Astrill VPN is a Seychelles-based provider. It is a bit of a mixed bag that has several strengths as well as quite a few weaknesses. The good aspects of the VPN include fast speeds, the capability to unblock Netflix and BBC iPlayer, and surprisingly, the fact that it works in China! Unfortunately, this is where the good stops and the bad begins, as you’ll learn in detail in this Astrill VPN review.
It has a small server network which pales in comparison to the likes of ExpressVPN nor does it have an attractive pricing strategy such as Surfshark. In fact, it is quite expensive with its lowest plan costing $12.50/month for a 2-year subscription.
Overall, the provider has earned a rating of 3.0/5.0. Therefore, we would recommend Astrill VPN, but it is far from being the best available option out there. You can check more best VPNs recommended by us.
Ranked #13 out of 56 VPNs
Key Findings – Astrill VPN Review
Here are our key findings through our Astrill VPN review:
- Pricing — Offers expensive pricing plans.
- Servers — Cover the globe but not extensively.
- Security — Offers top-notch protocols and encryption.
- Speeds — Excellent speeds on most servers.
- Streaming — Unblocks Netflix, Hulu, and BBC iPlayer only.
- Compatibility — Compatible with most devices.
- Bypass Censorship — Works well in China.
- Customer Support — Responsive customer support.
Pros
- Works well in China
- Customer support is helpful
- 5 simultaneous connections
- Good speeds
Cons
- Expensive pricing plans
- Outdated UI
- Modest list of servers
- No money-back guarantee
Pricing— Rating: 5.5/10
Astrill VPN has one of the most costly pricing plans for its users. Like any other VPN service, the service comes with three packages that include all the features except a refund policy or money-back guarantee. Although there are certain perks available only to VIP users.
The Astrill VPN price packages look something like this:
| Deals | Prices |
|---|---|
| Monthly | US$30.00/mo |
| Yearly | US$15.00/mo |
| 2-Year | US$12.50/mo |
Astrill VPN’s pricing plans are a bit heavy on the pocket.
Apart from these pricing plans, you can avail of other services in the form of dedicated IP, VIP add-on, and Astrill VPN router too.
You can get the above-described services at the cost of:
- Dedicated IP – $5.00/month
- VIP Add-on – $10.00/month
For providers that cost lower, check the Cheapest VPN services.
Payment Methods
Currently, Astrill VPN delivers a comprehensive list of online payment options including:
- PayPal
- Bitcoin
- UnionPay
- American Express
- Maestro
- VISA
- Master Card
- Perfect Money
Astrill also offers a free trial for 7-days. You can simply sign up for the account and use the Asrtrill free trial for 7 days without paying a single penny.
Servers— Rating: 8.5/10
Astrill provides servers in 112 cities across 57 countries to its users. Its servers are all-physical and diverse. Mostly they cover all the continents with servers specifically in Asian countries. In one way, it helps resolve any congestion issues Asians may face.
Currently, Astrill offers servers in 5 countries of the Americas, 36 countries in Europe, 11 countries in the Asia Pacific, and 6 countries in the Middle East and Africa.
Astrill VPN has a global network of servers.
Although the Astrill VPN server list is small in number and pales in comparison to other providers, Astrill promises better performance due to its reliance on dedicated VPN services. So whether you are in the USA, France, Germany China, Japan, Singapore, or anywhere in the world Astrill has got
Security — Rating: 9.5/10
In terms of security features, Astrill VPN has quite an impressive set which makes it completely safe and secure. It is easy to see why:
There are many tunneling protocols that you can use which include OpenWeb, OpenVPN, PPTP, L2TP/IPSec, WireGuard, OpenConnect IPSec, StealthVPN, SSTP, Cisco, and IKEv2/IPSec.
Astrill VPN is a great option for those looking for a secure and reliable VPN service. With its AES 256-bit encryption and strong protocol support, you can trust that your internet traffic and connections are protected. While it may not be the best free VPN for China, it is still a solid choice for those willing to pay for a premium service.
Additional Security Features
Other than the core security features, Astrill also offers the following:
Astrill VPN Kill Switch Feature
Astrill VPN offers other essential privacy benefits such as Kill Switch. When you lose your VPN connection, your IP address is at risk of being exposed to your local ISP.
To prevent this from happening, Astrill provides a Kill Switch feature. This feature kills your internet whenever you lose your VPN connection. To toggle this feature, go to the privacy option in the settings tab.
Astrill VPN Private IP
The standard Astrill plan offers shared IP addresses to users. However, you can get dedicated (Private) IPs as well if you want your VPN sessions to run through a single IP that belongs entirely to you. The Private IP extra feature will cost you an additional $5/month.
Astrill VIP Add-on
This add-on offers faster speed and lower latency, especially for gaming users situated in Asia. In addition, it offers additional anonymizing features such as multi-hop.
This feature is quite expensive, however, costing an additional $10/month.
Does Astrill VPN Keep Logs?
Astrill has a fairly strong logging policy. For instance, they store connection time, IP address, and device type for the duration of your VPN session. However, this information is deleted permanently as soon as you disconnect from the VPN, so the company doesn’t retain any sensitive information about you.
An excerpt from Astrill VPN’s privacy policy regarding logging user data.
This makes Astrill a secure VPN that you can rely on for your privacy protection. You can learn more about the logging policies of different VPNs through the one-detailed guide.
IP Leak Test:
The VPN was easily able to pass the IP leak test.
Astrill VPN passed our IP leak test.
DNS Leak Test:
Astrill VPN had no trouble with the DNS leak test either.
Astrill VPN passed our DNS leak test successfully.
WebRTC Leak Test:
The WebRTC test results also came clear for Astrill.
We faced no WebRTC leaks while using Astrill VPN.
Virus Test:
We tested its Windows setup file to check if it exposed some viruses or not. Luckily, the app does not contain any malware.
We found no virus or malware in Astrill VPN’s Windows set up file.
These results show that Astrill has good leak protection in place.
Speeds — Rating: 8.0/10
Astrill VPN is considerably fast with excellent speeds across its network, according to our VPN Astrill review research. To check how fast it is, we performed the Astrill VPN speed test using a 30 Mbps internet connection. Here are the results:
First up is a US server which gave a pretty good speed. We receive a download speed of 20.53 Mbps and an upload speed 0f 18.45 Mbps along with 57 ms pings.
Astrill VPN showed excellent speeds on its US servers.
The UK server also delivered decent speeds, though it dropped somewhat in relation to the US server. We received a download speed of 18.74 Mbps and an upload speed of 13.21 Mbps along with 79 ms pings.
Astrill VPN’s speeds on its UK server were also sufficient.
We also tested a German server. This was the slowest of all the ones tested, but still not bad considering how a lot of VPNs are unable to reach this mark. We received a download speed of 16.86 Mbps and an upload speed of 14.21 Mbps along with 72 ms pings.
Astrill VPN’s German servers also performed well during our tests.
Therefore, Astrill VPN is a reasonably fast service. Based on our experience, you’ll not face any issues performing your day-to-day tasks using Astrill VPN’s services. Best of all, its long-distance connection works quite well. However, there’s a possibility you may face issues with its short-distance connections as it provides high pings, therefore reducing the speeds.
As a result, Astrill VPN may not prove itself effective for gaming purposes.
Streaming– Rating: 4.5/10
Astrill VPN works fine with Netflix on specific servers. Since Netflix has been cracking down on VPN providers to prevent users from violating geo-restrictions, many servers that were functional before are no longer effective for Netflix.
You can connect to its US – Dallas 1 server to unblock the US Netflix media library anonymously. Other servers such as US Chicago also work well for this purpose:
Astrill VPN unblocked Netflix US for us to stream all of its titles in HD.
Other Streaming Services
We also tested it for BBC iPlayer and the provider managed to unblock it on its UK-Manchester servers:
We faced no issues unblocking BBC iPlayer using Astrill VPN servers.
Apart from unblocking Netflix US, Hulu, and BBC iPlayer, Astrill VPN isn’t effective in bypassing geo-restrictions of other streaming services. That’s why it’s smart enough not to brand itself as a streaming VPN.
Torrenting
Astrill works with P2P and torrents on specific servers. Every Astrill VPN P2P server is marked with a golden star symbol next to them. If you want to connect to torrent websites and download P2P files, you must be connected to these servers.
As per our experience, Astrill managed to pick up the average bitrate speed and thanks to its P2P-optimized servers, it is a good option for torrenting. You can also make use of the port forwarding feature and security measures which can ensure you download risk-free torrents.
We could download a 2GB file within 15 minutes easily. Although the speed dropped a couple of times, it always rose back within a few seconds which was a huge relief. Most of the VPNs fail to pick up speed or take too much time to download even the smallest files which can be painstaking.
Compatibility – Rating: 7.5/10
Astrill VPN is compatible with Windows, macOS, Android, Linux, iOS, and routers. To our surprise, they also support the TOR browser too.
Installation Apps and Easy to Use
As far as their usability goes, the apps are simple and easy to use. Once you have downloaded the app on your preferred device, you can start using the service in a moment. However, the user interface feels a bit outdated, something that was a part of Windows XP or thereof. We didn’t find it to our liking.
On the other hand, Astrill VPN offers a user interface that only needs your email address and password to log in. After logging in, you may choose your desired protocol, be it OpenVPN or Stealth VPN hassle-free. It doesn’t require a third party client to download the Astrill VPN apps on specific devices either so that’s a huge relief.
Astrill VPN also offers set up tutorials for different operating systems on its website; step-by-step guides and video tutorials as well.
Astrill VPN for Windows
The Windows VPN client appears quite ugly, to be honest. But it is easy enough to use and get going. You can select your preferred server and protocol from the home screen, which makes the app quite convenient for users.
Astrill VPN for macOS
Astrill VPN Mac looks and behaves exactly the same as the Windows app with the same home-screen functionality for server and protocol selection.
Astrill VPN Android App
The Astrill VPN android app is much more appealing than its desktop counterparts. However, its functionalities and behavior remain largely the same with a few differences.
For instance, there’s no built-in kill switch mechanism in the Android Astrill VPN app. Aside from this, there are no drawbacks and the app works flawlessly otherwise.
Astrill VPN iOS App
The Astrill VPN iPhone app has minor stylistic changes as compared to the Android version, but it is pretty much the same other than the design. You can toggle the VPN on and off from the home screen and connect to your desired one from the same as well with a decent connectivity response.
Bypass Censorship— Rating: 9.0/10
Astrill VPN is still one of the few VPNs that work in China and other countries with restrictive laws. That’s majorly due to the StealthVPN protocol and Smart Mode feature that have been designed to bypass website blocks and internet shutdowns. The provider offers strong proprietary protocols that obfuscate your VPN traffic, making it undetectable to firewalls.
With Astrill VPN in China, users can hide their IP addresses and can access streaming websites and popular social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter. So, if you’re fed up with Chinese censorship, you can count on Astrill VPN to bypass online restrictions in the country. It was definitely a pleasant surprise for us when we managed to bypass the Great Firewall of China with ease.
However, keep in mind that you probably won’t be able to download Astrill VPN in restrictive countries because VPN websites are generally blocked in the country. So, if you’re traveling to such countries, download the VPN on your laptop/devices beforehand.
Furthermore you can unveil the key to unblocking the Great Firewall of China with Windscribe, the best free VPN for China. While exploring Astrill VPN’s features in our review, don’t miss out on how Windscribe offers unmatched accessibility and security in circumventing censorship barriers.
Customer Support— Rating: 8.0/10
Astrill VPN has satisfactory customer service. It offers an extensive FAQ section, a knowledge base, email support, live chat, and set up tutorials as well.
We clicked on the live chat option on its website. We were asked to provide an email address and our question. We typed out a query and within a minute heard back from a representative of Astrill VPN. Given the live chat is active 24/7, the quick reply definitely left an impression in our book.
Astrill VPN customer support helped in resolving our queries.
The customer representative immediately spotted the issue once we described it and lend us a hand in the most polite manner. Regardless of the queries we asked, the representative took his time to explain each and everything. Overall, we had a great experience and chat with Astrill’s customer support.
Alternatives to Astrill VPN
If Astrill VPN isn’t aligning with your preferences, considering alternatives and reading unbiased VPN reviews can help you find the right fit. Here are reviews of other VPN services to aid in your decision-making process:
- ProtonVPN review
- SaferVPN review
- Buffered VPN review
- Keezel Review
- Safeweb VPN Review
- OverPlay review
- ZenVPN review
- Hola VPN review
- Unlocator review
- VPN Gate review
- NordVPN review
FAQs: Astrill VPN Review
Is Astrill VPN good?
Yes, Astrill VPN is a good VPN. You can download Astrill VPN’s apps for Windows, Linux, iOS, macOS, router, and Android, however, you’ll need a subscription first. Unless you have a subscription you’ll not be able to use Astrill at all.
You may also opt for the limited free version of Astrill for Android from the Google Play Store in certain regions.
Does Astrill VPN work with Netflix?
Yes, some servers of Astrill VPN are capable of working with Netflix and a few other streaming sites around the world. However, there are 50/50 chance of them working out successfully.
Is Astrill safe in China?
Yes, Astrill VPN is safe for China even when many other VPN providers have a hard time bypassing the Great Firewall of China. Astrill is one of the few VPNs that work 100% in China despite the restrictive laws of the country thanks to its Stealth VPN protocol and Smart Mode feature.
Do We Recommend Astrill VPN?
After this Astrill VPN Review. Yes, we do recommend Astrill VPN. However, the provider has as many pros as there are cons.
In terms of pros, it offers a free trial and is one of the few services that work in China. It also unblocks Netflix with such ease and is torrent-friendly too. The speed tests that I conducted for this Astrill VPN review also show great speed levels.
However, many customers are unhappy with the service and it has a bad reputation on Trustpilot. Furthermore, it has a small server network and is very expensive compared to other notable brands that offer more features with better performance.
This is the reason, we have given the service 3.0/5.0 stars ratings. Astrill is a VPN that is decent, but it’s certainly not the best that the industry has to offer.
Recent Comments 10
I have been with Astrill for five years but I am now looking at other providers as they sent me a VPN router that never worked, I was on remote with tech support for two days after opening the router, literally brand new and the router worked for one evening. They are refusing to refund citing warranty on a two day old router that never worked. Terrible service for the first time in five years, just terrible.
Their refund policy is at their discretion. After hours of technical support online since their phone systems are down I learned that their customer service representative had lied to me about the services offered period I was told I could use this service as a hotspot period after only a few hours of purchasing based on this misrepresentation of their product they are refusing to give me a refund
Astrill VPN is really awful.I have used it for the past 2 years and I can safely say that I have never encountered any issue with it. It is fast, reliable and more importantly, it has low cost.
They have horrible customer service. When dealing with VPNs you will need technical support no matter how Internet savvy you are. I am formed the service I needed, I pay them, then they inform me I need to spend more money to actually use the service.
I must say that this is not true! I am using Astrill now for about 2 years and technical support could not be better! Every time I need some technical support they’re more than welcoming.
Been using PureVpn before, but it is not good as Astrill.
Maybe the customer service experience you had was an isolated issue. I have been with Astrill for three years now and had to contact them thrice. My experience with their tech support is great and never had to call again after each instance.
Astrill offers good services.
Last year I quit using Astrill just because I was facing a bit difficulty in connection and with that I saw a few bad responses by other customers.
Later on, I realized that I made a mistake to switch to other vpn service.
I am back to using Astrill since more than last 9 months and I am happy with it.
I would advise all others to try it on their own rather than being misguided by false information.
ASTRILL CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS
They ignore all your refund related questions
and quite frankly, the only thing they ever respond to you with is with technical solutions for problems you didn’t even ask. I’m better they use automated messages to reply to everyone based on keywords in the ticket.
Best Vpn service but new IOS app is not working. Please Fix it ASAP.
Astrill is NOT honost to their customer. Many things posted on their webpage are lies. Especially the logging and privacy policy. Below was a post by Astrill ex-engineer (http://tinyurl.com/nombsv6). Judge for yourself.
I worked for Astrill so I can tell you the claims attributed to them on that page are mostly bullshit.
1) We do not keep logs
Reality) False. They do keep logs. With reguard to http traffic, they log every single single page loaded for every customer using their VPN servers. They log your account number, the requested url, the time of the request. This information is kept for months at a time and then thrown into a journal system.
2) We do not disclose your customer information
Reality) Mostly true. Astrill is mostly concerned with closing the accounts of people who abuse their network. If anyone asks they will say they can’t identify what customers are doing, but in reality is Astrill is constantly scanning through their logs looking for people running scripts which hit google/facebook (or any other site) too frequently, and then those accounts are disabled.
3) We may enable logs on a server in case of network abuse
Reality) False. Http requests are logged on all servers and that data is kept for a minimum of three months. Always. When I asked about this discrepancy between what they say publicly and what they do privately I was told we would do whatever it takes to run the company (even if that includes deceiving the customers).
4) We do not store any files, we provide IP transit only. Therefore, we can’t fulfill any “take down(s)”
Reality) False. Astrill receives a whole bunch of take down notices every single day and then blocks users from reaching those destinations. One of the uses of the logs they keep is to locate copyright troll IPs. We developed scripts to compare take down requests (which include our offending torrent IP addresses and time stamps) to locate the trolls, and then block our clients from connecting to them. We still did a lot of take downs, but by locating copyright troll IPs (by running scripts on our logs) we were able to block many IPs.
5) The majority of users use shared IP space therefore we are not able to identify the customer
Reality) False. We knew exactly who registered what accounts and logs every one’s activity. We can and do identify your account. We close accounts each day for abuse. We were working on a system to throw abusive accounts onto one server. I don’t know what progress was made in this endeavor.
6) P2P activity is allowed on many of our servers
Reality) True. These are the servers marked with a star in the connection tools we provide.