I am in the middle of my latest batch review of the best VPNs, and this time around I am picking up on little details we may have missed However, Proton VPN's current server count is not small As of this writing, there are 8,162 servers in 112 countries, more than doubling in recent months

This got me thinking about why the number of servers a VPN operates is presented as so important Of course, it can be a determining factor in network reliability, but it is by no means indicative of all of a VPN's performance

Here I will run through the server changes made by Proton VPN and how they should be a true determining factor in deciding which VPN to choose

(This article was edited on October 5 to clarify Proton VPN's smart routing technology)

I define “network size” as the total number of servers a VPN has available to its customers To some extent, the more, the better A VPN with only 100 servers will be congested during popular hours and users will notice slower speeds

But beyond a few thousand, the quality of the servers becomes far more important After all, major providers like ExpressVPN and Surfshark have only about 3,000 servers worldwide, and their networks are among the most stable and reliable in the world

We spoke with David Peterson, General Manager of Proton VPN, about this increase in server count He said: “Over the last few months we have been increasing the number of servers to increase speeds, meet and stay ahead of a significant increase in demand, and without pleasing VC investors, we are free to focus on investing in infrastructure and new products and features”

“We are very pleased to see that the number of servers is increasing,” he said

There is also the issue of “virtual servers” Virtual servers are only virtual Virtual servers are usually physically located in a country with excellent infrastructure, such as the Netherlands, Germany, or the United States, but are configured to provide an IP address in another country

Virtual servers are not generally less private than physical servers, but they are often rented from third parties Reputable VPNs that use some virtual servers, for example NordVPN, make sure that they are absolutely safe to use before renting from their data centers These servers can occasionally suffer from performance problems, especially if the actual server is thousands of miles away from its virtual location

However, Proton VPN is very bold in its claim that it only uses physical servers Purchasing and maintaining so many servers is a huge investment and a substantial claim by the company

Peterson backs up this claim, saying: “Proton VPN uses only bare metal (physical, not virtual) servers, giving us complete control down to the basic operating system level

In short, the size of the network is not that significant, but Proton is trying to scale the network in the right way

I define “network spread” as the number of countries where the VPN has servers This is a much better ranking metric than network size, because individual locations have a tangible impact on a VPN's user base

Proton VPNs have grown from about 70 countries last year to a huge 112 at the time of this writing This is more than NordVPN (111), ExpressVPN (106), and Surfshark (100)

It is worth noting that ProtonVPN uses “smart routing” to provide servers in countries with poor infrastructure or strong censorship This is similar to virtual servers, but Proton VPN uses only its own servers for this purpose All of this together makes Proton VPN definitely one of the best when it comes to network quality

“Increasing the number of servers around the world has always been planned to support those facing Internet censorship,” Peterson says [This includes Venezuela, Bangladesh, Brazil, Turkey, and Myanmar”

These claims were corroborated by my research for the Proton VPN review I noticed that this provider focuses a lot on some areas of the world that other providers neglect [For example, Proton VPN offers 22 locations in Africa, compared to ExpressVPN and Surfshark's 6 and NordVPN's 7 Proton also covers Asia very well, offering 42 locations The same goes for the Middle East, where Proton has 14 locations, but NordVPN and Surfshark have 5 and ExpressVPN only 4

Coincidentally, these are the regions that suffer the most from government censorship, to which Peterson revealed that ProtonVPN is devoted

It is no coincidence that Proton VPN's network has expanded rapidly and connection speeds have clearly improved In my last tests, NordVPN, Surfshark, and Proton VPN were all able to max out their test lines at 1 Gbps when using WireGuard-based protocols Previously, Proton VPN, while certainly not slow, was only around 400 Mbps, so from a performance standpoint, this network upgrade was a big plus

OpenVPN speeds, while not earth-shattering, are good at about 220 Mbps This is mid-range, but still much faster than most Internet connections in the country

It is worth noting that despite these upgrades, Surfshark maintains its position as the fastest VPN However, Surfshark has always been incredibly fast, and obviously, its rivals have not fully worked out its secret sauce recipe

Server network upgrades can have a significant impact on VPN performance This is because even competitors that perform marginally better in some areas have networks that are on paper far inferior when it comes to raw server counts