GnuVPN runs five protocols, including SoftEther from a jurisdiction outside every intelligence-sharing alliance, at $2.79 a month. Mullvad is the anonymity benchmark, and has been for years, at a flat five euros.
Both providers now offer obfuscation, so the old framing of one against the other no longer holds. The real split is between protocol breadth and signup anonymity, and those pull toward different kinds of user.
Here is what each one actually delivers, and which side of that split you are on.
Short Answer: Two Different Jobs
For getting through a network that blocks VPNs, GnuVPN has more ways in. It carries SoftEther and AmneziaWG inside a five-protocol app, and SoftEther can fall back to transports that no WireGuard-based method offers.
For leaving no trace of who you are, Mullvad is unmatched. It issues account numbers instead of usernames, asks for no email, takes cash sent by post, and has been audited repeatedly. As a best VPN for anonymity pick, nothing here comes close to it.
The GnuVPN vs Mullvad decision is therefore not about which is better. It is about whether your problem is a blocked network or an identity you need kept out of the transaction.
Feature by Feature
Neither wins every row, and the surprises are worth reading carefully.
| GnuVPN | Mullvad | |
| Protocols | 5, including SoftEther | WireGuard only |
| Obfuscation | SoftEther, AmneziaWG | UDP-over-TCP, Shadowsocks, QUIC |
| Transport fallback | HTTPS, ICMP, DNS | UDP and TCP |
| Jurisdiction | Portugal, no alliance | Sweden, 14 Eyes |
| Signup | Account required | No email, account number |
| Payment | Direct crypto | Cash, Monero, crypto, card |
| Price | $2.79/mo, two-year | 5 euro flat, no discount |
Two rows decide most of this comparison. Mullvad takes signup and payment anonymity outright. GnuVPN takes protocol count, transport fallback and jurisdiction, which are the rows that matter on a hostile network.
Mullvad Owns Anonymity, and It Is Not Close
Worth stating plainly before anything else, because this is the axis Mullvad built its reputation on and GnuVPN has no answer to it.
A Mullvad anonymous account is a randomly generated number. There is no email address, no username, no password, and nothing tying the account to a person. You can pay in cash sent through the post, in Monero, or in other cryptocurrency, and the company runs its servers from RAM so a seized machine yields nothing.
It has also been audited repeatedly, including physical infrastructure audits, and it publishes the results. Few providers in any market submit to that level of external scrutiny, and fewer still publish what comes back.
If your threat model involves keeping your identity out of a payment record entirely, that combination is the answer, and the question of is Mullvad worth it has a straightforward yes attached to it.
One Protocol Against Five
Here is where the comparison turns, and it turns on a change Mullvad made this year.
On 15 January 2026, Mullvad completed its removal of OpenVPN. The apps and the servers are gone, leaving WireGuard as the only protocol the service runs.
Mullvad’s position is that WireGuard now provides the same level of obfuscation with better security and performance, and it has stacked three anti-censorship methods on top: UDP-over-TCP, Shadowsocks, and Mullvad QUIC obfuscation, which disguises traffic as ordinary QUIC browsing.
Those are real obfuscation tools. The limitation is structural: all three are layers over a single protocol, so every one of them ultimately carries WireGuard traffic over UDP or TCP.
SoftEther is a different protocol, not a layer. It tunnels through HTTPS on port 443, and where that is watched it can fall back to ICMP or DNS, two transports almost no network blocks completely. A WireGuard only VPN has no equivalent, because those fallbacks are not something you can bolt onto WireGuard.
That gap widens on phones. Mullvad’s Android and iOS apps have run WireGuard exclusively for some time, so mobile users get that protocol and its obfuscation layers and nothing else. The GnuVPN mobile app carries SoftEther alongside the rest of the protocol set, so the fallback transports travel to mobile with it.
GnuVPN anonymity is ordinary by comparison, and the app requires an account. What it offers instead is more ways through a filter, which is a different problem from the one Mullvad solves.
Mullvad’s own documentation adds a caveat worth repeating: enabling anti-censorship methods does not improve your privacy, and it can cost you performance. Obfuscation is for access, not anonymity.
Sweden Sits Inside the 14 Eyes
This is the part that surprises people who know Mullvad by reputation. Mullvad is registered in Sweden, a member of the 14 Eyes intelligence-sharing arrangement.
GnuVPN Portugal registration sits outside the Five, Nine and 14 Eyes entirely. Portugal’s Constitutional Court has also struck down blanket data retention twice, in 2022 and again in 2023, replacing it with a narrower framework that regulates metadata access for criminal investigations instead of requiring mass collection.
The honest qualification is that Mullvad’s jurisdiction matters less than it would for most providers, precisely because it holds so little. An account number and RAM-only servers leave very little for any government to request. Jurisdiction is the legal ceiling on privacy; a provider that stores nothing is not pressing against it.
Still, for anyone who treats alliance membership as a filter, the anonymity benchmark is inside the alliance and GnuVPN is not.
Flat Rate Against Long-Term Discount
Mullvad charges five euros a month, the same rate whether you pay for one month or twelve. There are no discounts, no sales, and no multi-year tiers, which the company frames as a deliberate refusal to lock people in.
GnuVPN charges $2.79 a month on its two-year plan, roughly half that rate, and takes direct crypto payment including USDT on TRC20. Its published pricing follows the usual model, where a longer commitment buys a lower monthly rate.
Which is better depends on how you buy. Mullvad’s flat rate is the fairer deal for short subscriptions and the more expensive one over years. GnuVPN’s pricing rewards commitment, in the ordinary way.
Matching the Tool to Your Threat Model
Choose Mullvad when the identity behind the subscription is what you are protecting. No email, an account number, cash by post, and RAM-only servers make it the strongest anonymity product on the market, and no competitor is close on that axis.
Choose GnuVPN when the network in front of you is the problem. Five protocols, SoftEther’s HTTPS, ICMP and DNS fallbacks, a jurisdiction outside every Eyes alliance, and a lower price make it the better fit for getting through filtering. As a Mullvad alternative, it competes on access, not on invisibility.
FAQ
Is GnuVPN a good Mullvad alternative?
For obfuscation and price, yes. GnuVPN runs five protocols including SoftEther, which offers HTTPS, ICMP and DNS transports that Mullvad’s WireGuard-only service cannot match, and it costs roughly half as much. For signup anonymity, Mullvad remains far ahead, since GnuVPN requires an account.
Is Mullvad still worth it now that OpenVPN is gone?
For most users, yes. Mullvad replaced OpenVPN with three WireGuard-based obfuscation methods and argues they provide equivalent censorship resistance with better performance. The people affected are those who relied on OpenVPN through routers or third-party apps, and anyone needing transports other than UDP and TCP.
Which is more private, GnuVPN or Mullvad?
Mullvad, clearly, on the account and payment side. It requires no email, issues an account number, and accepts cash. GnuVPN’s privacy case rests on jurisdiction and crypto payment instead, with Portugal sitting outside the intelligence alliances that Sweden belongs to.
Does Mullvad work on networks that block VPNs?
Often, yes. It offers UDP-over-TCP, Shadowsocks and QUIC obfuscation, all built on WireGuard. Where it has less room is on networks that block those transports, since a SoftEther connection can fall back to ICMP or DNS while a WireGuard-based method cannot.
Which is cheaper?
GnuVPN, at $2.79 a month on the two-year plan against Mullvad’s flat five euros. Mullvad never discounts, so its price is identical for one month or one year, which makes it better value for short subscriptions and more expensive over time.
Disclaimer: This article is provided for informational purposes only. It is not offered or intended to be used as legal, tax, investment, financial, or other advice.
