CactusVPN review: score, privacy and prices

4.17

out of 10#25 of 377 in the main ranking
Consumer VPN median 2.6

  • Consumer VPN
  • Jurisdiction:not stated, alliance not disclosed
  • Founded2011
  • Data completeness93%
  • Checked2026-10-15
  • Independent no-logs audit: ✓ Yes
  • Free plan

In 10 seconds

Strongest against its segment

  • Platforms and support6.6 vs 4.3
  • Privacy and jurisdiction5.0 vs 2.7
  • Price and fair terms5.1 vs 3.5

Weakest against its segment

  • Network and streaming2.5 vs 3.1
  • Censorship bypass1.9 vs 0.5
  • Security and protocols3.6 vs 2.1

Compare CactusVPN side by side with other VPNs

How the score adds up

Six sub-scores, each against the median of Consumer VPN services in the main ranking (233 services). Open a line to see which published facts earned points and which were missing or not disclosed.

CactusVPNsegment median

  • Privacy and jurisdiction30% of the score · segment median 2.75.0
    What earned points
    • No-logs policy +2
    • Independent no-logs audit +3
    • No-logs confirmed in court +1
    • Warrant canary +1
    • Transparency report +1
    • Sign-up without email +1.5
    • Account number sign-up +0.5
    • Stores connection IP (penalty) −3
    • Public incident (penalty) −2
  • Security and protocols20% of the score · segment median 2.13.6
    What earned points
    • Kill switch +2
    • DNS leak protection +1.5
    • RAM-only servers +1
    • Post-quantum encryption +1
    • Perfect forward secrecy +0.5
    • Security audit +2
    • Open-source clients +1.5
    • 2FA +1
    • Multi-hop +1
    • Bug bounty +1
    • Only PPTP / L2TP (penalty) −2
  • Price and fair terms15% of the score · segment median 3.55.1
    What earned points
    • Free plan +1.5
    • Free trial +1
    • Trial without a card +1
    • Crypto payments +1
    • Cash payments +0.5
  • Censorship bypass15% of the score · segment median 0.51.9
    What earned points
    • Stealth / obfuscation +2
    • VLESS / Reality +1.5
    • Trojan +1
    • Hysteria2 +1
    • Shadowsocks +1
    • AmneziaWG +1
    • obfs4 +0.5
    • TUIC +0.5
    • NaiveProxy +0.5
    • Mirrors or Telegram channel +0.5
    • VoIP in the UAE (claimed) +0.5
    • Manual configs +0.5
  • Network and streaming10% of the score · segment median 3.12.5
    What earned points
    • 10 Gbps servers +1
    • Dedicated IP +0.5
    • Port forwarding +0.5
    • MENA locations +0.5
    • Torrenting allowed +1
  • Platforms and support10% of the score · segment median 4.36.6
    What earned points
    • Routers +1
    • Browser extensions +0.5
    • Split tunneling +1
    • Ad / tracker blocker +1
    • 24/7 live chat +2
    • live chat +0.5
    • Support on Telegram +0.5
    • Status page +0.5

CactusVPN pricing

From €3.40 a month, same price at renewal

  • Monthly plan: €12.90
  • 3 plans published · market median €3.13 a month
Full pricing breakdown

Everything CactusVPN publishes

Every fact we collected about CactusVPN, as the provider and reviewers state it. Empty fields are left out; key fields we could not find say “Not stated”. “Partial”: only on some platforms, servers or plans.

Company
Legal entity
Not stated
Registered in
Moldova
Related brands
CactusVPN Professional (business)
Founded
2011
Surveillance alliance (5/9/14 Eyes)
Not stated
Website languages
  • EN
  • FR
  • ES
  • DE
  • RU
  • PT
  • TR
Right-to-left languages
No
Currencies on the site
USD ($)

Plans, prices and add-ons
Plans
single plan (VPN + Smart DNS); Professional (business)
Billing terms
  • 1 month
  • 1 year
  • 2 years
Cheapest price a month
$3.96
Monthly plan
$15.00
1-year plan, total
$70.00
1-year plan, a month
$5.83
2-year plan, total
$95.00
2-year plan, a month
$3.96
Lifetime plan
No
Renewal
Rate locked for life: renewal price won't increase while subscription active
Family plan
Yes unlimited devices within one household
Prices seen from other countries
  • 1m $15
  • 12m $5.83/mo ($70/yr)
  • 24m $3.96/mo ($95/2y) — USD, rates locked for life
Dedicated IP add-on
No shared static IP
Port forwarding add-on
No
Double VPN add-on
No
Antivirus
No
Password manager
No
eSIM
No
Identity protection
No
Cloud storage
No
Other add-ons
Smart DNS included; SOCKS5/HTTP proxy included

Discounts and programmes
Discount shown
61% (annual); 74% (2-year)
Discount compared with
vs monthly $15
Student discount
Not stated
Bonus months
No
Affiliate programme
Yes /affiliates/

Limits and restrictions
Devices at once
unlimited (household); PPTP/L2TP/IKEv2/WG 1 connection per server
Data limit
unlimited (may limit if affecting others)
Speed limit
No
Torrenting / P2P policy
Yes allowed on P2P-marked servers (7)
Prohibited by the terms
spam, IP violations, malware, unauthorized access, bots, credential sharing, export violations

Free plan
Free plan
Yes free Smart DNS option only
Free data
Not stated
Ads in the free plan
Not stated
Other free plan terms
free Smart DNS

Payment and subscription
Payment methods
  • PayPal
  • Stripe
  • CoinGate (crypto)
  • PayPro (payment processors named in ToS)
  • card (review)
Bank card
Yes review; Stripe/PayPro processors
PayPal
Yes
Cryptocurrency
Yes
Cash
Not stated
Gift cards
Not stated
Auto-renewal by default
Not stated
Email needed to sign up
Yes
Account-number login
Not stated
Identity check (KYC)
No
Money-back guarantee, days
30
Refund conditions
if service doesn't work as advertised; no refunds for crypto payments, unsupported sites/devices, policy violations

Free trial terms
Trial length
No official pricing FAQ: no free trial, 30-day money-back instead; /vpn-free-trial/ redirects to pricing
Where the trial is offered
site (email only)
Instead of a trial
30-day money-back
Card needed for the trial
Not stated

Server locations
Countries
25
Servers
39
Cities
~30

25 countries listed. A link opens our ranking of VPNs with servers there.

Europe 16

Americas 3

Asia and Oceania 6

Middle East and North Africa
none
Virtual locations
Not stated
Port speed
1 Gbps
P2P servers
Yes 7: Amsterdam, Nuremberg, Zurich, Riga, Iasi, Madrid, Cyberjaya
Obfuscated servers
Yes obfsproxy

Network features
RAM-only servers
Not stated
IPv6
Not stated
Dedicated IP
No
Static IP
Yes shared static IP
Residential IP
Not stated
Double VPN / multi-hop
Not stated
Tor over VPN
Not stated
SOCKS5 proxy
Yes every server
Smart DNS
Yes 340+ sites

Protocols and encryption
  • WireGuard✓ Yes
  • OpenVPNTCP/UDP✓ Yes
  • IKEv2✓ Yes
  • L2TP/IPsecYes
  • SSTPYes
  • SoftEther✓ Yes
  • Own protocol✕ No
  • VLESS / RealityNot stated
  • VMessNot stated
  • TrojanNot stated
  • ShadowsocksNot stated
  • Hysteria2Not stated
  • TUICNot stated
  • NaiveProxyNot stated
  • obfs4Not stated
  • AmneziaWGNot stated
  • PPTP✕ Yes
Other protocols
  • VPN over ICMP
  • VPN over DNS
  • HTTP(S) proxy
Encryption
AES-256
Perfect forward secrecy
Not stated
Post-quantum encryption
Not stated
Manual configuration files
Not stated
Open-source apps
Not stated

Censorship and blocking
Obfuscation (stealth mode)
Yes obfsproxy, VPN over ICMP/DNS
Countries it claims to work in
Not stated
Mirror sites or Telegram channel
Not stated
Calls in the UAE
Not stated

Security
Kill switch
Yes system and app level
DNS leak protection
Yes DoH
Split tunnelling
Yes
Ad and malware blocker
Not stated
Two-factor sign-in
Not stated
Security audits
Not stated
Bug bounty
Not stated

Privacy
No-logs policy
Yes
Independent no-logs audit
Yes
Shared with third parties
Google Analytics (non-personal)
Trackers on the website
Google Analytics
Transparency report
Not stated
Warrant canary
Not stated
Anonymous sign-up
Partial crypto
Privacy policy updated
2026-04-01 (ToS metadata)

What the privacy policy says is collected

Yes: collected. No: not collected. Partial: kept briefly or only in part. Not stated: the policy does not say.

  • Email✕ Yes
  • IP at sign-uplast login IP (fraud prevention)✕ Yes
  • Connection IP✓ No
  • Session times✓ No
  • Bandwidth✓ No
  • App analyticslimited non-personal data to Google Analytics◐ Partial

Apps and devices
  • Windows✓ Yes
  • macOS✓ Yes
  • Linuxnative app (Apps page lists Windows, Android, macOS, iOS, Android TV, Fire TV, Chrome, Firefox)✕ No
  • iOS✓ Yes
  • Android✓ Yes
  • Android TV✓ Yes
  • Fire TV✓ Yes
  • Apple TVNot stated
  • ChromebookNot stated
  • Smart TVNot stated
  • RoutersNot stated
  • NASNot stated
  • Raspberry PiNot stated
  • Game consolesNot stated
Browser extensions
Chrome; Firefox

Speed, streaming and gaming
Claimed speed
1 Gbps servers
10 Gbps servers
Not stated
Netflix
not named (Smart DNS 340+ sites)
BBC iPlayer
No
Disney+
No
Prime Video
No
DAZN
No
beIN Sports
No
OSN+
No
Gaming features
Not stated
Torrenting
Yes P2P servers

Support
Live chat
Yes
Live chat 24/7
Yes 24/7 ticket or chat
Email / tickets
Yes ticket form
Phone
Not stated
Telegram
Not stated
WhatsApp
Not stated
Help articles
Yes learning center
Server status page
Not stated

For teams and business
SSO / SAML
Not stated
Admin panel
Not stated
Zero-trust access (ZTNA)
Not stated

What users say

Reviews never change our score. Ratings are smoothed: a source’s average across all VPNs counts as 50 extra reviews, so a few five-star reviews cannot outrank thousands.

  • Trustpilot

    3.99 of 5, smoothed

    From 32 collected reviews (raw average 4.50; all VPNs 3.66).

    The company replied to 0 of 4 negative reviews (1–2 stars).

  • Google Play

    3.86 of 5, smoothed

    From 2 collected reviews (raw average 3.00; all VPNs 3.90). Last 90 days: 3.00 from 2.

    The company replied to 0 of 1 negative reviews (1–2 stars).

Ratings shown on the platforms themselves: Trustpilot TrustScore 1.8 (32 reviews); App Store (US) 3.00 (6 ratings).

Reviews per month, last 12 months

  1. Apr ’261 reviews, average 1.0
  2. Jul ’261 reviews, average 5.0
  3. Sep ’261 reviews, average 1.0
Bar height: number of reviews collected that month. Full-colour bars: months with an average of 4 stars or more; pale bars: below 4.

48 Reddit and forum threads mention CactusVPN (titles and search snippets only).

Latest reviews and related rankings

Latest reviews

Short excerpts with a link to the original. We do not reproduce reviews in full.

  • Google Play · 1★ · 22 Sep 2026

    purchase 1 month subscription becuase they said its money back guarantee, not work and always disconnected. request for a refund within an hour after purchase…

  • Google Play · 5★ · 20 Jul 2026

    App just closes down constantly

  • Trustpilot · 1★ · 24 Apr 2026 · ME

    No "money back guarantee" so far

    Original review

  • Trustpilot · 5★ · 13 Sep 2023 · NL

    Resist the New World Order with CactusVPN

    Original review

  • Trustpilot · 5★ · 19 Nov 2022 · US

    Reliable service and support

    Original review

Rankings by user reviews

Reviews of similar VPNs

Show all 15

Questions about CactusVPN

Answers built from what CactusVPN publishes. Open a question to read the details.

CactusVPN coupons and discounts: official prices and promo terms

CactusVPN publishes no promo code on its own site in what we read, so we list none. We never invent codes or copy them from coupon sites; below are the official prices.

Discounts on the official site

Promo codes
Not stated
Sale running when checked
none seen
Discount shown
61% (annual); 74% (2-year)
Discount compared with
vs monthly $15
Bonus months
No
Checked
2026-10-15

Official prices

Official prices
PlanFirst paymentThen
VPN + Smart DNS, 1 mo€12.90€12.90 / 1 mo
VPN + Smart DNS, 12 mo€60.20€60.20 / 12 mo
VPN + Smart DNS, 24 mo€81.70€81.70 / 24 mo

Coupons of similar VPNs

In our rankings

CactusVPN appears on 237 topic pages. Its place on each:

Show all 237

Similar VPNs

Cheaper with the same features

Higher score for the same money

Also similar to CactusVPN

CactusVPN compared

Tools for CactusVPN

Sources and changes

Collected 2026-10-15. No changes recorded since the first import.

Website
https://cactusvpn.com
Pages checked
https://cactusvpn.com/; https://cactusvpn.com/pricing; https://www.cactusvpn.com/terms-conditions/; https://www.cactusvpn.com/features/; https://www.cactusvpn.com/vpn-server-locations/
Other sources used
trial_days, card_required_for_trial, refund_conditions: https://www.cactusvpn.com/pricing/; registration_country, founded_year: https://www.cactusvpn.com/about-us/; linux: https://www.cactusvpn.com/vpn-software/; payment_methods, paypal, third_party_sharing, collects_app_analytics: https://www.cactusvpn.com/terms-conditions/; card: https://proprivacy.com/vpn/review/cactusvpn

Something wrong or out of date? Report an error