Riseup VPN review: score, privacy and prices

2.82

out of 10#134 of 377 in the main ranking
Free / mobile app median 2.3

  • Free / mobile app
  • Jurisdiction:not stated, alliance not disclosed
  • Founded1999 (Riseup)
  • Owner:Riseup
  • Data completeness67%
  • Checked2026-10-15
  • No email to sign up
  • Free plan
  • Open-source apps

In 10 seconds

Strongest against its segment

  • Censorship bypass2.4 vs 0.5
  • Security and protocols2.9 vs 1.2
  • Privacy and jurisdiction4.0 vs 2.7

Weakest against its segment

  • Network and streaming0.4 vs 1.7
  • Price and fair terms2.5 vs 3.4
  • Platforms and support2.8 vs 2.8

Compare Riseup VPN side by side with other VPNs

How the score adds up

Six sub-scores, each against the median of Free / mobile app services in the main ranking (80 services). Open a line to see which published facts earned points and which were missing or not disclosed.

Riseup VPNsegment median

  • Privacy and jurisdiction30% of the score · segment median 2.74.0
    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 1.22.9
    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 3.42.5
    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 0.52.4
    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 1.70.4
    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 2.82.8
    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

Riseup VPN pricing

Riseup VPN does not publish a paid price we could read. Free plan: Yes entire service free. Market median across the main ranking: €3.13 a month.

All plans as published

PlanTermPrice for termPer month€ / monthRenewal priceRenewal term
RiseupVPN (free, donation)1 mo$0.00$0.00€0.00$0.001 mo

Refunds, trial and payment

Refund window
Not stated
Free trial
Not stated
Auto-renewal
No
Payment methods
donations: Liberapay (Visa/MC/Amex, EUR direct debit); PayPal; Bitcoin

Everything Riseup VPN publishes

Every fact we collected about Riseup VPN, 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
Riseup (autonomous tech collective)
Registered in
Not stated
Parent company
Riseup
Related brands
  • Bitmask
  • LEAP
  • Riseup Black (discontinued)
Founded
1999 (Riseup)
Surveillance alliance (5/9/14 Eyes)
Not stated
Website languages
  • ZH
  • ES
  • EN
  • PT
  • RU
  • DE
  • FR
  • IT
  • PL
  • EL
  • CA
  • HI
Right-to-left languages
No
Currencies on the site
  • USD
  • CAD
  • GBP
  • EUR (donations)
Prices depend on country
No

Plans, prices and add-ons
Plans
RiseupVPN (free; suggested donation ~$60/yr)
Cheapest price a month
$0.00
Monthly plan
$0.00
1-year plan, total
0 (suggested donation 60)
1-year plan, a month
$0.00
Lifetime plan
No
Family plan
No
Dedicated IP add-on
No
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
No

Discounts and programmes
Discount shown
No
Promo codes
No
Student discount
Not stated
Referral programme
No
Affiliate programme
No

Limits and restrictions
Devices at once
Not stated

Free plan
Free plan
Yes entire service free
Free data
Not stated
Ads in the free plan
No
Other free plan terms
no account registration

Payment and subscription
Payment methods
  • donations: Liberapay (Visa/MC/Amex, EUR direct debit)
  • PayPal
  • Bitcoin
Bank card
Yes Liberapay
PayPal
Yes
Cryptocurrency
Yes
Coins accepted
BTC
Cash
Not stated
Gift cards
Not stated
Auto-renewal by default
No
Email needed to sign up
No
Phone needed to sign up
No
Account-number login
No no account at all
Identity check (KYC)
No
Money-back guarantee, days
Not stated

Free trial terms
Trial length
Not stated
Card needed for the trial
Not stated

Server locations
Countries
4 (NL, US, CA, FR)
Servers
21 gateways (eip-service.json)
Cities
6

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

Europe 2

Americas 2

Server countries, as published
Netherlands (Amsterdam); US (Miami, New York, Seattle); Canada (Montreal); France (Paris)
Middle East and North Africa
none
Virtual locations
Not stated
P2P servers
Not stated
Obfuscated servers
Not stated

Network features
RAM-only servers
Not stated
IPv6
Not stated
Dedicated IP
Not stated
Static IP
Not stated
Residential IP
Not stated
Double VPN / multi-hop
Not stated
Tor over VPN
No separate Tor onion services
SOCKS5 proxy
Not stated
Smart DNS
Not stated

Protocols and encryption
  • WireGuardnot in gateway config✕ No
  • OpenVPNTCP/UDP, AES-256-GCM, TLS 1.2+ ECDHE-ECDSA✓ Yes
  • IKEv2not in gateway config✕ No
  • L2TP/IPsecNot stated
  • SSTPNot stated
  • SoftEtherNot stated
  • Own protocolBitmask/LEAP client✕ No
  • VLESS / Reality✕ No
  • VMess✕ No
  • Trojan✕ No
  • Shadowsocks✕ No
  • Hysteria2✕ No
  • TUICNot stated
  • NaiveProxyNot stated
  • obfs4obfs4 bridges over TCP✓ Yes
  • AmneziaWGNot stated
Encryption
AES-256-GCM, SHA512 auth
Perfect forward secrecy
Yes ECDHE TLS cipher
Post-quantum encryption
Not stated
Manual configuration files
No
Open-source apps
Yes Bitmask code; repo link not on page

Censorship and blocking
Obfuscation (stealth mode)
Yes obfs4 bridge transport
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 blocks traffic while off/connecting
DNS leak protection
Not stated
Split tunnelling
Not stated
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 no IP addresses retained for any service
Independent no-logs audit
No
Data retention
  • account requests 4 months
  • invites 1 month
  • email transit logs purged daily
Shared with third parties
none (aggregated anonymous data to researchers possible)
Trackers on the website
No
Transparency report
Not stated
Warrant canary
Yes canary page linked
Anonymous sign-up
Yes
GDPR / data protection officer
No

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✓ No
  • IP at sign-up✓ No
  • Connection IP✓ No
  • Session timesquarter/year of last login only (accounts)◐ Partial

Apps and devices
  • Windows✓ Yes
  • macOS✓ Yes
  • Linux✓ Yes
  • iOS✕ No
  • Android✓ Yes
  • Android TVNot stated
  • Fire TVNot stated
  • Apple TVNot stated
  • ChromebookNot stated
  • Smart TVNot stated
  • RoutersNot stated
  • NASNot stated
  • Raspberry PiNot stated
  • Game consolesNot stated
Browser extensions
Not stated

Speed, streaming and gaming
10 Gbps servers
Not stated
Netflix
Not stated
BBC iPlayer
Not stated
Disney+
Not stated
Prime Video
Not stated
Gaming features
Not stated
Torrenting
Not stated

Support
Live chat
Not stated
Live chat 24/7
Not stated
Email / tickets
Yes support.riseup.net
Phone
Not stated
Telegram
Not stated
WhatsApp
Not stated
Discord or forum
IRC #leap on Libera; mailing list
Help articles
Yes troubleshooting pages
Server status page
Yes riseupstatus.net

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

    3.74 of 5, smoothed

    From 6 collected reviews (raw average 4.33; all VPNs 3.66).

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

Ratings shown on the platforms themselves: Trustpilot TrustScore 3.8 (6 reviews).

43 Reddit and forum threads mention Riseup VPN (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.

  • Trustpilot · 5★ · 21 Apr 2025 · SE

    Perfect for the security-conscious…

    Original review

  • Trustpilot · 1★ · 23 Apr 2024 · GB

    Updated review. 5 stars down to 1.

    Original review

  • Trustpilot · 5★ · 01 Apr 2019 · GB

    EXCELLENT EMAIL & VPN PROVIDER

    Original review

Rankings by user reviews

Reviews of similar VPNs

Questions about Riseup VPN

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

Is Riseup VPN safe? Logging policy, audits and jurisdiction

Privacy and jurisdiction 4.0/10 and security 2.9/10 (segment medians 2.7 and 1.2). No red flag in our data. Independent no-logs audit: ✕ No.

In 10 seconds

  • Open-source apps
  • Warrant canary
  • Kill switch

Privacy

Jurisdiction
Not stated
Legal entity
Riseup (autonomous tech collective)
No-logs policy
Yes no IP addresses retained for any service
Data retention
account requests 4 months; invites 1 month; email transit logs purged daily
Shared with third parties
none (aggregated anonymous data to researchers possible)
Trackers on the website
No

Security

Kill switch
Yes (yes (blocks traffic while off/connecting))
DNS leak protection
Not stated
Encryption
AES-256-GCM, SHA512 auth
Open-source apps
Yes Bitmask code; repo link not on page
Two-factor sign-in
Not stated

Related rankings

Is it safe? of similar VPNs

Riseup VPN not working? Common causes and what to check

4 things to check, built from what Riseup VPN publishes about its apps, protocols and support. We do not test connections ourselves.

What to check

Check the provider’s status page for an outage (riseupstatus.net).

Switch protocol in the app: Riseup VPN lists OpenVPN, obfs4.

If the network blocks VPNs, turn on obfuscation (obfs4 bridge transport).

Contact support: email.

Support when the VPN is blocked

Email
Yes support.riseup.net
Status page
Yes riseupstatus.net

If it is blocked where you are

Troubleshooting of similar VPNs

Who owns Riseup VPN? Company, jurisdiction and related brands

Riseup VPN is run by Riseup (autonomous tech collective); parent company: Riseup.

Company

Related brands
Bitmask; LEAP; Riseup Black (discontinued)
Founded
1999 (Riseup)

Owners of similar VPNs

In our rankings

Riseup VPN appears on 130 topic pages. Its place on each:

Show all 130

Similar VPNs

Closed services Riseup VPN replaces

Services that shut down or moved, for which this is one of five live alternatives.

Tools for Riseup VPN

Sources and changes

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

Website
https://riseup.net/vpn
Pages checked
https://riseup.net/vpn; https://riseup.net/en/privacy-policy
Other sources used
servers/countries/cities/locations/openvpn/obfs4/encryption/pfs/protocols: https://api.black.riseup.net/3/config/eip-service.json; data_retention/anonymous_signup/signup_email: https://riseup.net/en/vpn/security-issues

Something wrong or out of date? Report an error