Atlas VPN Review (Free & Premium): Is It Safe to Use in 2024? (2024)

Our Verdict

Atlas VPN is an excellent freemium VPN that's easy to use and has lots of extra features. The free version is one of the best free VPNs we’ve tested. It's safe, secure, and works with US Netflix. The premium version is faster, and even unblocks more streaming websites. Overall, Atlas VPN is perfect for beginners that want to bypass internet geo-blocks.

Ranked #11 out of 65 VPNs

Atlas VPN Category Ratings

• Streaming

  9.29.2/10

• Torrenting

  88.0/10

• Privacy & Logging

  88.0/10

• Speed

  9.69.6/10

• Server Locations

  8.78.7/10

• Bypassing Censorship

  8.78.7/10

• Security & Features

  77.0/10

• Ease of Use

  99.0/10

• Customer Support

  8.68.6/10

• Price & Value

  9.49.4/10

Atlas VPN Pros & Cons

Ranked #11 out of 65 VPNs for Streaming

For premium subscribers, Atlas VPN includes streaming-optimized servers in 12 countries. Although Atlas VPN says they are tuned “to tackle buffering, lags, and other issues,” we found them to be functionally identical to its other servers.

You can see a more detailed view of our Atlas VPN streaming tests in the following sections.

Tested: Atlas VPN Streams US Netflix

In our tests, Atlas VPN unblocked American Netflix on all eight of its US servers

This means that Atlas VPN doesn’t work with many of the most popular Netflix libraries, including Australia, India, and Japan.

Additionally, Atlas VPN falsely claims it can stream the German and Italian Netflix libraries, but we were blocked from accessing them.

If you need access to these regions, we recommend you consider NordVPN, which is similarly priced to Atlas VPN, and always works with the vast majority of main Netflix libraries.

As for other US-based streaming sites, Atlas VPN works as well as any VPN in its price category. In our tests, the VPN worked every time with Amazon Prime Video, Disney+, HBO Max, and Hulu.

Atlas VPN Unblocks BBC iPlayer

Using Atlas VPN, we could bypass BBC iPlayer’s geo-blocks. We were able to stream TV shows, like Top Gear and Doctor Who, without any buffering.

We also found the VPN to be a good choice for other UK streaming services. It worked with ITVX and All 4 without any issues.

The only downside is that Atlas VPN has just two server locations in the UK. If these servers stop working with UK streaming sites, you can’t try a different server in the country.

Atlas VPN Free Streaming Tests

In February 2022, Atlas VPN added a US streaming-optimized server for free subscribers. Prior to this, the VPN had failed to unblock any streaming service over years of testing.

Atlas VPN Free now works with some US-based streaming websites. Using it, we bypassed geo-blocks on US Netflix, HBO Max, and Disney+. Though it worked less often than some of the other best free VPNs for Netflix.

However, when connected to the same server, we were blocked from accessing Hulu, Prime Video, and Peaco*ck. As there’s no free server in the UK, we couldn’t even attempt to access BBC iPlayer.

Ranked #8 out of 65 VPNs for Speed

As you can see from our results, Atlas VPN is fast in every location. Its performance in the US was particularly impressive, with barely any speed loss. This meant we could stream US Netflix with ease.

Download speeds were slower in Japan and Australia, but still above what we typically see – even from more established VPNs that cost a lot more.

EXPERT TIP: Unlike most other VPNs, Atlas VPN doesn’t have an option to automatically connect you to the fastest server. Instead, connect to the nearest server to you for the best speeds.

Atlas VPN’s Ping Is Too High for Gaming

We found that Atlas VPN is too laggy for gaming on far-away servers. We tested the VPN when connected to a server in Brazil to access an easier gaming lobby.

Our ping increased from 1ms to 112ms, which was far too high for fast-paced games like CS:GO. This is much worse than the best gaming VPNs, like ExpressVPN and Windscribe. These VPNs have an average ping of 3ms, making them better options for lag-free online gaming.

However, it performed better on cloud gaming services. As these are streamed, Atlas VPN’s fast download speeds made the experience almost identical to when we played locally on the device.

We were also able to access geo-blocked cloud gaming services, like Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Atlas VPN Free Speed Tests

Here are the full results we recorded when connecting to all three Atlas VPN Free server locations with a 100Mbps internet connection:

Atlas VPN Free is fast for a free VPN service. In our tests, we measured a speed loss of just 5% when connected to our nearest server location in New York.

However, as there are only three countries that you can connect to, your experience will vary significantly based on where you are. For example, if you’re in Australia, your nearest Atlas VPN server is about 4,000 miles away. This significant distance inevitably leads to slower connections and reduced reliability.

Atlas VPN told us that it does not throttle its free servers and that all of its free servers are identical to its premium ones. Therefore, the reduced speeds we encountered are likely down to server congestion – a common issue when a large number of users access the same server simultaneously.

Unfortunately, unlike other free VPNs, like ProtonVPN, the Atlas VPN app doesn’t provide any information about server load. This meant we couldn’t gauge the congestion level of a server before connecting. Additionally, the limited server locations in each available country further restrict user options.

In a future update, we’d like Atlas VPN to provide more server options for free users. Or at the very least, provide information about server load so users can manually connect to a less-congested server.

1. Monthly$10.99/moBilled $10.99 every month
2. 12 Month(s)$3.29/moBilled $39.42 each yearSave 64%
3. 3 Year(s)$1.99/moBilled $71.49 the first 3 years, $39.42 each year thereafterSave 82%

You can purchase an Atlas VPN subscription using the following payment methods:

Ranked #21 out of 65 VPNs for Privacy & Logging Policy

As this data is aggregated and non-identifying, it’s nothing to worry about. You can trust Atlas VPN to keep your data private.

We’re pleased that Atlas VPN has recently improved its logging policy. Previously, we were concerned that the VPN logged the city from which a user was connecting, as well as their unique device ID. Potentially, this could have been used to identify you from your online activity.

One downside to Atlas VPN is that it doesn’t use diskless VPN servers. In theory, this means that user data can be extracted from a server if a third party gets access to it. Almost all other top VPNs, including Windscribe and NordVPN, include this feature as standard.

Privacy Policy Hasn’t Been Audited

As Atlas VPN is a relatively new service, its privacy policy hasn’t yet been tested by a real-world incident. As a result, it’s impossible to know whether the claims in its privacy policy are truthful.

More established VPNs, like Private Internet Access, have had their logging policies verified through multiple real incidents. PIA has been subpoenaed by the FBI on several occasions and has been unable to provide user data each time.

After contacting Atlas VPN, we were told that:

“If a court order [..] is issued to us [..], we will have to give out the customer details that we have. We have nothing to provide, however, owing to our strict no-logs policy.”

An alternative option would be for Atlas VPN to commission an independent audit to verify its logging claims. Sadly, the VPN service has not yet conducted such an audit.

We expect this to improve in the future, following Atlas VPN’s acquisition by Nord Security. As part of the announcement, it was promised that Atlas VPN would have regular third-party audits, in line with the standards of NordVPN.

Who Owns Atlas VPN?

In 2021, Nord Security, the parent company of popular VPN service NordVPN, acquired Atlas VPN. Atlas VPN is still registered under Peakstar Technologies Inc. in Delaware, US.

Atlas VPN has recently started to list employees on its website’s about page, including CEO Dainius Vanagas. We found that all of these employees used to work for companies owned by Nord Security. None of these employees worked for Atlas VPN prior to its takeover.

Previously, Atlas VPN refused to disclose details of its ownership team. We were once told in a statement that “protecting our [Atlas VPN’s] team and their privacy is one of our top priorities.”

We’re pleased Atlas VPN has chosen to improve the transparency of its ownership. This helps to build trust between users and the VPN service.

Ranked #20 out of 65 VPNs for Torrenting

We tested Atlas VPN with many torrent clients, including qBittorrent and uTorrent. In each case, we downloaded a 10GB torrent file in under 17 minutes using premium servers. The same file took 27 minutes to download when connected to Atlas VPN’s free servers.

The paid-for version of Atlas VPN registered an average bitrate of 9.4MiB/s, which is one of the fastest speeds we’ve recorded. By comparison, top VPNs, like Private Internet Access and NordVPN, have a download bitrate of 9.6MiB/s and 9.8MiB/s respectively.

All of Atlas VPN’s desktop apps include a kill switch, AES-256 encryption, and the safe WireGuard protocol. Together, these security features mean Atlas VPN can be trusted to hide your sensitive torrenting activity.

No Port Forwarding

Unlike the best torrenting VPNs, Atlas VPN does not allow for port forwarding on any servers. As a result, you might not be able to seed torrent files for other users. Some torrenting clients will throttle your download speeds if you don’t seed as well as leech.

Overall, Atlas VPN is a good choice if you want a VPN to secure your torrenting activity. Its speeds are excellent, and it’s one of the only free VPNs to support P2P file-sharing. Just be aware that some advanced features are missing, and there’s no app for Amazon Fire TV Stick, so you may not be able to access all P2P-based streaming platforms.

Ranked #33 out of 65 VPNs for Security & Technical Features

Safe Encryption & VPN Protocols

When you connect to an Atlas VPN server, your traffic is encrypted using the ChaCha20 cipher. This is a virtually unbreakable encryption method used by almost every VPN on the market. You can trust it with your most sensitive data.

We tested its encryption using Wireshark, a packet-sniffing tool. In every test, Atlas VPN fully encrypted all of our web traffic. As you can see in the screenshot below, nothing was readable in plain text.

Atlas VPN’s protocol choice is slightly more limited. All of its apps automatically default to IKEv2. We strongly recommend manually changing the protocol to WireGuard. In contrast to IKEv2, WireGuard is safer, it’s faster, and it uses far less data.

Ideally, we’d like to see Atlas VPN drop support for IKEv2 entirely and replace it with OpenVPN.

Kill Switch Worked in Our Tests

Atlas VPN’s kill switch feature disconnects your device from the internet if your VPN connection drops for any reason. This prevents your true IP address from leaking.

The kill switch is enabled by default on all of its apps, including iOS. Very few VPNs feature a kill switch on iPhone and iPad, so we’re pleased Atlas VPN has made the effort to keep functionality the same across platforms.

You can disable the kill switch in the ‘App settings’ section of the Settings menu, but we strongly recommend that you leave it turned on.

To test whether Atlas VPN’s kill switch works correctly, we forcibly dropped our VPN connection while running our kill switch testing tool. Each time, Atlas VPN blocked our internet traffic and no data was sent outside the VPN tunnel.

Atlas VPN Passed Our Leak Tests

We also ran Atlas VPN through our IP, DNS, and WebRTC leak tests. The VPN passed all of our tests and none of our personal information was leaked.

As you can see in the screenshot below, our true network details in the UK weren’t visible during any of our tests.

We were particularly impressed to see that Atlas VPN gives you an IPv6 address. Mullvad is the only other VPN we’ve tested with this feature.

Most other VPNs merely try to block IPV6 connections, which can result in privacy concerns. For example, we found that Surfshark sometimes leaked our real IPv6 address due to its faulty blocking technology.

All Servers Are Rented from Unvetted Third Parties

All 1,000 of Atlas VPN’s servers are rented from a third party. After we contacted it, Atlas VPN confirmed it does not undergo a vetting process for each server provider, which is slightly concerning for security.

Atlas VPN claims to implement its own security measures on each rented server. But it would not detail exactly what these security measures are.

Worryingly, as detailed earlier, Atlas VPN’s servers aren’t diskless. This means that, theoretically, information can be stored and extracted from a compromised VPN server.

Given its acquisition by Nord Security, we hope Atlas VPN can soon mimic some of NordVPN’s server security practices. For example, NordVPN runs colocated servers and diskless servers. Both of these would massively reduce the risk to user data posed by an untrustworthy third-party server provider.

MultiHop+ Servers Encrypt Traffic Twice

Atlas VPN’s paid-for subscriptions include a multi-hop feature, named MultiHop+. Multi-hop sends your internet traffic through two different VPN servers. A regular VPN connection only uses a single server.

These servers can be found in the Privacy Protab of the app. There are only two Options: Europe and North America.

We wish you could connect to a multi-hop server in a specific country, rather than an entire continent. When choosing ‘Europe’, we were given a different country IP address each time.

As a result, Multihop+ isn’t suitable for bypassing internet geo-restrictions as you can’t choose the destination of your exit server. Other options, like Surfshark, allow you to choose server location and have faster speeds than Atlas VPN.

However, unlike many other Double VPN features we’ve tested, MultiHop+ encrypts your traffic at both VPN servers. For example, some top VPNs, like Proton VPN, only encrypt traffic at the final server.

This isn’t necessary, but it’s a slight improvement for security. Double encryption is not advertised on Atlas VPN’s website. We discovered this by running encryption tests using Wireshark.

SafeSwap Servers

Paying subscribers to Atlas VPN get access to its SafeSwap servers. Unlike a traditional VPN server, which assigns you a static IP address until you disconnect, SafeSwap rotates your IP address as you browse the internet.

SafeSwap servers are only available in three countries: the US, the Netherlands, and Singapore.

Atlas VPN claims that this makes it more difficult for “snoopers, authorities, your Internet Service Provider (ISP), and advertisers to spy on your online activity.” However, it makes no difference to snoopers, authorities, or your ISP, as your data is already hidden from these parties.

It also makes little difference to advertising tracking, as your IP address gets refreshed each time you connect to a traditional VPN server anyway.

Atlas VPN also claims SafeSwap is “one-of-a-kind,” but we’ve seen similar features from other VPN services. For instance, HMA VPN’s IP Shuffle feature allows you to get a new IP address by clicking a button. The only difference with SafeSwap is that it’s done on the fly.

In use, SafeSwap ends up being just a gimmick and doesn’t provide much of an improvement for privacy. We’d rather Atlas VPN implement more needed security features instead, like the ones we’ve listed in the following section.

Missing Security Features

Atlas VPN doesn’t include many security features we’ve come to expect from premium VPN services. Here are some features we’d like Atlas VPN to add in a future update:

Atlas VPN’s lack of advanced technical features is one of its key drawbacks. It has a lot to improve to compete with the top VPN services.

Ranked #14 out of 65 VPNs for Bypassing Web Censorship

After contacting it, Atlas VPN said it cannot guarantee the VPN will bypass the Great Firewall as the VPN doesn’t use any advanced obfuscation technology.

Despite this, 80% of the Atlas VPN servers we tested worked in Shanghai, China. For a more reliable connection, we recommend connecting to the Japan or Singapore server locations.

The free New York and Los Angeles servers could access blocked websites, too. Windscribe is the only other free VPN that reliably works in China.

The only real downside is the slow connection times. When using the VPN in China, it often took over 80 seconds for a server connection to be established.

In the video below, you can view our tests examining Atlas VPN’s performance in China.

EXPERT TIP: The Atlas VPN downloads page is blocked in China and cannot be accessed without a VPN. Make sure to download the VPN app before entering the country.

Atlas VPN has native applications for the following platforms and devices:

Though each of these apps are simple to use, they do differ in minor ways. Here are some differences between Atlas VPN’s apps:

Atlas VPN provides dedicated apps for the following streaming devices:

Ranked #9 out of 65 VPNs for Ease of Use

Ranked #11 out of 65 VPNs for Customer Support

Free users can only contact customer support via email. You do this by submitting a support ticket through the Atlas VPN website.

When testing Atlas VPN, we contacted its support on over 30 occasions. Almost every time, we received a satisfactory reply within a minute. For technical queries that the agent couldn’t answer, we were sent a follow-up email within 24 hours.

As the live chat functionality is only for paying users, you’ll have to log into the Atlas VPN website to use it. Then, click the blue “Support” button at the bottom-right of the screen.

Atlas VPN says its live chat operates 24/7, but it won’t be accessible during peak times of the day. However, we were always able to speak to a live chat agent when reaching out in the morning, afternoon, and evening.

We sometimes had to wait three days to receive a reply using email support, which is far too slow for many questions. That said, the replies were always helpful and resolved any questions we had.