NordVPN

NordVPN is the largest VPN in this category and the one most people have heard of, and the fact worth knowing is that it is Lithuanian. Nord Security was founded in Vilnius in 2012 by two childhood friends, became one of Lithuania's handful of unicorns, and still has its headquarters and most of its 900-plus staff there.

What that scale buys is the thing smaller privacy-focused providers cannot match: servers in far more countries, consistently high speeds because capacity is not scarce, and applications on every platform that work without configuration. For streaming, travel and everyday use those are the properties that actually determine whether a VPN gets used or quietly abandoned.

Its no-logs policy has been independently audited, which is the relevant assurance for a provider you cannot inspect — and it is a weaker guarantee than Mullvad's, which accepts cash and needs no account at all. That is the honest comparison: NordVPN asks you to trust an audited company, while Mullvad and IVPN are designed so that trust is needed less. Lithuania is inside the EU, which is a mixed position for a VPN — GDPR applies, and so does EU law enforcement cooperation, whereas the strictest privacy providers deliberately sit elsewhere. Subscription pricing is cheapest on multi-year plans, which is a long commitment for a service you may want to change.

What NordVPN does well

• Largest server network of any provider here
• Consistently fast, with capacity across many countries
• Independently audited no-logs policy
• Polished applications on every platform
• Lithuanian company, EU jurisdiction

Where NordVPN falls short

• Requires an account, unlike Mullvad
• Audited trust rather than a design that needs less trust
• EU jurisdiction cuts both ways for a VPN
• Best pricing needs a multi-year commitment

Standout feature. The one VPN most people already know is Lithuanian — European scale without giving up speed or coverage.