CyberGhost vs Windscribe

Comparing: two VPNs
Decided by: Independent no-logs audits
Last reviewed: 2026-08-26

Three Deloitte audits and a Romanian base outside the intelligence alliances, from the third Kape-owned brand on this page.

WindscribeTakes bitcoin

Seized twice and prosecuted once, with nothing to hand over each time; no email needed to sign up, and it takes bitcoin over Lightning.

No verdict

No verdict: both carry 3 independent audits, so the rows below decide by jurisdiction, price and how you want to pay.

Criterion: Independent no-logs audits
CyberGhost: 3
Windscribe: 3

CyberGhost and Windscribe, fact by fact

Every row is from the two reviews as of their review dates, with sources on each. A check marks the side a decidable criterion favours; rows without one are information, not a score.

CyberGhost and Windscribe compared fact by fact from their reviews; a check marks the side a decidable criterion favours.
Fact	CyberGhost	Windscribe
Independent audits	3, latest 2025	3, latest 2024
Real-world tests	0	3
Incidents on record	0	1
Market exits	0	0
Owner	Kape Technologies	Windscribe Limited
Jurisdiction	Romania	Canada
Eyes alliance	Outside	Five Eyes
Price	From $2.19/mo on the 2yr plan	$69/yr Pro, or from $3/mo
Money-back	45 days	7 days
Crypto accepted	bitcoin	bitcoin, bitcoin lightning
Anonymous signup	No	Yes
Free tier	None	10 GB a month with a confirmed email, 2 GB without, across 11 countries
Servers	Vendor states thousands of servers across around 100 countries, running in ephemeral RAM-only containers	Vendor states servers in more than 69 countries on paid plans, all running from RAM after the FreshScribe rebuild
Last reviewed	2026-08-26	2026-08-26

No-logs evidence, side by side

Dated audits and real-world tests from each review. An empty column is a finding: the claim has not been independently checked.

CyberGhost

2025Audit by Deloitte Audit Romania: third assurance engagement under ISAE 3000 (Revised), covering the server network, configuration and change management, incident response and the dedicated IP token system
2024Audit by Deloitte Audit Romania: second assurance engagement on the no-logs policy
2022Audit by Deloitte Audit Romania: first assurance engagement, inspecting the VPN server network and management systems against the stated no-logs policy

Windscribe

2026Dutch authorities physically seized a Windscribe server from a data centre rack: The company reports they found a stock install running entirely in RAM, with no drives, logs or user data on it
2025Greek prosecutors, with INTERPOL involvement, charged co-founder Yegor Sak personally over activity traced to a Windscribe server: The case was dismissed on 11 April 2025 after a two-year fight, because Windscribe held no user data to produce
2024Audit by PacketLabs: the full FreshScribe server infrastructure, 20 repositories and roughly 80,000 lines of code, with external and internal penetration testing
2022Audit by Leviathan Security Group: security audit of the mobile applications
2021Audit by Leviathan Security Group: security audit of the desktop applications
2021Ukrainian authorities seized two Windscribe servers: No user activity logs were found, but the unencrypted disks exposed an OpenVPN certificate authority key; Windscribe disclosed this publicly and rebuilt its network to run only in RAM

Frequently asked questions

Is CyberGhost or Windscribe better for privacy?

No verdict: both carry 3 independent audits, so the rows below decide by jurisdiction, price and how you want to pay. Audits, court and seizure records and incidents are dated on each review with their sources.

Can I pay CyberGhost or Windscribe with bitcoin?

CyberGhost takes bitcoin (processor: BitPay). Windscribe takes bitcoin and bitcoin lightning (processor: In-house). Each review quotes the vendor's own refund sentence for crypto purchases verbatim.

Which is cheaper, CyberGhost or Windscribe?

CyberGhost: From $2.19/mo on the 2yr plan. Windscribe: $69/yr Pro, or from $3/mo. Money-back: CyberGhost 45 days, Windscribe 7 days. Prices are from each vendor's own page as of the review date.

Where are CyberGhost and Windscribe based?

CyberGhost: Romania (outside the five, nine and fourteen eyes alliances). Windscribe: Canada (five eyes member). A jurisdiction matters less than a court record showing what the provider could hand over; the reviews carry those where they exist.

The full reviews: CyberGhost and Windscribe, each with its sources, and every VPN we review.

More comparisons

Every other head-to-head CyberGhost or Windscribe appears in.