Mullvad vs ProtonVPN for Journalists

Published April 2026 · Last updated April 2026

Mullvad requires no account, no email, no name. Pay with cash. ProtonVPN offers a free tier, Swiss jurisdiction, and integration with Proton Mail, Drive, and Calendar. Both are strong choices. The right one depends on whether you prioritize anonymity or ecosystem convenience.

When to use Mullvad

Mullvad is the right choice when anonymity matters more than convenience. No email. No name. No payment trail if you use cash or Monero. The account is a random number — there is no identity to subpoena. Mullvad's servers run entirely in RAM with no hard drives, which was verified by Cure53 in 2024. Even if a server is seized, there is nothing to extract.

For journalists working on investigations where the VPN provider itself could be compelled to produce records, Mullvad's architecture makes compliance with data requests impossible — there is no data to produce and no way to identify the account holder.

The tradeoff: no free tier, fewer servers (700 vs 4,600+), no integrated email or cloud storage, and Swedish jurisdiction falls within the 14 Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance (though the RAM-only architecture makes this largely irrelevant).

When to use ProtonVPN

ProtonVPN is the right choice for journalists who want a complete privacy suite. One Proton account gives you encrypted email, cloud storage, calendar, password manager, and VPN. Swiss jurisdiction provides strong legal privacy protections outside the 14 Eyes alliance. The free tier offers unlimited bandwidth — rare among reputable VPNs.

ProtonVPN's no-logs policy was tested in a real legal case in 2019: Swiss authorities requested data on a user, and Proton had nothing to provide. The company has since been audited by SEC Consult and Securitum.

The tradeoff: ProtonVPN requires an email account. Even with Bitcoin payment, your account is tied to an email address. This creates an identity link that Mullvad avoids entirely. For most journalists, this is acceptable. For those facing state-level adversaries who might target Proton specifically, Mullvad's anonymous architecture is stronger.

The verdict

Both are strong, audited, open-source VPNs with verified no-logs policies. The choice comes down to priorities. Mullvad wins on anonymity — no account, no identity, no data to seize. ProtonVPN wins on convenience — free tier, 4x more servers, Swiss jurisdiction, and a full privacy ecosystem. For high-risk investigative work where the VPN account itself must be untraceable, Mullvad is the stronger choice. For daily journalism with good privacy hygiene, ProtonVPN's ecosystem and free tier make it the more practical option.

Frequently asked questions