Astrill is a Seychelles-based VPN service that positions itself as a technology leader for VPN services. Astrill respects privacy and offers many of the features typical of VPNs, such as kill switch and OpenVPN tunnel. They also include the latest WireGuard protocol and their own proprietary protocol – StealthVPN – which is perfect for restricted countries like China.
VPNs can also be customized extensively by choosing which apps or websites to filter through a secure connection. This is a handy feature if you only need a VPN to unblock certain geographically restricted sites.
Unfortunately, this self-proclaimed technology leader doesn’t come cheap. But does the big price tag make sense? After all, they have a strict no-refund policy. The level of confidence in their product is commendable, so let’s take a closer look at Astrill VPN and see if it lives up to our high expectations.
Key Data
| Features | Data |
|---|---|
|
Over All Rank |
#13 |
|
Usability |
2.5/5 |
|
Log Files |
No Logging Policy |
|
Locations |
94 Countries, 3000+Servers |
|
Support |
24/7 Live Chat |
|
Encryption/Protocol |
256-bit AES/SSTP, PPTP, OpenVPN, IPSec and L2TP |
|
Cost |
$8.33/Month |
Speed and Reliability
Astrill is a fast VPN that impresses, especially for long-haul connections. However, slower local speeds and poor latency performance mean that overall it can’t compete with the fastest VPNs.
Astrill also has its own in-app speed testing tool that claims to be “more accurate than the web tool“. It allows you to test the speed and ping of each server in real time, which helps you decide which server is the fastest in a given location.
Overall, Astrill delivered average connection speeds, which is fast enough for torrenting, streaming, and browsing, but we’d like to see faster speeds for the same country.
All of the VPNs we tested went through a rigorous speed test using the OpenVPN protocol to determine their average speeds locally and globally.
Local Speed Test Result
| Connection | Ping | Download Speed | Upload Speed |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Without VPN |
2ms |
99.5 Mbps |
99.68 Mbps |
|
With VPN |
14ms |
80.11 Mbps |
92.15 Mbps |
With the Astrill VPN, we measured an average download speed of 80 Mbps on a nearby server.Astrill’s 19% speed loss was lower than the best local download speeds we’ve seen, which are often below 10%. However, speeds are rarely slow and do not fluctuate erratically.
- Download speed without Astrill: 99.50Mbps
- Download speed with Astrill: 80.11Mbps
- When Astrill was running, our download speed dropped: 19%
Distance Speed Test
Astrill VPN performs better in terms of long-distance global speeds. This means that if you want to connect to a distant country, Astrill will do its job to deliver the best performance with very low latency.
These average speed results were recorded for connections to Astrill servers from London to the following locations.
- USA (downloads) and 36 Mbit/s (upload)
- Germany: 77 Mbit/s (downloads) and 90 Mbit/s (upload)
- Singapore: 55 Mbit/s (download) and 18 Mbit/s (upload)
- Australia: 50 Mbit/s (download) and 12 Mbit/s (upload)
These are excellent results for long-distance connections. In the US, 81Mbps is very fast, and the results in Australia and Singapore are equally impressive.
Pricing Options
| Time Period | 1 Month | 6 Months | 1 Year |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Price |
$15.90/Month |
$11.65/Month |
$8.33/Month |
Choose between personal and business subscriptions. If you opt for the personal plan, you can get Astrill VPN Protection for $15.90 per month by subscription, $11.65 per month for a 6-month subscription, and $8.33 per month for an annual subscription. The service offers a 7-day free trial, but is not available to Chinese users.
Server Locations
Below the toggle button, you’ll find three different buttons – Recommended, Favorites, and All. We didn’t find these options very useful. To learn more, we right-clicked the Shift button and found that the recommended servers are divided by continent. This is very useful if you need to connect to a specific continent. This is also useful if the recommended servers are located in the country where the content you want to access is located.
You can easily find P2P servers by selecting the servers marked with an asterisk in the list. However, to stream, you need to manually find the server for the desired country. Even after manually finding the country, the streaming channel does not have to work on the selected server.
If the streaming channel doesn’t work on the server you’re connected to, you’ll have to manually connect to other servers in that country, and this is where users can run into problems.
Users can’t connect to every server every time. For example, if you need to access Netflix in the US, you can’t afford to connect to every server to see if Netflix works on that server. The only way to avoid this is to provide a separate list of streaming servers.
An interesting fact about Astrill VPN servers is that the number of servers in Asia, Africa and South America is comparable to the number of servers in Europe and the US. Most VPN providers focus on the US and European user base, but Astrill is different.
In addition to the North American and European user base, they also target the user base available in Asia. More than two dozen servers are deployed in Japan and more than a dozen in Taiwan. They also have several servers in Singapore, South Korea, India and Hong Kong.
Such a large number of servers makes the product ideal for Asian users in terms of speed. The same is true for North American and European users.
Let’s not forget about users in Oceania. For them, there are also servers in Australia and New Zealand. In South America, there are servers in Brazil, Chile and Panama. Thus, they have more than 300 servers covering all major countries.
Some VPN providers have more than a thousand servers, but they still can’t match the speed of Astrill’s VPN. Maybe it’s because of the clever placement of the servers, or the different types of protocols they offer.
Privacy and Logging
VPN privacy policies are often poorly written, not informative, and with little useful information, but Astrill does a better job.
The document is well structured. Clear headings make it easy to find the areas you need to know about – cookie usage, information collected, how it’s shared – and the sections are clear and jargon-free.
The “Strict No Logging Policy” section isn’t just a boring, generic “we don’t store logs” like many competitors do. Instead, Astrill takes the time to describe its procedures and what it actually does.
For example, Astrill states. “Our system records active sessions – connection times, IP addresses, device types, and Astrill VPN application versions for the duration of the VPN session. Once you disconnect from the VPN, that information is permanently deleted from our system.”
Although it is a persistent log, the company states that it does not store IP addresses, so it cannot associate these sessions with any Internet activity.
Good news, then, for logging, but there’s another problem. The policy explains that the company not only collects an email address and name when you sign up, but “may also ask for a phone number and address, depending on the payment method.“
We confirmed this in a previous review when the site asked for a verifiable mobile number before signing up for a trial. We understand the need to protect freeloaders from abuse, but when we’re only paying $20 for a month, we don’t want to be asked for a cell phone number and a physical address.
Kill Switch
Astrile even has its own kill switch! You can find it under Settings > Privacy > Internet Kill Switch. Once selected, you are protected from sending unencrypted traffic to your ISP in the event of a VPN failure. The kill switch disconnects you completely from the Internet until the VPN connection is restored. This is a very valuable feature that demonstrates Astrill’s commitment to providing a quality service.
Streaming Performance
In terms of streaming performance, the Astrill has a mixed record, with both Netflix and Hulu working without a hitch. Not only that, but both sites were very responsive and loaded very quickly.
On the other hand, Amazon Prime Video wouldn’t let us stream anything while connected to the Astrill VPN. Attempting to stream foreign sites didn’t work either, with BBC iPlayer telling us we couldn’t see its content.
While the sites we could access worked fine, Astrill couldn’t access all the streaming sites we tried. For those interested in a more reliable VPN to bypass geo-blocking.
Customer Support
When it comes to customer support, Astrill leaves no stone unturned. They have their own wiki with plenty of guides and tutorials on how to set everything up. There is also a pretty extensive customer support portal that includes FAQs and video tutorials.
To contact a customer support representative directly, there is a contact form and 24/7 live chat. I contacted customer support via live chat regarding an issue with OpenVPN on Windows. The representative came through to my chat in about a minute.
Overall, the customer support experience was good. The representative walked me through the main troubleshooting steps and answered all my questions, but ultimately could not resolve the issue.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Speed
- Multiple servers available in multiple countries
Cons
- Big target for China VPN blocking. Recently, it has been blocked frequently
- You have to pay extra for some premium features
- Below average customer support
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Astrill VPN worth it?
If you don’t mind the high price, Astrill is a good option. It has extremely fast servers (I averaged 291 Mbps), the ability to share multiple streaming platforms, and offers strong security features and multiple encryption protocols.
However, it is several times more expensive than my preferred VPN, NordVPN. It has similarly fast servers, access to multiple streaming services (Hulu, BBC iPlayer, and Amazon Prime), and a secure server infrastructure – and it’s about 4x cheaper. You can also try NordVPN for free for 30 days with a money-back guarantee.
Can I use Astrill VPN for free?
Yes, you can try Astrill completely free for 1 week. Just visit this page, enter your email address to sign up for the free trial, and verify your phone number. You will be redirected to the download page where you can download the appropriate installer. You can even sign up for another free trial if you register with a different email address and number.
Is Astrill VPN really secure?
Yes, Astrill has strong security and privacy features to keep you safe online. The provider has also developed the highly regarded OpenWeb and StealthVPN proprietary encryption protocols. OpenWeb is optimized for speed and streaming, while StealthVPN gives you secure access to the open Internet in China.
Does Astrill VPN work with Netflix?
Yes, AstrillVPN works with Netflix. You can unblock the service in the US and elsewhere.
Conclusion
Astrill is a fantastic VPN with great speeds, solid security features, strong privacy policies, and torrent support – overall my favorite VPN in China. It even unblocks some streaming services, including Netflix, HBO, and Disney+, though it doesn’t work with some other services like Hulu and BBC iPlayer.
However, this comes at a high price, and ExpressVPN is a cheaper alternative to Astrill with similarly fast speeds, access to a wider range of streaming services, and strong security. Fortunately, with the money-back guarantee, you can try NordVPN for free for 30 days and decide which VPN you want to use.
