Born from CERN, built for privacy
ProtonVPN was founded in 2017 by a team of scientists from CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research). Initially, the Proton project aimed to develop an end-to-end encrypted email service (ProtonMail), but the team quickly realized that encrypting email content alone wasn't enough to protect user privacy β if the network connection itself was being monitored, all encrypted communications could expose metadata.
Based on this understanding, ProtonVPN was born. It's not just a VPN tool, but a core component of the Proton privacy ecosystem, together with ProtonMail, ProtonDrive, and ProtonCalendar forming a complete privacy protection matrix.
Based in Geneva under the world's strictest privacy laws
Over 100 million users trust the Proton ecosystem
All client code open-source, reviewed by global security community
We believe privacy is a fundamental human right, not a luxury. ProtonVPN's mission is to enable everyone to access the internet freely and securely, free from government surveillance, corporate tracking, or internet censorship.
To this end, we offer a free VPN service ensuring even users without payment ability enjoy basic privacy protection. Meanwhile, our paid plans provide advanced services for users needing higher security and more features, sustaining the entire ecosystem's operations.