Surfshark Review (2026): Unlimited Devices and 94% of NordVPN's Speed for Less

Privacy and logging

Surfshark's privacy setup mirrors its sibling NordVPN's: a no-logs policy that has been independently audited, servers that run entirely in RAM, and a "Nexus" network design that can rotate your IP mid-session without dropping the connection. Our leak tests came back clean on every platform we tried.

The one point people raise is jurisdiction. Surfshark is registered in the Netherlands, a member of the 9-Eyes intelligence alliance. That would matter if the company kept logs; the audit and RAM-only design are there to make sure there is nothing to request. We treat it as a small minus, not a disqualifier — which is why the privacy sub-score is 9.5 rather than NordVPN's 9.6 territory.

Speed

Surfshark averaged 655 Mbps on our 940 Mbps line — about 94% of NordVPN's result and comfortably second in every region. WireGuard is the default protocol and the one to leave on; OpenVPN and IKEv2 are there for awkward networks. Added latency was around 6 ms. In practice the difference from NordVPN is measurable in a speed test and invisible in a 4K stream or a large download.

Streaming: 13 of 14

Netflix US, UK and Japan, Prime Video, Disney+ and BBC iPlayer all worked on the first server we tried. DAZN was the exception: it played on two servers and failed on two, which by our rules counts as a cross. If DAZN is your priority, NordVPN cleared it every time.

Torrenting

P2P is allowed on all servers, there is no separate list to hunt through, and download speeds on a well-seeded test file were close to the plain-connection figure. Missing, as with NordVPN, is port forwarding — for most torrent users that is irrelevant; for anyone who seeds to keep a ratio it is a reason to pick PIA or Proton instead.

Apps and ease of use

The apps are clean and consistent across Windows, macOS, Linux (with a real GUI now), iOS, Android, Android TV, Fire TV and Apple TV. Two features stand out: CleanWeb, which blocks ads, trackers and malware domains, and Bypasser, Surfshark's name for split tunnelling, which lets a banking app or a printer skip the VPN. Dynamic MultiHop lets you choose both hops of a double-VPN route, which is rarer than it sounds.

Higher plan tiers bundle an antivirus, a private search engine and Alternative ID, which generates a disposable email and identity for sign-ups. They are decent, but the VPN alone is the reason to buy.

Customer support

24/7 live chat answered within a couple of minutes in our tests, and the refund request was handled in the same conversation. Guides are clear, including a good one on setting up the VPN on a router.

Is Surfshark safe?

Yes. Audited no-logs, RAM-only servers, clean leak tests and modern protocols put it in the same tier as NordVPN. The Netherlands jurisdiction is the only mark against it, and the no-logs architecture is the answer to it.

Is Surfshark worth it?

At about $2.19 a month on the 2-year plan, with no device limit, Surfshark is the easiest "yes" in this ranking. You give up roughly 6% of speed against NordVPN and one streaming service, and you get every device in the house covered for less money. Monthly billing is the exception — at over $15 a month it is one of the pricier options, so commit to a long plan or don't buy it.

Get Surfshark with unlimited devices

Who should buy Surfshark — and who shouldn't

Buy it for a household, for a tight budget, or for anyone who wants a NordVPN-class VPN and doesn't need the last 6% of speed. Skip it if you seed torrents heavily (no port forwarding), if DAZN is your main streaming service, or if you specifically want a jurisdiction outside the intelligence alliances — in which case Proton VPN in Switzerland is the pick.