Atlas VPN Review 2024: Features, Pros And Cons (2024)

What Is Atlas VPN?

• AtlasVPN is a New York-based VPN provider founded in 2019 and acquired by Nord Security in 2021
• Its namesake freemium VPN service provides both a free and paid tier (with paid having access to more servers), features and bandwidth
• While the platform has some promise, the relatively low number of servers and server locations, lack of basic key features, such as dedicated IP, and being based in the US prevent it from making our10 Best VPNs list.

What sets Atlas VPN apart?

Atlas VPN’s two standout traits that set it apart from other VPNs in the space: its status as a “freemium” VPN and its SafeSwap servers.

Being “freemium” essentially means it offers a basic version of its product for free with the full version being locked behind a paywall. This is a fairly common business model across the tech industry these days, though less so for VPNs where you’re more likely to see providers offer free trials of their full platforms instead of a completely free version.

While having access to a free VPN is nice and potentially affordable, Atlas VPN’s offering cuts out a lot of features you’d expect from a VPN, including a kill switch or unlimited bandwidth. This makes it less than ideal for anyone looking to use a VPN for long stretches of time.

The SafeSwap servers, on the other hand, are impressive. While connected to a SafeSwap server, Atlas VPN will periodically change your IP Address, in an attempt to make it more difficult for your activity to be tracked. This is a unique feature we can’t recall seeing in a provider before, though we’re not sure how much more effective it really is at obscuring your online activity compared to other methods, such as port forwarding.

That said, there are only three server locations with available SafeSwap servers: the US, Singapore and the Netherlands. Further, during our test, we did notice a significant drop in internet speeds when using the SafeSwap servers.

Pros

Atlas VPN has unlimited simultaneous connections, along with access to multi-hop and the unique SafeSwap servers. The rest of the VPN is fairly middling. The speeds are on par with what we expect from a top-of-the-market VPN. The platform’s other features, such as the kill switch, function more or less as intended but didn’t overly impress us.

Cons

Sadly, Atlas VPN’s cons tend to outweigh its pros. The main issue is a lack of features. Split tunnelling, a basic feature for many VPNs in the space today, can only be found on Atlas’ Android version. On top of that, Dedicated IP is missing, making the service less than ideal for business use.

Its server count, clocking in at over 1,000, is extremely low for a VPN, which can lead to bottlenecking issues during periods of high user activity. The sign-in process, which requires you to access the email associated with your Atlas VPN account for a sign-in link, is nice for security but can be a bit of a hassle if you’re trying to have multiple users on a single account.

Atlas VPN core features

Atlas VPN has several of the core features we expect when looking at a VPN, such as a kill switch and multifactor authentication. Others, such as dedicated IP, are absent. During our test, we did not encounter any trouble with what features are there. The kill switch cut off internet access when not connected to the VPN, and the service passed our DNS leak testing through websites such asdnsleaktest.com.

Split Tunnelling

Split tunnelling is only available on Atlas VPN’s Android client. Mac, iOS, Windows and Linux users are out of luck if they want to use this feature for themselves. We did test the split tunnelling feature on Android, and it functioned as intended. However, not being able to use split tunnelling on other operating systems is a major mark against the service.

Atlas VPN pricing and plans

Atlas VPN has two pricing tiers: Free and Premium. Free is exactly what the name implies with limited features. Notably, free users only get access to four server locations: The Netherlands, Singapore, Los Angeles and New York, and their data usage is limited to 5GB of data per account.

Atlas VPN’s Premium tier has monthly, yearly and three-year plans for interested users. The only differences between these plans are the monthly price tag and the length of the plan. All features are available for each plan. We do really appreciate Atlas VPN’s transparent pricing structure, compared to the sometimes-complicated pricing tiers of other providers, such as Surfshark or TunnelBear.

The monthly plan costs $11.99 (about £9.50) per month, the yearly plan costs $4.08 (just over £3) per month, and the three-year plan costs $1.70 (about £1.30) per month.

Atlas VPN ease of use

Being a “freemium” VPN, Atlas VPN takes great pains to be as easy to use as possible. All the settings and customisations are clearly laid out in a simple, readable interface, and we didn’t encounter any major UX issues during our testing.

The platform’s sign-in procedure might be a little confusing for multi-user households, however. In lieu of a traditional username/password setup, Atlas VPN has opted for a one-time sign-in link model, with the link being sent to the account holder’s email. This can cause some issues when you need to log in to your VPN but the account holder or their email is inaccessible.

Additionally, we did have trouble getting the WireGuard protocol to work during our review, and we are not sure what eventually resolved the issue.

Atlas VPN servers and locations

Atlas VPN boasts over 1,000 servers in 42 different countries, including UK, the US, South Africa, Japan, Australia and Brazil. These are fairly low numbers when compared to other VPNs we’ve covered, such as CyberGhost or Atlas’ VPN sibling Nord. Low server numbers such as these can lead to internet traffic being bottlenecked during periods of high activity. However, we did not encounter any such issues during our test.

Atlas VPN speed and performance

During our review, we ran several tests on Atlas VPN’s impact on internet speeds using both WireGuard and IKEv2 protocols. To do this, we ran tests through Cloudflare’spublic speed testusing the nearest server to our test device. The results were fairly unspectacular for a VPN. While both WireGuard and IKEv2 respectively saw, on average, a 90.4% and a 24.75% increase in download speed when compared to speed tests we conducted without a VPN, they also both suffered massive drops in upload speed.

Using IKEv2 caused a 311.5% decrease, while WireGuard caused a 256.8% decrease. Although the download speeds are good, the huge hit to upload speeds leaves us disappointed with Atlas VPN’s impact on overall device performance.

Atlas VPN security and privacy

The security of Atlas VPN’sWindowsandiOSapps has been verified by two separate independent audits. The most recent was completed in December 2022. While we’d love to see all of the company’s apps undergo this sort of process, the two so far are a good start. On top of that, the security features we were able to test ourselves, such as DNS leak protection, worked as expected.

No-Logs policy

Atlas VPN lays claim to a no-logs policy, meaning that, in the words of itsPrivacy Policy, it “do[es] not log your browsing activity, browsing history, records of IPs assigned, original IP, sites visited, outgoing traffic, content, or data accessed.”

This policy has not yet been verified by an independent audit, which is disappointing. However, the company does not have any known instances of sharing user data with government entities, which we can’t say about every VPN we review.

Multifactor authentication

Atlas VPN offers multifactor authentication through the email address associated with your Atlas VPN account. When you try to sign in, an email with a sign-on link is sent to that email, which you then need to use on whichever device you’re signing in with.

Once you do so, you’re logged in. This is a nice, secure way to log users in, but it does create some problems when you have multiple users on a single account, as it leads to the account holder being hounded with requests from different parties for a sign-in link.

Atlas VPN customer service and support

Atlas VPN offers customer support through 24/7 live chat for Premium users or email support for Free users. There is also, of course, a knowledge base where users can attempt to troubleshoot issues themselves. The knowledge base has useful information, such as what countries Atlas VPN has servers in and is about on par with other VPN services’ respective knowledge bases.

We tested the email support during our review and were unimpressed with the results. The staff were responsive and helpful, but it took several days to fully resolve what was a relatively minor issue. This isn’t the worst thing in the world for an email-based customer support service, but it was still disappointing.

Atlas VPN for streaming

We tried getting Atlas VPN to work on Netflix, Hulu and Disney+. Netflix worked fine, and we were able to access content without any issues. Unfortunately, Hulu and Disney+ did not work at all. Hulu repeatedly rejected our attempts across multiple US servers, and Disney+ only gave us a black screen.

Atlas VPN alternatives and how they compare

	Atlas VPN	NordVPN	Mullvad VPN	Surfshark
Rating
Starting Monthly Price	$11.99	$12.99	$5.35	$10.99
Anonymous Browsing	No	Yes	No	Yes
Dedicated IP	No	Yes	No	Yes
Split Tunneling	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Multifactor Authentication	Yes	Yes	Not necessary	Yes
No-Logs Policy	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Learn More	Learn More On Atlas VPN's Secure Website	Learn More On Atlas VPN's Secure Website	-	Learn More On Atlas VPN's Secure Website
Read Reviews	-	Learn More Read Forbes' Review	-	Learn More Read Forbes' Review

Atlas VPN vs. NordVPN

Atlas VPN and NordVPN are owned by the same company and perform similarly in speed and in unblocking streaming services. However, Nord boasts several features Atlas does not, including Dedicated IP and Anonymous Browsing. Their price tags are also similar. However, Atlas VPN falls short in terms of feature set, compared to NordVPN, making NordVPN a better value for your money.

Atlas VPN vs. Mullvad VPN

Atlas VPN’s unlimited simultaneous connections give it an edge over Mullvad VPN. That said, Mullvad’s strong commitment to user privacy and more affordable monthly pricing make it a better choice in our eyes. For business use, neither comes highly recommended due to the lack of Dedicated IP, however.

Atlas VPN vs. Surfshark

Much like NordVPN, Surfshark is in every way either equivalent or superior to Atlas VPN in terms of features and performance. Alongside similar price points, both are owned by the same company (Nord Security). Like Surfshark, Atlas VPN offers unlimited simultaneous connections, which speaks to its affordability but isn’t as great a selling point when the product it comes with is so lacking.

Is Atlas VPN right for you?

Overall, we do not recommend Atlas VPN for business or personal use. While the product does have some positives, it simply doesn’t measure up to other products on the market.

There are better and, in some cases, more affordable services that outperform Atlas VPN. We don’t consider Atlas VPN’s free version to be a particularly great selling point either, due to how limited that version is: low server count, lack of necessary features and overall middling user experience.

Atlas VPN isn’t to be avoided at all costs, but we have found other options that provide more and at a more affordable price point.