Windscribe Review Australia

Reviewed by Laurence Deer, founder and reviewer in Melbourne, testing VPNs since 2019

Windscribe

Price checked 26 OctLast tested late 2021Update coming soonNumber 13 of 18 in our calculated order

BestVPN score: not scored, because our last test of Windscribe was late 2021. How we score

Our verdict

Good for trying a VPN free first

Windscribe suits Australians who want to start on a free plan, then pay monthly or yearly with no renewal jump. In our late 2021 tests a Sydney server was hard to notice, but the UK and India fell away sharply. It bills in US dollars and has no independent audit of its no-logs policy.

From US$5.75 (about A$8.19) a month

Pro yearly plan, US$69.00 upfront. Renews at US$69.00 every year. Lowest plan of each VPN we track: A$2.79 to A$17.80.

Price and plan details read from windscribe.com.

Choose it if

• You want a free plan to try before you pay
• You would rather not lock in for more than a year
• You want a yearly plan that renews at the same price
• You value published source code and a transparency report

Skip it if

• You want to pay in Australian dollars
• You want an audit of the no-logs policy itself
• You want the lowest monthly rate, which rivals reach with two-year deals

Windscribe: key facts

Money-back

7 daysVPNs we track: 7 to 45 days

Free trial

NoneCompare VPN free trials

Devices at once

UnlimitedVPNs we track: 2 to unlimited

Server countries

69+VPNs we track: 30 to 150

Australian cities

Not checked

Company, audits, protocols and features

Company

Based in Canada

Audits

PacketLabs and Leviathan, says Windscribe

Protocols

IKEv2, OpenVPN, Stealth, WStunnel, WireGuard

Features

Ad and tracker blocker, Multi-hop (two servers), Obfuscation, Port forwarding, Split tunnelling

As Windscribe's own site lists them, read 26 Oct 2026.

Windscribe test results

Speed, Australian server

94% keptOf our download speed with the VPN off. Tested late 2021

Streaming

Played Netflix US, the one service we tried to playTested late 2021

Speed kept by the VPNs we have tested (2021 to 2026 rounds): 44% to 100% or more.

Windscribe: what has changed

• 26 Oct 2026 Review text last edited

No price or plan changes seen between 13 Oct 2026 and 26 Oct 2026.

Prices are read from Windscribe's website every morning (last read 26 Oct 2026) and its feature pages weekly; we record every change we see.

What stood out

Distance decided our test of Windscribe’s paid plan. Close to home you would barely notice it; on the other side of the world, a large download would drag.

A newer test says that has changed. Top10VPN’s June 2026 review found speeds improved a lot once Windscribe added WireGuard, a newer and faster connection protocol. We have not measured that ourselves.

The free plan is the cheapest way to check it on your own NBN line. For October 2026 results from Melbourne, read our NordVPN review.

From our tests in Melbourne, late 2021. We have not retested Windscribe since.

Windscribe tested from Melbourne: late 2021 results

These results come from Windscribe’s paid plan on a Melbourne home connection in late 2021. Apps, servers and streaming services have changed since, so read them as a dated record.

Speed kept

Melbourne home connection · late 2021

Sydney server	94%
United States	77%
South Africa	49%
Brazil	39%
United Kingdom	24%
India	13%

Download, upload and ping in Mbps, and how we measured

From our test bench Melbourne, late 2021

Sydney server, tested from Melbourne, late 2021

Connection	Download	Upload
No VPN	108.9 Mbps	19.2 Mbps
Windscribe, Sydney server	102 Mbps −6.4%	15.3 Mbps −20.3%

Overseas servers, tested from Melbourne, late 2021

Server in	Download	Upload
United States	83.6 Mbps −23.3%	6.81 Mbps −64.5%
United Kingdom	26.6 Mbps −75.6%	8.47 Mbps −55.9%
India	14.6 Mbps −86.6%	5.20 Mbps −72.9%
Brazil	42.6 Mbps −60.9%	14.9 Mbps −22.5%
South Africa	53.4 Mbps −51.0%	6.79 Mbps −64.6%

11.2 MiB/s average torrent download rate on an Australian server (late 2021)

Our own measurements on a Melbourne home connection of about 109 Mbps at the time, late 2021. Changes are against the speed of the same line with the VPN off, measured the same day.

Share of our download speed kept with Windscribe on, against the same line with the VPN off, measured the same day.

Speed: excellent close to home, weak far away

A Sydney server cost us only about 6% of our download speed, which you would not notice on a typical NBN plan. Uploads fell about 20%: fine for video calls and photo backups.

Further away, speed fell off quickly. The US kept about three-quarters of our line, still enough for 4K streaming. South Africa managed about half and Brazil about two-fifths.

The UK dropped to about a quarter and India to about a seventh, slow enough to notice on large downloads. Each is a single run per country, shown in the table above.

Streaming: US Netflix worked

On a US server we watched Ripper Street on American Netflix from Melbourne. That was one service on one server, and streaming sites block VPN addresses all the time.

Torrenting: about 11 MiB/s

A torrent averaged 11.2 MiB/s on one of Windscribe’s Australian servers. At that rate a 2 GB film takes about three minutes.

Still to test

Our 2026 retest will cover speed from Melbourne, DNS leaks, the kill switch, and Australian and overseas streaming. Each result will appear here, dated.

What other Windscribe reviews found

Top10VPN’s review, updated in June 2026, is newer than ours. Its figures are under What independent reviewers found at the end of this review, and its main finding is the WireGuard speed gain.

Treat it as one source testing from overseas. Use its figures to compare providers, not to forecast your NBN line.

Windscribe price in Australia

Windscribe charges in US dollars, so what you pay moves with the exchange rate. The table is read from its upgrade page; the Australian-dollar figure is an approximate conversion, before your bank’s rate and fees.

Checked 26 Oct 2026 Price and plan details read from windscribe.com.

The longest plan runs one year and renews at the same price. A “Build A Plan” option charges for each server location you pick, which suits you if you only need one or two countries.

Here is what the cheapest plan adds up to over three years.

Windscribe also has a free plan. Its site says the free tier covers servers in 10 countries, including the US, Canada and the UK.

Is Windscribe safe? Privacy, audits and jurisdiction

Windscribe has no independent audit of its no-logs policy, which most of its big rivals do. It describes its policy as “no identifying logs”.

Its audits cover security instead. Windscribe says PacketLabs audited its servers in June 2024, and Leviathan Security Group audited its desktop apps in 2021 and mobile apps in 2022. Those look for security holes, not for logs.

It also publishes its source code, a live feed of the legal requests it receives and its staff handbook.

The company is based in Canada, a member of the Five Eyes intelligence alliance. Windscribe’s answer is that jurisdiction only matters when a provider holds data to hand over.

Windscribe reports two legal events, which we have not checked independently. A criminal case against a co-founder was dismissed in April 2025.

Dutch authorities also seized one of its servers in February 2026.

Apps, features and Australian servers

Windscribe supports WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, Stealth and WStunnel. The last two disguise VPN traffic on networks that block VPNs, such as some hotel and office Wi-Fi.

The extras that matter:

• Split tunnelling lets your banking app or Stan skip the VPN while everything else uses it.
• R.O.B.E.R.T., its ad, tracker and malware blocker, stops them before they load.
• Multi-hop sends your traffic through two servers instead of one.
• Port forwarding helps torrent clients reach more peers.
• A configuration generator builds OpenVPN, IKEv2 and WireGuard files for devices without an app.

Windscribe’s own pages disagree on its network: its features page says over 69 countries, another page over 85. Our data does not list its Australian cities yet; in late 2021 we tested on a Sydney server.

Using Windscribe in Australia

• Australian servers: see Windscribe's server list for current Australian locations.
• Billing: charged in USD, so the Australian-dollar cost moves with the exchange rate.
• Where it is based: Canada, according to its own site.
• Refund period: 7 days.

Australian law requires internet providers to keep customers' metadata for two years. A VPN encrypts the connection between your device and the VPN server, so your internet provider can see that you are using a VPN but not which sites you visit. It does not make you anonymous to the VPN provider itself, which is why the provider's logging policy and audits matter.

Alternatives to Windscribe

These are our three picks. Each card shows the fact from our tests or data behind its label, and its BestVPN score. If the lowest monthly price matters most, start with the cheapest VPNs in Australia.

• NordVPNA strong all-rounderNo part of its BestVPN score is below 7: speed, streaming, security, value and AustraliaBestVPN score 8.4/10From A$4.79 a monthBlack Friday deal ends soonVisit NordVPNNordVPN review
• SurfsharkMost popular with our readersMost clicks from readers in Australia, New Zealand and Singapore in the last 30 daysBestVPN score 7.2/10From A$3.49 a monthBlack Friday deal ends soonVisit SurfsharkSurfshark review
• Proton VPNFastest on Australian servers in our testsKept 99% of our download speed on a Melbourne server, 21 Oct 2026BestVPN score 8.8/10From US$3.49 (about A$4.97) a monthVisit Proton VPNProton VPN review

Windscribe FAQ

How we keep this review current

We read prices and plans from Windscribe’s own website and show the date of the last check beside each figure. Every test result carries the date we measured it; Windscribe’s latest round is late 2021. The independent review we cite is linked so you can read it in full.

Sources

• Windscribe’s own pages, read on 13 October 2026: upgrade, features and no identifying logs.
• Independent review: Top10VPN (updated June 2026).
• Our own results: late 2021, Melbourne.