ZenMate Review

A Fast and Beginner-Friendly VPN With a Free Plan

ZenMate VPN offers a lot of features that work like a charm, especially for beginners. We’ll take a look into its security and privacy offerings, server network, speeds, and something that you don’t come across in premium VPNs very often — its free plan that all ZenMate reviews seem to rave about.

Security and Privacy Features

Just as is the case with rivals like PIA and CyberGhost, this VPN provider offers top security features, including a strict no-logs policy, strong encryption, and several security protocols. ZenMate security, however, stands out with an identity shield, which is something you won’t find in its competitors.

Identity Shield

This feature does monthly security checks to investigate whether the email you used to register for ZenMate has been compromised. If so, you will immediately be notified about the breach. This emerged as one of our favorite features when researching for our ZenMate VPN review, mainly because other premium VPNs don’t offer it.

Security Protocols

ZenMate VPN supports different cipher suites with PFS (Perfect Forward Secrecy), as well as OpenVPN, 1Kev2, and L2TP protocols.

Encryption

You’ll find that most premium VPNs offer AES 256-bit encryption, the most secure type of encryption you can get. This is only partly true for ZenMate because the VPN offers it on its mobile and desktop clients, while its browser extensions are still using the AES 128-bit encryption.

No-Logs Policy

According to our ZenMate premium review research, despite the fact that the VPN provider is based in Germany and, therefore, a part of the 5/9/14-Eyes Alliance, it still has a strict no-logs policy.

The VPN and proxy provider does not keep any user data logs, which essentially means that in the event that the government requests such information, they would not have any to hand over.

Ad Blocker

While the VPN offers free separate ad-blocking software, it does not have a designated ad blocker within the ZenMate app.

High-Speed Torrenting

Our ZenMate VPN review continues with the service’s torrenting options. The VPN is fast enough even for high-speed ZenMate torrenting as it allows P2P connections and also features a dedicated torrenting section with servers specifically optimized for P2P sharing.

All in all, this is one of the best VPNs for torrenting that you’ll find at the moment.

Speeds

The ZenMate proxy and VPN service offers great speeds on both local and international servers. While, naturally, you’ll get the best speeds on nearby servers, even on overseas servers, your speed won’t suffer significantly.

While testing the VPN for this ZenMate review, we also found that if you want to bypass a geoblock, you’ll have to look into the specific region where the content you’re looking for is available and then connect to a server there. With the vendor having 2,600 servers in 80 countries across the globe, you shouldn’t have any trouble finding a server that will successfully unblock the content you’re looking for.

Streaming

Most people look to VPNs when they want to stream content unavailable in their region. We decided to test some of the major platforms for this ZenMate review and found that the VPN successfully unblocks most of them — Hulu being the only exception.

While this is definitely a downside, we also found that the VPN offers great speeds across all servers and streaming platforms, including Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, BBC iPlayer, and HBO GO. Additionally, the ZenMate Kodi extension works like a charm, which makes ZenMate VPN one of the best VPNs for streaming, with the exception of Hulu, that is.

Device Compatibility

ZenMate offers unlimited simultaneous device connections with a single subscription. Our ZenMate extension review research has also shown that the VPN is compatible with Windows, Android, iOS, macOS, as well as Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Android TV, Amazon Fire Stick, and OpenVPN. Additionally, the ZenMate Chrome extensions also allow it to work splendidly on some Chromium-based browsers.

Customer Support

ZenMate has a dedicated support page called ZenGuard, where you can find just about any piece of information about the VPN. If troubleshooting on your own doesn’t do the trick, you can contact the support team via email, or you can submit a ticket. Just like most ZenMate reviews testify, we also got a quick reply from a support team member. Overall, the ZenMate VPN can boast a great customer support service.

Pricing

Another great thing about ZenMate VPN is that it is affordable and even offers a free plan and a ZenMate trial. So, while you won’t get the ZenMate premium features if you go with the free plan, you can give the 7-day free trial a shot and decide where you want to go from there. Additionally, the VPN vendor offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, just in case you want to give those premium features a shot.

The research for our ZenMate free review showed that the limited free plan is for Firefox, Opera, and Chrome browser extensions exclusively and allows users to connect to up to four different locations at a maximum speed of 2Mbps.

If this is not enough, the vendor offers a Pro plan for browsers for $7.99/month. A six-month subscription will set you back only $3.19/month, while the one-year plan costs $1.99/month. The research for our ZenMate review showed that this plan does not include P2P torrent support and OpenVPN, which are available with the highest tier.

The Unlimited version covers all devices — its most expensive option is the monthly plan at $10.99/month, followed by the one-year package that will set you back $4.49/month. Finally, the most budget-friendly option is the three-year plan that costs $1.51/month. If we compare ZenMate vs Hola, for example, it’s pretty clear that the former is the cheaper option.

Our Verdict

Overall, ZenMate is a force to be reckoned with. As already noted in our ZenMate review, the identity shield feature makes this VPN stand out from the crowd, complementing the service’s great speeds. While we’d love to see the VPN unblock Hulu and maybe offer a designated ad blocker, the pros outweigh the cons.