the servers differ too. Mullvad runs RAM-only infrastructure. PrivateVPN’s support confirmed its servers are disk-based, which keeps data across a reboot by design.
Where PrivateVPN Wins
Port forwarding. PrivateVPN includes it at no extra cost. Mullvad removed the feature in 2023, and that cost it a share of torrent users — as our torrenting guide covers.
Streaming. Reviewers report PrivateVPN reaching Netflix, iPlayer, Disney+ and Prime Video. Mullvad does not pursue streaming at all.
Devices. Ten against five. For a household that is the practical difference — though a router turns the whole house into one slot.
⚠️ And price, if you buy a long term. Around $2 a month against Mullvad’s flat rate, which never discounts and never rises.
The Row About Us
PrivateVPN pays a commission. Mullvad pays nothing. It bans affiliate marketing as a matter of policy, so no site earns from recommending it.
That is why it tops our privacy ranking and sits outside our general top five. The privacy page states which providers pay us, in a column, for exactly this reason.
⚠️ Read any comparison of these two with that in mind. The commercial incentive points one way here, and our conclusion points the other — which is rarer in this market than it should be.
Who Each Is For
Mullvad for anyone whose threat model is real. Journalism, activism, or simply not wanting a company to hold your email address alongside your traffic.
PrivateVPN for streaming and torrenting on a small budget. It does those well, and it costs very little on a three-year term.
⚠️ Check the refund windows before either. PrivateVPN gives thirty days. Mullvad’s flat monthly price means you can simply stop — and cancelling is a separate action from claiming money back.
How We Research
Audit counts, jurisdictions and device limits come from our own published tables. The 2023 police search of Mullvad’s office and its account-number system come from our review of that provider. The PrivateVPN support exchange about the missing audit and the disk-based servers was reported by Wizcase, and we cite it in that review with the same attribution. Mullvad removed port forwarding in 2023, which we record on our torrenting page. Neither provider has been audited in a way that tests the other’s weakness, and we have not tested either ourselves. Our method lives on the About Us page.
PrivateVPN vs Mullvad FAQ
Mullvad, by a wide margin. It publishes an audit every year, issues account numbers instead of collecting email addresses, runs RAM-only servers, and had its office searched by police in 2023 without producing anything. PrivateVPN has published no audit in seventeen years.
Yes, which is why the Fourteen Eyes criticism applies equally to both and settles nothing between them. The same legal framework reached Mullvad in 2023, and the architecture rather than the jurisdiction decided the outcome.
PrivateVPN, clearly. Reviewers report reliable access to Netflix, BBC iPlayer, Disney+ and Prime Video. Mullvad does not pursue streaming, and it will not help you there.
PrivateVPN, on one specific point. It includes port forwarding at no extra cost, while Mullvad removed the feature in 2023. For anyone seeding rather than only downloading, that decides it.
No. Mullvad bans affiliate marketing, so we earn nothing when a reader chooses it. PrivateVPN does pay a commission. We are recommending Mullvad on privacy anyway, and you should weigh that knowing the incentive runs the other way.
The Verdict
Same country, opposite evidence. Police tested one of these and found nothing. The other says there is nothing to audit, which is the claim rather than the proof.
But PrivateVPN is not a bad product. It streams well, includes port forwarding free, allows ten devices and costs very little. Those are real advantages and Mullvad has none of them.
So pick which half you are buying. Nobody sells both, and the provider we recommend for the privacy half earns us nothing at all.