How to Make Your VPN Faster: A Practical Guide to Speed, Ping and Streaming

A VPN will always add a little overhead, because your traffic takes an extra step and gets encrypted along the way. But a well-configured VPN on a decent connection should feel almost invisible for browsing, streaming and even gaming. If yours feels sluggish, the cause is usually something you can fix in a few minutes.

This guide explains what speed and latency actually mean, what slows a VPN down, how to measure the difference properly, and a step-by-step list of optimisations. It ends with specific advice for gamers and streamers and a troubleshooting table for the most common symptoms.

Speed and latency explained

When people say a connection is "slow" they can mean two quite different things, and they have different causes and fixes.

Throughput (bandwidth)

Throughput is how much data you can move per second, usually measured in megabits per second (Mbps). It determines how quickly a large file downloads and whether a video stream can run at high resolution. As a rough guide, streaming services commonly recommend somewhere in the region of 5 Mbps for HD and around 15-25 Mbps for 4K, depending on the service.

Latency (ping) and jitter

Latency is the time a packet takes to travel to a server and back, measured in milliseconds (ms). It determines how responsive things feel: how quickly a web page starts loading, how fast a game reacts to your input, whether a video call has an awkward delay. Jitter is the variation in latency from one packet to the next; high jitter causes stutter in games and calls even when the average ping looks fine. Packet loss, where packets never arrive, is the worst of all for real-time applications.

Why a VPN affects both

With a VPN, your traffic travels to the VPN server first and then on to its destination. If the VPN server is close to you and close to the site you are visiting, the extra distance is tiny. If it is on another continent, every round trip gets longer. Encryption also adds a small amount of processing time and a few bytes of header to every packet. Our article on why you should use a VPN explains the basic routing in more detail.

What slows a VPN down

Distance to the server

Data travels through fibre at roughly two-thirds of the speed of light, and real routes are rarely straight. As a rule of thumb, each additional 1,000 km adds several milliseconds of latency, and intercontinental connections commonly add 100 ms or more. Distance also affects throughput, because TCP connections ramp up more slowly on high-latency paths.

Protocol choice

Protocols differ in how efficiently they handle encryption and packets. WireGuard is lean and runs in the kernel on many systems, so it typically achieves the highest throughput and lowest latency. OpenVPN is extremely flexible but runs in user space and tends to be slower, especially over TCP. IKEv2/IPsec performs well and reconnects quickly when switching networks. Our VPN protocols explained guide compares them in depth.

Encryption overhead

Modern ciphers such as AES-256-GCM and ChaCha20-Poly1305 are fast on current hardware. AES benefits from hardware acceleration built into most modern desktop and phone processors, and ChaCha20 is fast even without it. On a recent device, encryption is rarely the bottleneck; on old routers, very low-power laptops or budget phones it can be.

Server load

A VPN server shares its capacity among everyone connected to it. Popular locations at peak evening hours can become busy. Switching to a different server in the same country, or a neighbouring country, often gives an immediate improvement.

ISP throttling and routing

Some internet providers manage traffic by slowing certain types of activity, such as video streaming or peer-to-peer, at busy times. Because a VPN encrypts your traffic, the provider cannot easily see what kind of traffic it is, so in these cases a VPN can actually make things faster. In other cases, the provider's route to a particular VPN server may simply be poor, which is why trying several nearby locations is worthwhile.

TCP-over-TCP and MTU problems

Running a VPN over TCP (such as OpenVPN TCP or a TCP-443 stealth mode) means that your applications' TCP traffic is wrapped inside another TCP connection. If packets are lost, both layers retransmit, which can cause sharp slowdowns on unreliable networks. Separately, if the tunnel's maximum packet size (MTU) is wrong for your network, packets get fragmented or dropped, causing some sites to load slowly or hang.

Your Wi-Fi and device

A surprisingly large share of "slow VPN" complaints turn out to be Wi-Fi problems: distance from the router, walls, interference from neighbouring networks, or an older 2.4 GHz connection. Background downloads, cloud backups and other devices on the same network compete for the same bandwidth too.

How to measure VPN speed correctly

A single speed test tells you very little. Results vary from minute to minute, and the test server you are sent to changes when your IP changes. Follow this method for figures you can trust.

1. Prepare the device. Close streaming tabs, pause cloud sync and updates, and if possible connect with an Ethernet cable.
2. Measure a baseline without the VPN. Run a speed test three times and note download, upload and ping. Take the median, not the best result.
3. Pin the test server. Most speed test tools let you choose a specific test server. Pick one in the same city or region as the VPN server you plan to use, and use that same test server for every run.
4. Connect to the VPN and repeat. Run three tests again with the same test server and note the median.
5. Compare like with like. Calculate the percentage difference in throughput and the added milliseconds of ping.
6. Try alternatives. Repeat step 4 with a different protocol and a different server location, one change at a time.
7. Test at different times. An evening test may differ from a morning test because of peak-time congestion at your ISP or on the server.

You can confirm which server and IP address you are testing from on our What Is My IP page, which also helps you spot if the VPN has disconnected between tests.

Step-by-step optimisation tips

Work through these in order. The first few fix the majority of problems.

1. Choose the closest suitable server

Unless you need a specific country, connect to the location physically nearest to you. If you do need a particular country, pick the city nearest to the service you are using. The server list shows all available locations; Premium unlocks all 40+ locations in 25+ countries with unlimited switching, while the free plan offers three demo locations at standard speed.

2. Switch to WireGuard

If your app is set to OpenVPN or to automatic protocol selection, try WireGuard first. If WireGuard is blocked on your network, try OpenVPN UDP, then IKEv2, and only then OpenVPN TCP or Stealth mode.

3. Try another server in the same location

If a location is busy, reconnecting often assigns you to a different server. Trying a neighbouring country can also help if routing from your ISP to one location is poor.

4. Fix your local network

• Use Ethernet for gaming and large downloads when possible.
• On Wi-Fi, use the 5 GHz or 6 GHz band if your devices support it, and move closer to the router.
• Restart your router and modem if you have not done so for weeks.
• Check other devices at home for large uploads or downloads.

5. Use split tunnelling wisely

If your app supports split tunnelling, you can exclude traffic that does not need protection, such as a local network printer or a large game update from a trusted launcher. This frees up VPN capacity for what matters. Be careful not to exclude anything you want kept private.

6. Update everything

Update the VPN app, the operating system and network adapter drivers. Performance improvements and bug fixes arrive regularly, particularly for Wi-Fi drivers on Windows laptops.

7. Check security software and other VPNs

Some antivirus suites inspect encrypted traffic or add their own filtering layer, which can reduce throughput. Temporarily disable web scanning to test, and uninstall VPN clients you no longer use, since multiple virtual adapters can conflict.

8. Adjust MTU only if needed

If some websites hang or large downloads stall while small pages load fine, an MTU mismatch is a likely cause. Try another protocol first; if the problem persists, contact support before changing MTU manually.

Gaming: keeping ping low

For games, latency and stability matter far more than raw bandwidth. Most online games use only a small amount of data, so a 20 Mbps connection with stable 20 ms ping will play better than a 500 Mbps connection with jittery 90 ms ping.

• Connect to a server near the game server, not necessarily near you. If you live in one region and play on another region's servers, a VPN location close to the game's data centre can sometimes shorten the route or avoid a congested path.
• Use WireGuard over UDP. Avoid TCP-based modes for gaming, as retransmissions cause spikes.
• Play wired. Wi-Fi adds latency and jitter even when signal looks strong.
• Use a dedicated low-latency location. Our Streaming & Gaming servers use optimised routes for exactly this purpose.
• Check the in-game network overlay for ping, jitter and packet loss rather than relying on speed test ping alone.
• Stop background traffic such as launcher updates, cloud backups and video streams on the same network.

A VPN can also protect you from denial-of-service attacks aimed at your home IP address, which some competitive players experience, because opponents only see the VPN server's IP.

Streaming: stopping buffering

Streaming relies on sustained throughput. Services adapt quality to your connection, so a slow tunnel usually shows up as lower resolution rather than stopping altogether, but buffering and quality drops are common symptoms.

• Pick a server in the country whose content library you are entitled to use, and within that country the city closest to you.
• Use WireGuard or OpenVPN UDP for higher sustained throughput.
• If a stream starts sharp and then degrades, try another server: this often points to server load at peak times.
• Clear the streaming app's cache or restart it after changing server, as some apps cache your region.
• On smart TVs and streaming sticks without a VPN app, consider streaming from a phone, tablet or computer that has the VPN running instead. Note that router configuration is not supported on individual plans.
• Remember that the free plan restricts some high-bandwidth categories; Premium has unlimited bandwidth and access to streaming-optimised servers.

Always respect the terms of the streaming services you use.

Troubleshooting table

Quick speed checklist

Frequently asked questions

Can a VPN ever make my connection faster?

Yes, in specific situations. If your ISP throttles particular types of traffic, or routes poorly to a certain destination, a VPN can bypass the throttling or take a better path. On an unthrottled, well-routed connection, expect a small slowdown instead.

Which VPN protocol is fastest?

In most cases WireGuard offers the best throughput and lowest latency. OpenVPN UDP and IKEv2 are good alternatives. OpenVPN TCP and stealth modes are designed for difficult networks, not for speed.

Why is my speed test result different every time?

Speed tests are affected by network congestion, the test server chosen, Wi-Fi conditions and background activity. That is why you should run several tests with the same test server and compare medians.

Does the free plan run at full speed?

The free plan runs at standard speed with 1 GB of data per day on three demo locations. Premium provides unlimited bandwidth, all locations and streaming and gaming servers.

Will more encryption slow me down?

On modern devices, hardly. AES-256-GCM and ChaCha20 are highly optimised. Server distance, load and your local network have a far larger effect than cipher strength.

Conclusion

Most VPN speed problems come down to a handful of factors: a server that is too far away or too busy, a protocol that is not ideal for the network, or a local Wi-Fi connection that is struggling on its own. Measure properly against a baseline, change one thing at a time, and you will usually find the fix within minutes. If you need consistent low latency for gaming or reliable throughput for streaming, take a look at our Streaming & Gaming servers or create an account to try them yourself. Still stuck? Our support team replies within 24 hours, every day of the year.