We review products independently, but we may earn affiliate commissions from buying links on this page. Terms of use. CyberGhost VPN is big and bold on macOS, offering an enormous server fleet across the globe and a smartly designed app that balances power and simplicity. That comes at a high price, however, and without some of the advanced privacy tools provided by the competition. Still, it's an excellent VPN service for macOS users. What Is a VPN? When you switch on a VPN, it creates an encrypted tunnel between your computer and a server managed by the VPN company. Anyone trying to peek at your web traffic along that journey won't be able to see anything—neither your ISP nor any spy agencies. Out on the internet, a VPN changes your public IP address, making it harder to track you across the web or divine your geographic location. VPNs are excellent tools for improving privacy and accessing blocked content, but they can't do everything. I recommend using them along with antivirus software and a password manager, as well as employing two-factor authentication wherever possible. Pricing, Features, and Privacy I closely examine all aspects of CyberGhost in my review of the Windows client. I'll summarize the most important points here, and you can read my other review for details, particularly on the efforts CyberGhost and other VPN companies make to protect your privacy. A subscription with CyberGhost costs $12.95 per month, which is significantly higher than the average of $10.80 for a top-rated VPN. A subscription with Norton Secure VPN, for example, costs just $7.99. Like most VPN companies, CyberGhost VPN offers long-term subscriptions at a discount. A one-year subscription with CyberGhost VPN costs $71.40, which beats out services like ExpressVPN, which costs $99.95 per year. Private Internet Access, however, costs just $39.95 per year. Note that VPN companies often have discounted rates, so you may see a different price. Nothing is cheaper than free, and there are some worthy free VPN services out there. My favorite is ProtonVPN, which is the only service to not place a data cap on its free subscription. ProtonVPN also has a tiered system, with restricted subscription for a hefty discount. CyberGhost does not have a free VPN subscription and limits its free trial to 24 hours. Most VPN companies allow up to five devices to be connected at the same time with a single subscription. CyberGhost does one better (well, two better) and allows seven devices. Private Internet Access and IPVanish now allow up to 10 devices, while SurfShark places no limit on the number of simultaneous connections. (Editors' Note: IPVanish is owned by j2 Global, the parent company of PCMag's publisher, Ziff Davis.) What CyberGhost does offer is the largest collection of servers I've yet seen—about 5,700 servers. While more servers doesn't necessarily mean better service, it does mean you're likely to have more options when selecting a server. CyberGhost takes the same stance on server distribution, with servers in 90 countries. Only ExpressVPN bests it, with servers in 94 countries. More locations means more opportunities to spoof your location, and a better chance of finding a nearby server when you're traveling abroad. When it comes to privacy, CyberGhost says it doesn't log user traffic. The company only earns revenue from VPN subscriptions, not by monetizing its users through data mining. CyberGhost has several offices around the country, but operates under Romanian law. The company says it cannot provide user information in response to requests from law enforcement, because it has no information to provide. The company has not undergone a third-party audit, but does publish a transparency report. However, this report notably does not indicate what (if any) information was provided in response to requests from law enforcement. If you haven't already, read my main CyberGhost VPN review for an exhaustive overview of the company's privacy policies. Hands On With CyberGhost VPN I tested CyberGhost VPN on a 2019 Retina-5K 27-inch iMac running macOS Catalina (version 10.15). This particular machine sports 16GB of RAM, and a 3.6 GHz eight-core Intel i9 processor. I've always been impressed by the effort CyberGhost clearly puts into designing its apps, and that's especially true of its macOS app. It won't quite blend in with other macOS apps as well as NordVPN, but it does look very good. I appreciate its splash of color, which is a bit more conservative than TunnelBear's bold yellows. While it starts out locked to the menu bar, you can run it as a windowed app—which I generally prefer. Clicking the central button gets you online fast, which is exactly how a VPN app should work. You can select a VPN server location from a list, or expand the window to browse all the available servers. CyberGhost VPN shows the load percentage and distance on each server. You can favorite servers for quick reference later on. Two special lists show servers specifically designed for streaming and others for downloading. NordVPN and ProtonVPN, notably, go further with collections of specialized servers for Tor and multi-hop VPN connections. CyberGhost does not support split-tunneling, which lets you specify which apps send data through the VPN connection. Private Internet Access and ExpressVPN do include this feature. CyberGhost does include options to block ads, block malicious sites, block online tracking, compress data, and automate HTTPS redirects. These are all good options, but are all off by default for some reason. A Smart Rules section lets you define how the VPN should behave on certain connections. Netflix is notorious for blocking VPNs, and I found I couldn't watch Netflix while connected to a US-based VPN server. That could change, however. A leaky VPN is a bad VPN. Using the DNS Leak Test tool, I confirmed that CyberGhost did change my public IP address and appears to not leak data—at least, on the server I tested. Speed Test Results Using a VPN complicates your internet connection, usually resulting in higher latency and lower speeds. To get a sense of the impact each VPN creates, I run a series of tests using the Ookla speed test tool and find a percent change between the VPN being on or off. The aptly named How We Test VPNs article includes a lot more about, well, how I test VPNs, and details the numerous limitations of my speed tests. The gist is that your specific results will almost certainly be different from mine. (Editors' Note: Ookla Speedtest and Encrypt.me are owned by j2 Global, the parent company of PCMag's publisher, Ziff Davis.) You can see how CyberGhost compares in the chart below with the top 10 performers among the 14 macOS VPN apps I tested. The overall results in my macOS VPN speed testing were mixed, with no decisive winner across all three categories. KeepSolid VPN Unlimited had by far the best download speed results, and Pango Hotspot Shield VPN the best upload speed results. CyberGhost VPN, however, had the most balanced results, staying well below the average results in all categories. Notably, Encrypt.me was the fastest VPN among 34 services tested using Windows 10. See How We Test VPNs An Excellent Experience CyberGhost VPN goes all out with the basic VPN experience: it has the most servers and is very close to having the most server locations. It also offers a well-designed client that balances simplicity with the ability to tweak a connection, and the service delivered surprisingly solid speedtest results. While it does provide more than the average number of simultaneous connections, it is one of the most expensive VPN I've tested on macOS, and doesn't feature additional privacy features like multi-hop or access to Tor. That said, those are rarified options. CyberGhost VPN is an excellent choice for macOS, and comes close to matching our Editors' Choice winners ProtonVPN and TunnelBear VPN. CyberGhost VPN (for macOS) Bottom Line: CyberGhost VPN goes big, with a huge collection of servers covering much of the globe, along with a generous number of simultaneous connections for its excellent service. All of that comes with a hefty price tag, however.

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