The affiliate "best VPN" lists crown NordVPN and ExpressVPN. The people who actually use these products rank Mullvad and Proton far higher. We put both lists side by side — and the gap is the whole story.
Open any major VPN review site and you'll see roughly the same podium: NordVPN at #1, ExpressVPN and Surfshark close behind. Open a forum where people compare notes with nothing to sell, and you see almost the inverse — Mullvad and Proton on top, the big advertised brands in the middle. Both can't be right. So we measured it.
Our Sentiment Index scores each VPN from two sources where people have no commission incentive: technical discussion on Hacker News (power-user sentiment, scored for tone) and Apple App Store reviews (mainstream sentiment). We blend them into a single 0–100 score, update it monthly, and never let payout data touch it. It is a measure of what users say, not what a brand pays. Here is where the major providers actually land.
| VPN | Real-user index | Power-user tone | Owner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mullvad | 77.7 | 75.0 | Independent (Sweden) |
| Proton VPN | 70.3 | 59.1 | Proton (non-profit-controlled) |
| TunnelBear | 66.5 | 52.0 | McAfee |
| Surfshark | 56.1 | 35.5 | Nord Security |
| NordVPN | 50.6 | 27.7 | Nord Security |
| ExpressVPN | 49.6 | 25.9 | Kape Technologies |
| CyberGhost | 41.6 | 18.5 | Kape Technologies |
| Private Internet Access | insufficient data | — | Kape Technologies |
| IPVanish | insufficient data | — | Ziff Davis |
Scores as of June 2026 from the VPN Insider Sentiment Index. Sample sizes are still modest (see caveats below); we publish the count behind every score on the index page.
On a typical affiliate review site — including the ones that loudly call themselves "evidence-based" and "no pay-to-play" — the running order is almost reversed at the top:
| Typical affiliate "best VPN" order | Real-user index | The mismatch |
|---|---|---|
| 1. NordVPN ("Best Overall") | 50.6 | Mid-pack with users |
| 2. ExpressVPN | 49.6 | Mid-pack with users |
| 3. Surfshark | 56.1 | Better, but Nord-owned |
| Often buried / "for purists": Mullvad | 77.7 | Highest real score |
| Often #4–6: Proton VPN | 70.3 | 2nd highest |
The two VPNs that real users rate highest — Mullvad and Proton — are the two that consistently appear lower on commercial lists, when they appear at all. The brands at the top of the bought lists sit in the middle of the satisfaction data.
There's no conspiracy required to explain this — just incentives. The single biggest predictor of where a VPN lands on an affiliate list isn't user satisfaction; it's how much the VPN pays per sale.
Mullvad is the tell. It is the highest-scoring VPN in our index, and it runs no affiliate program at all — a flat €5/month, no discounts, no commissions, no coupons. There is literally nothing for a review site to earn by recommending it. So on commission-funded sites it's perpetually a footnote: "great if you're a privacy purist, but…" The thing that makes it un-monetizable is unrelated to whether it's good. Users who've tried it think it's the best. The lists that earn money can't afford to say so.
The mirror image is the big-commission brands. NordVPN and ExpressVPN pay generous, well-structured affiliate payouts, which is exactly why they sit at #1 on site after site — and why their renewal prices are high enough to fund those payouts ($11.59/mo and $9.99/mo respectively, versus Mullvad's flat $5.50). The ranking and the price tag are the same machine.
When a "best VPN" list ranks the providers that pay commissions above the providers users actually prefer, you're not reading a review — you're reading a rate card.
We'd be doing exactly what we criticize if we oversold our own numbers, so: our sample sizes are still modest (single-digit to low-double-digit mentions per brand in this snapshot), which is why PIA and IPVanish don't yet have a publishable score. Sentiment is also not the same as lab testing — a VPN can be beloved and still slower than a rival in a speed test. Our index measures satisfaction and trust as expressed by real users, not megabits. We treat it as one honest input, published with its sample counts, updated monthly, and never weighted by who pays us. That's the whole point: you can see the math.
You don't have to take our ranking as gospel — you should take the gap seriously. The next time a review site puts NordVPN at #1 and tucks Mullvad into an honorable mention, ask the only question that explains it: which one pays them more? Then go look at what users say. We make that easy on purpose.
VPNInsider.org · Industry Analysis · updated monthly · June 2026.