The vast majority of VPNs have web sites plastered with daring assertions laying declare to the “world’s quickest speeds”, the “largest server networks”, and the “most safe connections”. So how do potential prospects objectively inform them aside? To work out the place suppliers truly sit within the hierarchy of digital personal networks (VPNs), we take two and examine them side-by-side. This time we’re aiming to settle the IPVanish vs HMA debate.
IPVanish vs Conceal My Ass – Which service do you have to select?
IPVanish is the higher possibility. It has very quick connection speeds, a number of options to discover, and a big community of servers that it owns outright. It’s additionally the cheaper of the 2 VPNs.
HMA – extra generally referred to as Conceal My Ass – can also be value consideration, although it may do with engaged on its between-app parity. It’s an skilled supplier with good entry to streaming providers in addition to having the ability to present connections in international locations the place VPNs don’t usually have a presence. Those that want an IP deal with in Serbia or Malawi ought to look no additional.
Pricing
Worth is all-important relating to selecting between suppliers. Except there’s motive to not, top individuals will go for the cheaper possibility – which, on this case, is IPVanish.
| IPVanish | Conceal My Ass (5 connections) | Conceal My Ass (10 connections) | |
| 1 month | $11.99 | $11.99 | – |
| 2 months | – | – | – |
| 6 months | – | $8.99 | – |
| 12 months | $3.99 | $4.99 | $7.99 |
| 24 months | $3.33 | $4.99 | $6.99 |
| 36 months | – | $2.99 | $5.99 |
The month-to-month charges of the 2 suppliers are the identical – although it’s value declaring that IPVanish gives limitless gadget connections, whereas Conceal My Ass plans allow both 5 or 10.
The place IPVanish actually comes into its personal is with its longer-term subscriptions. For instance, its annual plan is mainly half the value of Conceal My Ass’s 10-connection subscription: $3.99 versus $7.99
For a two-year plan, IPVanish is lower than half the value of a Conceal My Ass 10-connection subscription: $3.33 versus $6.99.
With each suppliers, the costs listed within the desk are introductory. That’s, they final for the size of the primary subscription interval earlier than rising.
Within the case of Conceal My Ass, they improve to no less than $11.99 a month for a five-connection plan, and to no less than $12.99 a month for a ten-connection plan. For IPVanish, costs will improve to no less than $7.50 a month for each annual and biennial subscriptions.
You’ll be able to check out both service with out risking something financially, as each suppliers supply 30-day money-back ensures.
Cost strategies for IPVanish embrace bank card, PayPal, Google Pay, and Amazon Pay. Conceal My Ass helps bank card, PayPal, Google Pay, and Apple Pay. Neither supplier accepts cryptocurrency, making nameless signup subsequent to unattainable.
Winner: IPVanish
Efficiency & pace
Sluggish VPNs could make utilizing the web actively irritating. Should you’ve paid for a quick house broadband connection, it’s important to make use of a VPN that gained’t lavatory it down. On this respect, each IPvanish and HMA are good choices – although IPVanish is the sooner of the 2.
| No Worth | IPVanish | HMA |
|---|---|---|
| ProPrivacy.com SpeedTest (common) | 51.0 Mbps | 35.8 Mbps |
| ProPrivacy.com SpeedTest (max/burst) | 477.5 | 597.2 |
IPVanish is, in truth, one of many quickest VPNs obtainable. It’s greater than able to streaming 4K content material with out buffering and gaming with out lag. Whereas HMA can also be comparatively quick and appropriate for data-intensive duties, it does undergo from gradual DNS lookup time, which may make it really feel gradual when loading internet pages.
Winner: IPVanish
Which has higher options?
IPVanish has a greater roster of options general. For a begin, it gives limitless gadget connections in contrast with HMA’s 5 or 10 simultaneous connections.
| No Worth | IPVanish | HMA |
|---|---|---|
| Simultaneous connections | 1000 | 5 |
| Break up-tunneling | ||
| Kill-switch | ||
| Obfuscation (stealth) | ||
| Self-hosted DNS | ||
| Tor-over-VPN? |
The supplier may also assist customers get related in international locations the place web use is restricted. Its OpenVPN Scramble function hides the truth that you’re utilizing a VPN, thus permitting site visitors to bypass blocks.
IPVanish has roughly twice as many servers as HMA, although it has a presence in a 3rd as many international locations. So, whereas IPVanish provides you extra server selection inside shared international locations, you may hook up with extra locations with HMA. Given the choice, we’d favor a VPN with extra servers because it means there’s a greater likelihood of building a quick connection.
Customers for whom pace is all necessary may moreover respect IPVanish’s SOCKS5 proxy. This may supply sooner connections, however gained’t encrypt site visitors like a VPN.
For its half, HMA has an IP shuffle function that permits you to change IP addresses after a selected interval. That is helpful if you happen to discover your present IP is all of the sudden blocked.
The supplier additionally has servers in numerous international locations – it may give you an IP deal with in locations the place most suppliers can’t, similar to Papua New Guinea and the Falkland Islands.
Each suppliers supply split-tunneling, which permits customers to decide on which apps use the VPN tunnel; kill-switches, which cease the circulation of web site visitors if the VPN connection drops out; and public WiFi safety, which mechanically connects to the VPN when an unsecure community is detected; and the flexibility to dam native community interfaces. Be aware that these options aren’t obtainable in all HMA apps – see the part on Setup and Usability for particulars.
| No Worth | IPVanish | HMA |
|---|---|---|
| PPTP | ||
| L2TP/IPSec | ||
| SSTP | ||
| IKEv2 | ||
| OpenVPN | ||
| WireGuard |
IPVanish has extra choices for connection protocols. It helps OpenVPN, IKEv2, SSTP, and WireGuard. WireGuard has change into the go-to protocol for many VPNs, because it’s each light-weight and straightforward to implement. HMA doesn’t assist WireGuard, nevertheless it does assist OpenVPN, IKEv2, L2TP, and PPTP.
Winner: IPVanish
Which streaming providers can they entry?
Select the suitable VPN and also you’ll be capable to entry regional content material from the entire hottest streaming platforms. Be warned although – of the various who say they work with the likes of Netflix and BBC iPlayer, few truly do.
| No Worth | IPVanish | HMA |
|---|---|---|
| Netflix | ||
| iPlayer | ||
| Amazon Prime | ||
| Hulu | ||
| Disney+ |
The excellent news is that each IPVanish and HMA are stable choices for streaming. They’re not good – however they’re higher than most. Throughout testing, IPVanish struggled with iPlayer, whereas HMA wouldn’t work with Hulu. Apart from that, they each labored nice with each Netflix and Amazon Prime Video.
Winner: Draw
Torrenting
Each suppliers enable torrenting and have kill-switches and split-tunneling to maintain customers’ torrent shoppers protected.
Whereas HMA directs torrenters to particular P2P servers, IPVanish permits torrenting on all of its servers. Each suppliers supply limitless bandwidth, although neither has port forwarding. This latter function is taken into account important by some file sharers for environment friendly seeding and downloading.
Winner: Draw
Setup & usability
IPVanish and HMA each have apps obtainable for Home windows, macOS, iOS, Android, and Android TV. In addition they assist Linux and appropriate routers, although these connections have to be configured manually. Each suppliers have detailed guides on how to do that on their web sites.
| No Worth | IPVanish | HMA |
|---|---|---|
| Android | ||
| iOS | ||
| Home windows | ||
| macOS | ||
| Linux |
Having downloaded and put in the related app for both VPN, customers can select the quickest obtainable server to determine a connection in seconds. Alternatively, they will select from the suppliers’ server lists.
IPVanish has much more element on its server web page, with data on each ping time and cargo instantly obtainable. Customers may also select between servers inside every metropolis, which is a degree of selection that we don’t typically see.
As soon as related, there’s a graph of the bandwidth operating by way of the VPN. HMA, in contrast, merely presents an inventory of nations – of which there are notably many – with choices to hook up with totally different cities the place multiple server is offered.
HMA has choices for connecting the VPN when the gadget begins, and sending the app to the background as soon as the connection is established. Customers may also allow automated WiFi safety from the identical display.
IPVanish has a wide selection of startup choices, together with permitting customers to mechanically hook up with the quickest server in a selected place, or to the final related server.
Different connection choices embrace permitting customers to dam LAN site visitors till a VPN connection is established, selecting whether or not to allow leak safety, and specifying the variety of retries for auto-reconnect.
The IPVanish apps are extra constant throughout platforms usually. The black and inexperienced theme is hanging, although it would really feel a bit dated to some. It’s onerous to argue with the extent of management the apps supply although, with loads of scope for superior customers to fine-tune their settings.
The HMA apps are well-designed, however lack consistency throughout platforms. For instance, the kill-switch is simply obtainable for Home windows, macOS, and Android. Break up-tunneling is but extra restricted and solely obtainable on Android apps.
Winner: IPVanish
Safety
Considerably impressively, IPVanish operates its personal personal fiber-optic community of tier-1 servers. It additionally owns roughly 90% of its {hardware} and the information facilities during which the servers are housed. This provides it much more management over who has entry to particular person servers.
To guard customers’ web site visitors, IPVanish makes use of 256-bit AES encryption along with SHA512 for authentication. A DHE-RSA 2048 key alternate helps good ahead secrecy, which signifies that previous classes can’t be decrypted even when the present decryption key’s compromised.
HMA makes use of 256-bit encryption on the information channel with 4096-bit RSA keys, and SHA256 for authentication. On the management channel, it makes use of anAES-256 cipher with DHE-RSA-2048 keys and SHA-1 hash authentication.
The take-home message is that each IPVanish and HMA supply successfully uncrackable encryption. Each suppliers additionally use their very own personal DNS servers, which ensures that DNS requests aren’t despatched to customers’ ISP and recorded. Neither VPN suffered from any IP or WebRTC leaks throughout assessments.
Winner: IPVanish
Privateness
IPVanish retains no site visitors or utilization logs on its prospects. That is necessary, provided that it’s primarily based within the US. Moreover, this declare has been independently verified by cybersecurity agency, Leviathan Safety Group.
Equally, HMA has a no-logs coverage that’s been independently audited by VerSprite – one other respected cybersecurity agency.
In each instances, the audits are a welcome departure from the suppliers’ moderately murky logging histories. We’ll briefly point out these for the sake of transparency.
In 2016, IPVanish – then owned by Highwinds Community Group – offered detailed person information logs to US Division of Homeland Safety investigators. On the time, its web site claimed it saved no logs.
HMA additionally beforehand recorded customers’ IP addresses, connection, and exercise logs. This data was given to investigators and used to convict HMA prospects in 2011 and once more in 2017.
Like IPVanish, HMA is predicated in a rustic – the UK – that could be a member of the 5 Eyes intelligence-gathering alliance. The UK authorities – just like the US – has no qualms about issuing warrants compelling firms handy over information, along with gag orders requiring them to take action secretly.
For that reason, some privacy-conscious customers favor to avoid any suppliers situated within the UK or US. Nevertheless, as talked about, an organization’s location is simply a problem if it retains logs. Neither IPVanish nor HMA now do, and have audits to show it.
Winner: Draw
Buyer assist
Responsive and educated buyer assist could make all of the distinction when deciding whether or not to proceed a subscription. On this respect, each IPVanish and HMA are good decisions and appear dedicated to capturing long-term loyalty.
Each supply 24/7 dwell chat, which permits customers to get assist virtually instantly. Moreover, the brokers are actively useful moderately than wilfully obscure. Customers may also get in contact by way of electronic mail or by filling out a type on-line.
Each suppliers additionally supply complete – and searchable – data bases, with further sections containing setup guides and FAQs.
Winner: Draw
Conclusion
IPVanish and HMA have each been within the VPN recreation for greater than a decade. Like all trade veterans, they’ve had their ups and – pretty main – downs. With out eager to sound like a headmaster, what’s necessary is that they’ve realized from previous errors. Whether or not that’s sufficient to tempt individuals away from suppliers with squeaky-clean information stays to be seen. In any occasion, we’re glad to see that each suppliers now have a clear-cut no-logs coverage that’s been independently verified.
Whereas there’s a lot to love about HMA, IPVanish is in the end the higher supplier. It’s sooner, in addition to having extra servers and extra options usually. We like that it owns a lot of its personal community, however would love it much more if it made the change to RAM-only servers.
HMA is itself an honest supplier, although this partially will depend on which platform you’re utilizing. For instance, the iOS app lacks primary options like a kill-switch and split-tunneling. General, although, HMA offers stable entry to streaming providers and has servers in some uncommon places. Should you don’t thoughts signing up for a three-year contract, it’s comparatively good worth, too.
General winner: IPVanish
Should you’re contemplating various VPNs, go to our different vs pages to see how IPVanish and HMA fare towards totally different suppliers.
Picture credit score: Pexels from Pixabay
