Best Proton VPN alternatives
Ranked by Share of Answer — how often each vendor is the AI's single first pick for Consumer VPNs, pooled across GPT-5.5, Claude, and Gemini. Updated weekly (2026-06-28).
When buyers ask AI for the best consumer vpns, Proton VPN is the first pick 4% of the time — strongest with Anthropic (13%). The alternative the models recommend most instead is Mullvad at 23%. Here are the 11 alternatives ranked by what the models actually recommend.
Proton VPN alternatives, ranked by AI
| # | Alternative | Share of Answer | Considered | Anthropic | OpenAI | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mullvad | | 34% | 28% | 42% | · |
| 2 | Surfshark | | 36% | 21% | 19% | · |
| 3 | Nordvpn | | 40% | 18% | 21% | · |
| 4 | Expressvpn | | 34% | 21% | 14% | · |
| 5 | Astrill | | 2% | · | 5% | · |
| 6 | Ivpn | | 21% | · | · | · |
| 7 | Cyberghost | | 9% | · | · | · |
| 8 | Windscribe | | 3% | · | · | · |
| 9 | Private Internet Access | | 2% | · | · | · |
| 10 | Ipvanish | | 1% | · | · | · |
| 11 | Purevpn | | 1% | · | · | · |
Per-model cells = that model's Share of Answer for the vendor. · = never first-picked by that model. How this is measured →
See where Proton VPN and every alternative rank head-to-head, with confidence intervals and weekly movement, on the full Consumer VPNs leaderboard →