Choosing between two VPN suppliers will be daunting, particularly if you solely have a look at every supplier’s advertising and marketing. To actually know whether or not a specific VPN supplier will go well with our wants, we have to go past advertising and marketing. We want to check every service and examine the outcomes, and that’s precisely what we’re doing on this put up. We’ll have a look at every supplier’s ins and outs to find out which one to advocate.
This put up compares OVPN and Hotspot Shield in quite a lot of key areas to see which one comes out on high.
Highlights
OVPN
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Hotspot Shield
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OVPN VS Hotspot Shield pricing
| OVPN | Hotspot Shield | Hotspot Shield | Hotspot Shield Premium | Hotspot Shield Family Premium | Subscription durations | One month | One month | One month | Six months | n/a | n/a | One 12 months | One 12 months | One 12 months | Two years | n/a | n/a | Special provide | Highest worth monthly | $11.00 | $12.99 | $19.99 | Lowest worth monthly | $4.99 | $7.99 | $11.99 | One-year worth | $59.88 | $95.88 | $143.88 | Money-back assure | 10 days | 45 days | 45 days |
Looking on the costs listed above, we instantly see that Hotspot Shield’s costs are considerably greater throughout the board. That applies no matter your subscription’s time period. OVPN will go away extra money in your pocket whether or not you join three years or a single month.
Hotspot Shield does, nonetheless, present a greater money-back assure than OVPN. Hotspot Shield presents a really beneficiant 45-day money-back assure, whereas OVPN solely presents a ten-day refund interval. I really feel that ten days is sufficient time to check the service and see if it suits your wants, however OVPN should align with the remainder of the trade and provide a 30-day refund interval.
OVPN VS Hotspot Shield options
| OVPN | Hotspot Shield | Simultaneous connections | 4, 5, or 6 (relying on subscription) | 10 or 25 (relying on the subscription) | Operating system apps | Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS | Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux, AndroidTV, Amazon FireTV, routers | Manual set up units | Linux, routers, NAS units | No | Split tunneling | No | Yes, Smart Routing function | Free extras | Browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, and Vivaldi | No |
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In phrases of platform assist, whereas our two suppliers don’t assist the identical units, they each present intensive assist that features many alternative working programs/units – they’re simply completely different units. Both suppliers assist the same old suspects (macOS, Windows, iOS, Android). Both apps have native Linux assist, which is kind of uncommon. And each assist routers and supply on-line tutorials on find out how to configure them. But Hotspot Shield helps AndroidTV and Amazon FireTV, whereas OVPN helps further NAS units.
Only OVPN consists of an advert/tracker blocker with its subscriptions. And it’s additionally the one supplier of the 2 to supply browser extensions. It makes extensions for Firefox, Chrome, and Vivaldi.
Conversely, solely Hotspot Shield helps break up tunneling. Split tunneling is a extremely popular function that permits you to decide on which apps or URLs are despatched by the VPN and that are despatched to your ISP gateway. In Hotspot Shield’s implementation, referred to as Smart Routing, you can break up your visitors by app, URL, or a mixture of each. It’s a really versatile function that’s effectively applied within the Hotspot Shield app.
The variety of simultaneous connections each suppliers enable varies by subscription. On its one-month plan, OVPN helps as much as 4 simultaneous connections. On its yearly plan, it pushes that quantity as much as 5. And it goes additional as much as six on its two-year plan. Hotspot Shield permits for ten simultaneous connections on its Premium plans and as much as 25 simultaneous connections on its Family Premium plans.
This part appears like a draw to me.
Speed
| Speed | OVPN | Hotspot Shield | North America | 95 Mbps | 48 Mbps | Europe | 115 Mbps | 49 Mbps | Asia | 100 Mbps | 48 Mbps | Global | 103 Mbps | 48 Mbps |
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While I wouldn’t think about both of those VPNs as blazing quick, OVPN clearly performs higher than Hotspot Shield. Not a lot to see right here – OVPN takes it. If you have a really high-speed web connection, each these suppliers will sluggish you down, however OVPN will sluggish you down a bit much less. Check out our checklist of the quickest VPNs for some higher connection speeds.
Streaming capabilities
| OVPN | Hotspot Shield | Streaming service | Netflix | US, Germany, Sweden | US, UK, Canada, Australia | Hulu | Yes | Yes | Sky Go | No | No | Amazon Prime Video | Yes | Yes | BBC iPlayer | No | Yes | Disney+ | No | Yes | ABC | No | No | CBS | No | No | NBC | No | No | ITV Hub | Yes | No | HBO Max | No | Yes | Channel 4 (All 4) | No | Yes |
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OVPN helps streaming and works with a good variety of streaming providers. It labored with Netflix US, Germany, and Sweden. It additionally labored with Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, and ITV Hub. That’s not unhealthy.
Hotspot Shield helps fairly a couple of extra streaming providers than OVPN. It additionally gives some devoted streaming servers in its apps. And with streaming providers working time beyond regulation to dam VPNs nowadays, Hotspot Shield’s broad streaming assist is welcome.
If streaming over VPN is necessary to you, you should have a look at our beneficial VPN suppliers for streaming.
China
Out of our two suppliers, solely Hotspot Shield works in China. However, it has been firming down its advertising and marketing about working in China. It now publishes a listing of nations the place its service might not work – and China is certainly on the checklist. But it apparently nonetheless works reliably in mainland China. That state of affairs won’t final without end, however for now, you can hook up with a Hotspot Shield VPN server from China.
It’s getting more and more tough to bypass China’s censorship, and plenty of VPN suppliers would slightly put their sources elsewhere. Case in level: OVPN doesn’t declare to work in China, and you don’t discover a single reference to China in its advertising and marketing.
You can take a look at our put up itemizing the very best VPN suppliers that work in China.
Setup and interface
| OVPN | Hotspot Shield | Automatic setup wizard | Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS | Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, Linux, AndroidTV, Amazon FireTV | Main location choice | List-based | List-based | Extra settings pages | Yes | Yes | Mobile pleasant | Yes | Yes |
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Both OVPN and Hotspot Shield have desktop apps which are well-designed and straightforward to grasp. OVPN’s app is considerably cramped resulting from its smaller UI. You’ll need to sift by extra pages to configure the app to your wants.
Hotspot Shield’s app is extra simple and simpler to navigate. You can navigate the app from the left-side pane. Server choice is list-based or task-based (for streaming or gaming). You can choose your server by nation and metropolis. While streaming may fit with one in all Hotspot Shield’s “regular” VPN servers, I’d advocate you use one in all Hotspot Shield’s streaming-optimized servers.
As talked about above, OVPN’s app is extra cramped and a bit much less intuitive. Still, it is going to be simple sufficient for many VPN customers to grasp. Server choice is list-based solely. You can seek for servers by area and drill right down to a selected metropolis. OVPN’s app may mechanically join you to the quickest server in your chosen area.
Both apps present a Settings web page for customers to customise the settings to their wants. OVPN exposes many extra choices than Hotspot Shield, however this creates a extra advanced app. Hotspot Shield gives easier choice menus, making the app’s settings simpler to navigate and perceive and fewer cluttered. While many customers will recognize OVPN’s method of exposing extra settings to its customers, it’s a balancing act between comfort and complexity. And a VPN supplier should watch out to not alienate greener customers. So it could come right down to how tech-savvy you are.
Hotspot Shield app settings
OVPN app settings
OVPN and Hotspot Shield each present cell apps for iOS and Android. They’re each simple to grasp and navigate. And they’re correctly designed for a smaller display.
Hotspot Shield cell app
OVPN cell app
Servers
OVPN has a fairly small community. Some customers (like me) choose smaller networks, because it makes me really feel like extra care goes into the configuration of every server. But others legitimately choose having an amazing many servers to select from. Hotspot Shield’s community is far, a lot bigger than OVPN’s community. And that’s true for each the variety of international locations and servers.
So if you want a giant VPN community with many servers and places, you should go with Hotspot Shield on this one.
Below is a listing of nations the place every supplier hosts VPN servers:
Security
| OVPN | Hotspot Shield | VPN protocols | OpenVPN, WireGuard | WireGuard, IKEv2, Catapult Hydra | OpenVPN information encryption | AES-256 | AES-256 | OpenVPN management channel encryption | RSA-4096 | RSA-4096 | Cloaking know-how | None | None | App safety | Kill swap | Kill swap | DNS standing | Private DNS | Private DNS |
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Both suppliers assist safe VPN protocols. OVPN helps OpenVPN and WireGuard. Hotspot Shield, for its half, helps WireGuard, IKEv2, and Catapult Hydra. If you’ve by no means heard of Catapult Hydra, it’s Hotspot Shield’s home-grown, customized VPN protocol. And I wouldn’t advocate utilizing it. It’s a proprietary protocol that hasn’t been publicly peer-reviewed. So it may very well be nice, or it may very well be horrible – no method to inform. I’d persist with both WireGuard or IKEv2.
OVPN and Hotspot Shield use 256-bit AES encryption with 4096-bit RSA keys for OpenVPN/IKEv2. WireGuard makes use of completely different ciphers which are additionally deemed extremely safe.
OVPN and Hotspot Shield present a kill swap in all their apps (cell and desktop). They additionally each use their very own no-logging DNS servers contained in the VPN tunnel by default. Another distinguishing safety function is that OVPN owns its total infrastructure, which is a giant plus for safety because it eliminates the dangers that include third-party dealing with.
So so far as safety goes, OVPN wins this one.
Privacy
| OVPN | Hotspot Shield | HQ base | Sweden | United States | Connection logs | None | None | Activity logs | None | None | User particulars for sign-up | Email tackle | Email tackle | Anonymous fee choices | Bitcoin, Ethereum, Monero | No |
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OVPN is predicated in Sweden, and Hotspot Shield is predicated within the United States. Sweden is a part of the 14 Eyes Alliance, an intelligence-sharing community for member nations that has the United States as the pinnacle of the group. So in case your main motive for utilizing a VPN is privateness, each these jurisdictions are prone to put you off.
OVPN has a superb privateness coverage. Its no-logging claims had been tested in 2020. Specific movie corporations went to court docket in an try to compel OVPN to reveal consumer information after the movie corporations discovered that a few of their copyrighted content material had been illegally downloaded over an OVPN IP tackle. But the court docket ended up ruling in favor of OVPN and its no-logging coverage. It discovered no proof to contradict the declare that OVPN by no means collected the sought-after information and dominated that OVPN couldn’t be compelled to reveal data it by no means had within the first place.
Turning to Hotspot Shield, issues aren’t as rosy… Its privateness coverage states that it collects the next information factors:
- Session durations
- Domains accessed by customers (claimed to be anonymized information)
- Device hashes
And whereas it says it doesn’t gather your IP tackle inside the context of your shopping actions, it does gather it for the next causes:
- To shield towards fraud
- To get hold of your location and knowledge in your ISP/service
- To decide close by servers
- For promoting functions
That’s a number of consumer information in my guide. It’s additionally considerably greater than what different respected VPN suppliers gather. Let’s hope Hotspot Shield tones down its assortment practices some extra.
OVPN has a lot better privateness practices than Hotspot Shield. Topped by its willingness to face up for consumer privateness in court docket, OVPN takes the Privacy class.
Configuration
| OVPN | Hotspot Shield | Address allocation | Shared or non-public (add-on) | Shared | Static IP tackle attainable | No | No | DDoS safety | No | No | Ad & malware blocking | Yes | No |
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Shared IP addresses are higher for privateness than devoted IP addresses, and it’s simple to grasp why. With a shared IP tackle, all of the customers on a given VPN server use the identical IP tackle – the VPN server’s IP tackle. So the online visitors of all these customers seems to be coming from the identical supply. And that makes it way more tough to correlate any of that visitors to a selected consumer.
OVPN and Hotspot Shield each assign their customers shared IP addresses by default. OVPN additionally gives a devoted IP tackle as a paid add-on. A non-public VPN IP tackle will be helpful when internet hosting servers that should be accessible from the web however that you wish to place behind the VPN for enhanced safety.
Only OVPN, nonetheless, presents an advert and malware blocker that works through DNS blackholing. DNS blackholing works by checking your DNS requests towards a listing of identified advert networks and malware domains. If any of your requests match the entries on the checklist, they get blocked. If they don’t match, they go straight by. It’s an amazing function, and I hope to see extra VPN suppliers assist it.
Customer service
| OVPN | Hotspot Shield | Live chat | Yes | No | Ticket assist | No | No | Email assist | Yes | Yes | Average e mail response time | 12.5 hours | 2.6 days | Phone assist | No | No | Searchable information base | Yes | Yes | Video guides | No | No |
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OVPN and Hotspot Shield each present e mail and reside chat assist. And they each function a searchable information base on their respective web sites.
We wished to check every supplier’s response time with customer support emails. To do this, we despatched every supplier three questions in three separate emails. The first two questions are fairly widespread and should be simple to reply with entry-level information. The third query is more difficult to reply by design and requires a deeper understanding of VPNs and networking. Also, every supplier’s third query is completely different since they assist completely different options.
The outcomes are beneath:
| OVPN | Question | Initial response time | Number of emails | Question answered | What type of logs does OVPN preserve? | 12 hours | 1 | Yes | OVPN on a DD-WRT router? | 12 hours | 1 | Yes | What’s the distinction between the OVPN app and the browser extension? | 14 hours | 1 | Yes |
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| Hotspot Shield | Question | Initial response time | Number of emails | Question answered | Question What type of logs does Hotspot Shield preserve? | 6 days | 1 | Yes | Question Can I set up Hotspot Shield on a DD-WRT router? | 33 hours | 1 | Yes | Question What is the distinction between a proxy server and a VPN? | Never answered | 1 | No |
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While each suppliers’ solutions had been well mannered and informative, Hotspot Shield solely answered two of my emails. And one in all its responses took six days to reach. OVPN, for its half, answered all of my emails inside 13 hours. Its solutions included extra particulars and demonstrated extra trade information than Hotspot Shield’s responses. So it’s just about night time and day right here.
OVPN takes it within the customer support class. Waiting six days for a reply is just too a lot, irrespective of how good the response is.
And the winner is OVPN. While it didn’t rating higher in each single class, it’s a greater general alternative – even for greener customers. Hotspot Shield does have higher streaming assist and presents extra simultaneous connections. But its buyer assist is much from nice, and customized VPN protocols simply don’t sit effectively with anybody who sees VPNs as a privateness and safety device. Hotspot actually should ditch Hydra, particularly because it doesn’t present higher speeds than Wireguard. Hotspot Shield additionally gives an extended money-back assure, however such trivialities isn’t sufficient to make a distinction at this level.
So, in a nutshell, right here’s what arms the win to OVPN:
- OVPN is considerably quicker than Hotspot Shield.
- Its safety and privateness practices are wonderful (and have been examined).
- Its streaming assist is appropriate – although not the best.
- OVPN solely helps safe, open-source VPN protocols (no customized protocols right here).
- It blocks advertisements and malware
- OVPN is cheaper on most subscription plans.
There are not any two methods about it; OVPN is the higher choice out of the 2.
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