It’s also a good VPN for streaming - in fact, it can unblock a few different platforms like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Hulu, YouTube, and BBC iPlayer. It's important to mention that NordVPN is perfect for Netflix, as it unblocks 16 different libraries. There are no buffering issues, and you are usually able to reach movie libraries from multiple countries, not only the US or the UK. You see, NordVPN is capable of unblocking virtually any streaming platform you throw at it, be it Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, or HBO Max. So, which VPN service is better at providing said entertainment? Well, the table below shows that it’s NordVPN that will give you more stuff to watch on a cold winter’s evening. After all, we need a bit of entertainment after a hard day of work.

It’s no secret that most people use a VPN for unblocking Netflix and other streaming platforms. So, even though Hotspot Shield won Ookla’s Speedtest badge back in 2019, I declare a tie. On the other hand, Hotspot Shield’s upload speeds were a bit lackluster.Īll in all, it's difficult to declare a clear winner in this category simply because of the discrepancy between the download and upload speeds. Yet again, Hotspot Shield managed to provide us with better download speeds than NordVPN. IKEv2Īnother tunneling protocol that NordVPN and Hotspot Shield share is IKEv2.

It was much slower than the speed of NordLynx, which is a shame if you want a good VPN for gaming or hosting streams. However, interestingly, Hydra’s upload speed left me wanting for more. Meanwhile, NordLynx’s download speeds are really great, but not as blazing fast as the ones of Catapult Hydra. In fact, the dropdowns in speed were sometimes as minimal as 2% - an incredible feat to achieve for a VPN.

Here we can see that Hotspot Shield's Hydra is taking the lead in the download speed department.

Baseline: 1 ms/300 Mbps download/300 Mbps upload.

So, which hand-crafted protocol is the faster one - NordLynx or Catapult Hydra? Let’s take a look. However, this time, I encountered a couple of surprises - maybe because, just like NordVPN, Hotspot Shield offers a proprietary protocol that puts all of its efforts into speed. In most VPN comparisons, NordVPN is usually the winner in the speed section. Speed performance: NordVPN vs Hotspot Shield

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