Private Internet Access

Best for: people who want a no-logs claim that’s been tested by real subpoenas and courtrooms, not just by a commissioned audit, and who value open-source apps and unmetered devices over a spotless jurisdiction — not for anyone who treats US incorporation or Kape ownership as a dealbreaker.

Pros

• No-logs claim has held up in at least two documented US court cases (2016, 2018) where subpoenas produced zero identifying user data — a different, arguably more convincing kind of evidence than an audit alone
• When Russian authorities seized PIA’s servers in 2016 following a mandatory data-retention law, PIA reported nothing was compromised because there was nothing logged to seize — PIA shut down its Russian operation entirely rather than comply
• Apps and protocols (WireGuard, OpenVPN) are 100% open source, and can be independently inspected rather than taken on faith
• Port forwarding is still available on selected servers — increasingly rare among the VPNs reviewed on this site
• Unmetered device connections on every plan, plus a genuinely low headline price ($1.33/mo on the longest term)
• Flexible Shadowsocks/SOCKS5-based multi-hop lets you pair any server location with any proxy exit point, rather than fixed pre-set pairs
• Quarterly transparency report with real, specific figures — 46 total government/legal requests in Q2 2025 alone, zero logs produced

Cons

• Incorporated in the United States, a founding Five Eyes member — the same jurisdictional tier as one other US-based provider reviewed on this site
• Owned by Kape Technologies since December 2019 — the same holding company behind another VPN reviewed here, whose earlier incarnation (Crossrider) had a history tied to adware
• Only two formal independent audits (Deloitte, 2022 and 2024) — a thinner cadence than providers auditing annually
• Renewal pricing is genuinely unclear: PIA’s own current pricing page states long-term plans autorenew at the same intro rate, but several independent aggregators report a jump to roughly $56-57/year instead — this review couldn’t reconcile the two
• No dedicated obfuscation protocol in the usual sense — censorship resistance relies on the Shadowsocks proxy option within multi-hop, not a purpose-built stealth mode
• Independent speed tests show PIA’s international routes as more inconsistent than several other reviewed providers, even though nearby-server and latency numbers are competitive
• Live chat support quality is reported as inconsistent across recent reviews — sometimes fast and helpful, sometimes slow with shallow answers
• Exact total server count is no longer published, and some “server locations” are virtual (geo-located in a different country than advertised)

No-Logs Audit & Court History

PIA’s no-logs claim rests on more than audits, though the audits are real: Deloitte Audit Romania completed two independent reviews under the ISAE 3000 (Revised) standard, the first as of June 30, 2022 (server network, configuration, and incident management systems) and a second referenced in an April 2024 update (adding the dedicated-IP token system to scope). What sets PIA apart from most of the other providers reviewed here is that its no-logs claim has also been tested adversarially, in court, more than once. In 2016, a subpoena tied to an FBI bomb-threat investigation reached PIA’s then-parent company and produced nothing beyond a shared IP address cluster. In 2018, PIA’s own general counsel testified under oath in a federal hacking trial that the company simply had no customer activity logs to hand over. Separately, when Russian authorities seized PIA hardware in mid-2016 following a new mandatory data-retention law, PIA reported that no user data was compromised — because none existed to seize — and exited the Russian market entirely rather than start logging to comply. A quarterly transparency report backs this up with real numbers: 46 government, legal, and informal requests in Q2 2025 alone, zero logs produced in any of them.

Pricing

The monthly plan costs $11.95 with no discount. The 1-year plan runs $3.33/month ($39.95 for the first year), and the longest 3-year-plus-3-month term runs $1.33/month ($79 total) — both figures directly from PIA’s own current pricing page, which states plainly that both plans autorenew at the same rate rather than jumping after the intro period. That would make PIA’s long-term pricing among the most transparent reviewed here, if accurate — but several independent aggregators report the 1-year plan actually renews closer to $56-57/year (~$4.70-4.75/mo), a real, unresolved discrepancy with PIA’s own current page that this review flags rather than picks a side on. Even under the more cautious (aggregator) reading, PIA’s steady-state price remains competitive with the cheaper end of the VPNs reviewed here.

Security & Protocols

PIA runs WireGuard and OpenVPN, and — notably — both the client apps and the underlying protocols are stated to be 100% open source, meaning the code can be independently inspected rather than trusted on faith. A kill switch and split tunneling are both standard. Port forwarding, increasingly abandoned across the industry, is still available on selected servers, useful for torrenting and self-hosting. MACE, PIA’s built-in DNS-level blocker, strips ads, trackers, and known malware domains system-wide without a browser extension. Multi-hop is available via a Shadowsocks or SOCKS5 proxy layered in front of the VPN connection — any server location can be paired with any proxy location, more flexible than providers offering only fixed multi-hop pairs, though independent testing found roughly a 28% further speed cost when enabled. There’s no dedicated obfuscation/stealth protocol in the way some other reviewed providers offer one; the Shadowsocks proxy option is the closest equivalent.

Servers & Torrenting

PIA operates in 105 locations across 91 countries as of a January 2026 expansion, including all 50 US states — one of relatively few providers with that level of US-specific coverage. The company no longer publishes an exact server count. Some locations are served virtually rather than by physical hardware in-country (e.g. India and Indonesia routes are geo-located through Singapore/UK servers) — a common industry practice, disclosed here rather than assumed. P2P and torrenting traffic is allowed, with port forwarding available on selected servers to improve connection speeds for seeding.

Jurisdiction & Ownership

PIA is incorporated in the United States, headquartered in Denver, Colorado, and was founded in 2010 under parent company London Trust Media. The US has no federal mandatory data-retention law, but is a founding member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance. Kape Technologies, an LSE-listed holding company, acquired PIA from London Trust Media in a deal announced November 2019 and completed that December for roughly $130 million — the same company that owns another VPN reviewed on this site, and whose earlier incarnation, Crossrider, had a history tied to adware.

Our Rating

Rating: 7.7/10