Surfshark and Hotspot Shield: which is the better VPN?

Surfshark and Hotspot Shield There are a lot of VPNs available, let’s face it. Additionally, they all appear to offer to be the best at unblocking blocked services and apps, the fastest, and the safest. Hotspot Shield and Surfshark are two of the most amazing suppliers available, and both are not afraid to boast about the benefits of their services.

Hotspot’s lightning-fast speeds and the latter’s limitless concurrent connections. One of the best features is that both have extremely low prices. Both also have a very respectable ranking on our list of the top VPNs overall. How do you decide between them, then? The purpose of this post is to help you make an informed decision by comparing all the features of both services, including cost, privacy features, speeds, and usability.

First impressions and specs

Surfshark and Hotspot Shield Although downloading any new program for the first time can be frightening, Hotspot Shield and Surfshark are two VPN providers that make the process as simple and reassuring as possible. These two providers feature some of the most user-friendly interfaces available, whether on desktop clients or their mobile VPN apps (in fact, we think they’re even better than the well-known NordVPN in that regard).

With a focus on desktop applications, Surfshark features a simple interface that consists of a large “Connect” button, a list of popular server locations, and the ability to jump on the nearest or fastest servers.

The main control panel of Hotspot is a little busier, but not overly so. You receive easily readable information about your IP, load time, latency, and a convenient speed test in addition to the server location you are connecting to. To gain ‘Quick Access’ to specialized servers for streaming and gaming, you just need to click.

In terms of specifications, Surfshark is superior to Hotspot Shield in terms of the number of servers (3,200—nearly triple Hotspot’s 1,800) and simultaneous device connections (unlimited plays six).

Surfshark might change your mind if you like to use your VPN on every computer, phone, tablet, router, smart TV, gaming console, and TV streaming device that is in use, even though the last point is unlikely to pose too many problems on a daily basis. The fact that Hotspot operates on a proprietary protocol makes it difficult to use on a wide variety of devices.

Surfshark and Hotspot Shield Plans, pricing and trials

It should come as no surprise that both of these service providers are well represented on our list of affordable VPNs. The primary reason you might be considering one of them over the comparatively expensive ExpressVPN is that there aren’t many other providers that can match what these two are capable of offering if you’re ready to commit to your chosen service for a few years.

The costs aren’t very noteworthy if you need anything quickly, but at roughly $13 per, they’re both rather costly. Additionally, their “mid-range” plans aren’t any better; a year of Hotspot costs $7.99 per month, while Surfshark’s six-month plan is $6.49.

No, to truly appreciate the value, you must examine the multi-year offerings. For some time now, Surfshark has been impressing us with its 2-year plan, which costs $2.49 a month. However, Hotspot has now entered the market and matched that rate with a unique deal that is only accessible to TechRadar readers. Additionally, Hotspot Shield is now available for $2.49 per month if you’re okay committing for three years rather than two.

You can feel even more at ease knowing that both providers provide money-back guarantees that allow you to cancel for a complete refund—Surfshark’s is 30 days, while Hotspot’s is 45 days—if that sounds okay to you (and, once more, you won’t find pricing much cheaper for this level of quality). With its well-known free VPN, Hotspot is another option that you might try, but it is a far worse experience due to its stringent bandwidth limits and one server constraint.

Surfshark and Hotspot Shield Privacy and security

Surfshark and Hotspot Shield approach the security game a little differently. The former takes a more conventional approach, providing a variety of popular VPN protocols, such as OpenVPN, IKEv2, QuickWireGuard, and Shadowsocks, which are designed expressly to help get around blocked websites in nations like China. Additionally, we appreciate that each server has private DNS, a fully functional kill switch, and “double hop” functionality to redirect attackers.

The configuration of Hotspot Shield is far more unique. Even though IKEv2 is now accessible, its magnificent-sounding Catapult Hydra will be the primary protocol you use. The service can guarantee the quickest server connection speeds conceivable (and they are fast) thanks to in-house technologies without sacrificing security. Even if it’s more difficult to examine Hotspot’s activities because it’s not connected to the OpenVPN network, cybersecurity behemoths like McAfee and Bitdefender use Catapult Hydra, so it must be doing something well!

During testing, we discovered that Hotspot Shield’s Windows 10 VPN client’s kill switch was excellent at preventing leaks.

To put it briefly, there isn’t much of a choice between them. While we appreciate Hotspot’s dedication to and effort in its own unique version, Surfshark offers an additional selection of protocols.

Surfshark and Hotspot Shield Shield Logging 

According to Surfshark, they simply store your email address and billing information. That’s all. Nothing more. Additionally, since it is headquartered in the British Virgin Islands, there is no requirement to gather any additional information. It’s quite comforting if everything is accurate.

On the other hand, Hotspot acknowledges that it retains more data, such as IP addresses, device hashes, URLs visited (although anonymised), and session length. This seems more intrusive than Surfshark in one sense. However, we appreciate that the provider is quite transparent about this and goes to considerable lengths to clarify that no information may be connected to your particular account or activity.

But regrettably, neither of these companies has recently hired an outside auditor to thoroughly examine their privacy policies and procedures. It’s one of the reasons we think Express and Nord are slightly ahead of the competition, and we’d love to see these two rivals exhibit the same level of complete openness.

Surfshark and Hotspot Shield Performance

“So far, so similar” may be your thought, yet this could be the moment when something important changes. The Catapult Hydra protocol we discussed above is partly responsible for Hotspot Shield’s long-standing position at the top of our fastest VPN guide. This meant that we were often experiencing 360-380 Mbps speeds on US servers throughout our tests on a 6000 Mbps line.

That’s very quick. In other words, if you have Hotspot Shield on when you’re streaming, torrenting, or gaming, it will hardly be noticeable. You can see that Hotspot is far superior on this criterion when you contrast that with the 150–210 Mbps speeds we observed from Surfshark when we enabled WireGuard (or the meager 100–150 Mbps on OpenVPN).

Surfshark and Hotspot Shield Shield Netflix and streaming

The good news is that both of these services proved to be very good streaming VPN partners during our testing. Unfortunately, that’s just one more factor making it difficult to separate these two providers!

These two defeated every geo-restriction we put in their way. For instance, both of these services were able to quickly grant access to Netflix libraries in the US, UK, Australia, and Japan for unique material during our Netflix VPN testing. The only glitch we noticed was from Hotspot, which strangely had trouble unlocking movies and television series that were only available in Canada at the time we asked.

Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, Disney Plus, and BBC iPlayer were all unable to block these two VPNs.

Surfshark and Hotspot Shield Torrents

Surfshark guarantees your safety when torrenting. As soon as it detects that you are sharing torrent data, it automatically connects you to a dedicated P2P server for the task.

However, Hotspot Shield surpasses expectations. Whether using a PC or a mobile device, it supports peer-to-peer (P2P) on all of its servers worldwide. It simply means that you have one less thing to worry about when surfing the internet, which is rather convenient.

When you add in Hotspot Shield’s lightning-fast speeds, limitless bandwidth, and incredibly powerful kill switch, you’ve got one of the best VPNs for torrenting available.

Surfshark and Hotspot Shield Shield Mobile apps

If you’re searching for a VPN for Android, this section is almost useless. The applications that you can download from the Play Store are essentially miniature versions of the Windows client. Similar user-friendly interfaces, convenient kill switches, and a substantially identical feature set (except the Hotspot app does not support the IKEv2 protocol.). Therefore, if you utilize Android, stay with the person who has convinced you thus far.

Surprisingly, the two differ far more in terms of their iPhone VPN applications. And in this area, Surfshark’s is the most impressive. Once more, it’s essentially a mobile counterpart of the desktop version, with the majority of the same features, options, and protocols.

On the other hand, Hotspot provides a slightly underpowered iOS counterpart, much like most of the competition. The convenient auto-connect and auto-start features, the kill switch, and numerous more settings are no longer available.

Surfshark and Hotspot Shield, which is better?

This is a highly competitive situation. The pricing isn’t the only factor that separates these two services from one another. Therefore, it might depend on your preferred use of your VPN. Hotspot Shield is the best option if speed is your top priority. Out of all the VPNs we tested, it provides some of the fastest connection speeds.

They are also reliable. Supporters of iOS, on the other hand, ought to be more inclined to favor Surfshark. But keep in mind that if you decide against using them, you have the security of a money-back guarantee. Because of this, your decision is risk-free.

Conclusion

Surfshark and Hotspot Shield Your priorities will determine which VPN is superior when comparing Surfshark vs Hotspot Shield. Affordability, limitless concurrent connections, and features like MultiHop and CleanWeb for improved security and privacy are all areas where Surfshark shines. For customers on a tight budget who want versatility and cutting-edge privacy features, it’s a great option.

On the other hand, Hotspot Shield distinguishes itself with its lightning-fast speeds, unique Catapult Hydra protocol, and robust gaming and streaming capabilities. It costs more, though, and only allows a certain number of simultaneous connections. Overall, Hotspot Shield is the best choice for people looking for speed and performance, whereas Surfshark might be a better choice if value and privacy are your top priorities. 

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