Is ProtonVPN a Good VPN For Gaming?

VPN (Virtual Private Network) apps are becoming increasingly popular among gamers - especially streamers, influencers, eSport players, and all kinds of people who make money from gaming and would rather avoid a random DDoS attack during their work. [Widget-Alpha-01]

But we prefer not to spend too much money on it, as we don't really use it daily; just for some specific situations. That's why we decided to review ProtonVPN, known as the best free VPN out there, and see how good it is for gaming. 

Before reading this review, note that the games we tested ProtonVPN with were Counter-Strike, PUBG, Rocket League, Halo Infinite, Warzone, World Of Tanks, Minecraft, League Of Legends, Rainbow Six:Siege, Dota 2, Star Wars Battlefront 2, Fortnite, Valorant, Overwatch 2 and Rust  2.

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Pricing (5/5)

As we mentioned above, ProtonVPN is available in a free version, which is already a good thing. However, the free version covers just 3 locations - Japan, the United States, and the Netherlands, meaning that a large part of you (especially gambling enthusiasts) will not benefit from it at all. So, as you probably guessed, in order to get access to the more extensive VPN server offer, we have to pay. And how much? 

Are these the most affordable prices for a VPN provider on the market? Not necessarily - a bit pricier than PureVPN,  but still not bad and definitely better than VyprVPN.

We also like the fact that ProtonVPN offers a 30-day money-back guarantee program (also offered by ExpressVPN), which is the current standard among VPN providers and an alternative to a free trial.

We think that most of the gamers would want to go for a Plus plan, which costs €10 per month. That's a decent price, although ProtonVPN's competitors have a similar one, so to win them over in the market, they need to offer slightly better features and performance. Are they doing that?

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ProtonVPN Gaming Performance (2/5)

Unfortunately, ProtonVPN's performance is far from perfect, especially for gamers. 

One thing we noticed and don’t like was a significant decrease in download values and an increase in ping in virtually every game we tested.

Before ProtonVPN:

• Ping: 12ms
• Download Speed: 133,54 Mbps
• Upload: 24,30 Mbps

After ProtonVPN:

• Ping: 33ms
• Download Speed: 34,94 Mbps
• Upload: 10,33 Mbps

And sure, whenever you use a VPN server, you expect your internet speed to drop a bit, but not so much! Other than a different IP address and full anonymity, we still want to keep our fast speed. There are better options out there, namely TorGuard.

Moreover, while playing the CS:GO ranked game, we experienced 9 short disconnects; and we were using the closest VPN server ProtonVPN had in their offer. 

Any kinds of disconnects and lags have no place in games, especially when we're trying to rank up and the outcome of our match matters, and that's why we give ProtonVPN a 2/5 rating in terms of performance. For better performance, IPVanish is definitely a better choice.

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Reputation among gamers (2/5)

There’s not much feedback about ProtonVPN from gamers on the internet because it’s just not a popular VPN service provider for them (the most popular ones are probably NordVPN and Surfshark VPN). 

If you look at their profile on Trustpilot, there is a ton of bad reviews about the same thing we wrote about - a significant drop in download speed and random short disconnects. And again, this all has no place in gaming. 

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Numbers of locations (4/5)

ProtonVPN's Plus plan offers over 1500 servers in 61 countries, which is quite a good number. You will find virtually all popular server locations here, regardless of the continent, and you should have no problem choosing the right server VPN for you. 

So, if you need to check content using IP addresses from as many countries as possible, ProtonVPN can serve you quite well. So, even though the sheer range of available locations is quite attractive, remember that quantity does not always mean quality. 

Some servers don't work as well as they should, and we wouldn't call them the most stable on the market. But again, that's where this 30-day money-back guarantee program kicks in, giving you a chance to see if the server you want to use frequently will be good enough for your gaming sessions.

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Customer Support (2/5)

ProtonVPN's customer support is also not their strongest point. First of all, they have no customer live chat support, which is the current standard for VPN service providers. Let's be honest, when it comes to gaming, VPNs are used by people who heard somewhere that they can use it to unlock some region-locked content or test a new patch faster. Many of them haven't even used anything like that, so they may feel lost, and that's why fast customer support is a must for a VPN provider. 

However, ProtonVPN runs on a ticket system, where you’ll usually get an answer within a few hours. Can we call it a fast answer? No, but it's better than nothing. Another standard for customer support should be a FAQ section with articles describing the most common problems. And well, there is some kind of FAQ section, but we can't say it's helpful. 

The number of covered issues is kept to a minimum, and we really don't want to be so cruel to ProtonVPN in our review, but that's just another aspect that needs to be improved, in our opinion. 

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With all that said, we’re confident to say that ProtonVPN is not the best VPN service provider for gaming. Even though they can boast a good number of supported locations, their servers are just too unstable for us to recommend it to a gamer. Sure, if you want to access some region-locked content, ProtonVPN might work as a tool for it, especially since it comes in a free version. However, when it comes to actually playing video games, it wouldn’t be our go-to VPN service provider.

VPN (Virtual Private Network) apps are becoming increasingly popular among gamers - especially streamers, influencers, eSport players, and all kinds of people who make money from gaming and would rather avoid a random DDoS attack during their work.