# URnetwork vs IPVanish

IPVanish is a long-running US datacenter VPN with unlimited devices and a
2016 logs handover on its record; URnetwork splits the path so the exit never
learns who you are and the operator cannot read the sealed session.

**Choose IPVanish** if you want unlimited devices on one subscription, steady
datacenter speeds, and a no-logs policy with recent third-party examinations.
**Choose URnetwork** if you want the two halves of the trust question split
by design, residential exits you can aim at a city, and an account that can
know almost nothing about you. IPVanish's case rests on an examined policy.
URnetwork's rests on a split path in public code.

[IPVanish](https://www.ipvanish.com) is one of the longest-running US VPNs,
owned today by Ziff Davis after passing through Highwinds, StackPath, and J2
Global. It runs a large datacenter fleet, allows unlimited simultaneous
devices on one subscription, and prices multi-year terms near the bottom of
the mainstream market. Its no-logs policy has been examined twice, by
Leviathan Security in 2022 and Schellman in 2025.

URnetwork uses member-run exits. The provider does not receive your source IP
on the relayed path. Native apps seal traffic to the provider by default.
[How URnetwork works](/docs/overview) explains the full design. The
[threat model](/docs/threat-model) holds the complete record of what is stored
and enforced.

## Six differences that affect the choice

| | IPVanish | URnetwork |
|---|---|---|
| Trust model | One company's server carries both ends of your tunnel; what is kept is policy | Two relay parties; the exit never sees your IP, and the operator cannot read the sealed session |
| Devices and plans | Unlimited simultaneous connections on any plan | Plans meter data, not device seats |
| External verification | No-logs examinations in 2022 and 2025; closed source | Open client and server code; no examination of its logging yet |
| Exit address | Datacenter ranges; 51% of advertised locations measured virtual or unmeasurable (IPinfo, December 2025) | Residential addresses in 90+ countries; browse countries, search for a city |
| Consistency | Tuned fleet, steady throughput | Member uplinks; URnetwork puts its average streaming speed at 40 Mbps+ |
| Account identity | Email, billing details, and the sign-up IP; no crypto payment option | Instant Account with no email; Pro payable in on-chain USDC |

Caveats below the table:

- Post-quantum encryption is URnetwork-side here: the X25519MLKEM768
  client-to-provider session is default in the native apps, skipping any
  provider it cannot seal to rather than downgrading. IPVanish publishes no
  post-quantum feature. The browser extension has no sealed session; there,
  the operator's data path logs nothing, pinned by a test in the open code.
- IPVanish runs WireGuard, OpenVPN, and IKEv2 with mature apps across the
  major platforms. URnetwork uses its own transport over TLS/QUIC and ships
  on Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, and Linux plus a browser extension paired
  with its web app, each with an explicit kill switch.
- IPVanish lists at about $13 month-to-month, with two-year promotional rates
  near $2.20/month as of early 2026, and no free tier. URnetwork has a free
  daily allowance; Pro is $5/month or $40/year. Current numbers are at
  [ur.io/products](https://ur.io/products). The plans meter different things:
  for a household of heavy screens, weigh unmetered devices against a data
  allowance.

## The 2016 handover and what changed after

In 2016, under then-owner Highwinds, IPVanish answered a US Department of
Homeland Security summons in a criminal investigation. A first response and a
follow-up produced a customer's name, email address, real IP address, and the
dates and times he connected and disconnected. Its privacy policy at the time
said IPVanish "does not collect or log any traffic or use of its Virtual
Private Network service," and its homepage advertised a strict zero-logs
policy. The episode became public in 2018 through court records.

The logs existed because the server position sees everything. A zero-logs
banner is a record-keeping promise, and when legal process arrived, records
existed to hand over. The same year, the same kind of demand landed on a
competitor making the same promise: Private Internet Access, subpoenaed by
the FBI, produced nothing useful, because nothing useful had been stored. The
difference was not sincerity but what existed.

What came after is also on the record. The company has changed hands twice
since, and the next owner's 2018 statement that "no logs existed" sits in
tension with the logs already produced. The current policy has been examined
by Leviathan Security in 2022 and by Schellman in February 2025. The
Schellman report is a point-in-time validation of nine numbered no-log policy
statements, through interviews, policy inspection, technical analysis of VPN
configurations, and inspection of a baseline image and one example server;
the audited entity is IPVanish, Inc., a J2 Global Ventures company. IPVanish
has also withdrawn from markets as local requirements changed, rather than
keep servers there: Russia in 2016, Hong Kong in 2020, India in 2022, Turkey
in 2023.

![Who can see what — single-party VPN vs Apple Private Relay's closed two-party split vs URnetwork's split knowledge](/docs-assets/infographic-who-sees-what.svg)

*The left column is what made the 2016 disclosure possible: one party holding
both facts. The right column is the arrangement where no party can produce
the pair.*

## The reviewer conflict

Ziff Davis owns IPVanish and much of the tech press that reviews VPNs:
PCMag, Mashable, IGN, and, since 2024, CNET, along with Ookla's Speedtest.
PCMag and CNET append a shared-parent disclosure note to their IPVanish
reviews. A 2021 study of the conflict found those outlets restrained, with
IPVanish not pushed up the rankings. The ownership is still the thing to know
when reading a review or a speed test of this product.

## The fleet and the location count

"150+ locations" is a city count that mixes physical and virtual presence,
and the marketing pages do not mark which is which. IPinfo's December 2025
measurement
study, timing round trips from 1,200+ probes against some 150,000 exit
addresses across 20 providers, found 51% of IPVanish's advertised locations
virtual or unmeasurable. A reviewer's hand-count names 39 virtual locations,
India among them, served virtually since IPVanish withdrew its hardware over
India's 2022 logging mandate. Where the exit addresses actually resolve puts
the physical side near 62 countries and roughly 98 cities: substantial, and
materially smaller than the headline.

The fleet claims have the same softness. The security page still says "we own
and operate our entire network, including the servers," while independent
reviews describe rented or colocated capacity, and the ownership wording no
longer appears on the homepage or servers page. The fleet is not fully
RAM-only; the conversion is pledged around 2027.

URnetwork's count is a different kind of claim with its own limit attached. A
city is listed only while a member's device is online there, and the network
geolocates the connection it observes, so presence cannot be fabricated the
way a registered IP range can. An address that looks like a datacenter or a
VPN is detected and demoted, not excluded. And nobody has measured URnetwork
the way IPinfo measured IPVanish: what is on offer is a mechanism in open
code, not an outside measurement.

![Advertised locations vs measured reality — share of advertised locations measured virtual or unmeasurable per provider (IPinfo, December 2025)](/docs-assets/infographic-virtual-locations.svg)

*Outside measurement puts IPVanish in the same band as the other large
fleets; the 0% tier shows a fully physical map is achievable if a provider
chooses it.*

## Where IPVanish wins

- Unlimited simultaneous devices; one plan covers a household.
- Steady throughput from a tuned datacenter fleet.
- Recent independent no-logs examinations (2022, 2025). URnetwork's logging
  has had no examination at all.
- Very low per-month cost on long promotional terms.

## Where URnetwork wins

- The split. The exit never learns who you are, and the operator cannot read
  the sealed session. No single party holds identity and destinations
  together, where IPVanish's server sees both by design.
- Residential exit addresses that blend in where datacenter ranges are
  flagged, searchable down to a city.
- Open source on both the client and the server side, versus fully closed.
- Retention limited by code rather than by policy alone; what the operator
  stores is recorded in the [threat model](/docs/threat-model).
- Thinner identity: a one-tap Instant Account with no email, wallet-signature
  sign-in, and a free tier.
- Members can share their connection as participants in the
  [UR protocol](https://ur.xyz); IPVanish has no equivalent role.

## Limits and evidence

URnetwork's main limits:

- No independent audit covers the protocol, the connect engine, or the
  operator's server code. Two 2025 third-party assessments cover other
  surfaces: a penetration test of the web application and API (April–May
  2025), and the Leviathan MASA AL2 assessment of the Android app, which
  passed. Leviathan writes that its assessment "should not be read as a
  holistic security evaluation or comprehensive penetration test." Neither
  examined logging, retention, or the data path.
- The split assumes the operator and the providers in your window are
  independent. Nothing in the system attests that independence, the operator
  could itself run providers, and no outside party has measured the fleet.
  See the [threat model](/docs/threat-model), §6.1.
- The WireGuard-compatible fallback endpoint assigns one stable tunnel
  address, so several providers could recognize the same client across
  sessions. The native tunnel is the recommended path.
- Coverage counts are self-published. IPVanish's map has been measured from
  outside; URnetwork's has not.
- URnetwork is the younger network, and speed moves with the providers in
  your window.

IPVanish's limit is structural. Its server sees your real IP and your
destinations together, and the 2016 record shows what that position can
produce under legal process. The examinations since are real evidence about
the present: paid, scoped, point-in-time checks of one subsidiary inside a
conglomerate. They do not change the capability, and the capability is the
risk.

Trying URnetwork costs nothing: the Instant Account takes one tap and no
email, so you can check the countries, cities, and sites you care about
before either subscription spends a dollar. More questions are answered in
the [FAQ](/docs/faq).