CactusVPN

A small VPN and Smart DNS provider from Moldova

CactusVPN sells two things side by side: a VPN and a Smart DNS service for reaching region-locked websites and streaming. The about page says the company "started as a small company in Moldova" and was formed in the back end of 2011 by three friends with a background in ecommerce. It compares the original idea to a family-run restaurant, where staff and clients know one another, and says the owners have refused outside offers to buy the company outright or in part. The team section names Sergiu Candja as founder and CEO, Pavel Bodeanu as CTO in charge of technology, software development and customer support, Denis Graur as design director, a network engineer and two customer support managers. There is also a CactusVPN Professional line, which the pricing page says is built around client data safeguards for licensed professionals.

Who can buy it: the about page says the company has customers "all over the globe", and the site does not name any country where it will not sell. Prices on the pricing page are in US dollars. The site is offered in English, French, Spanish, German, Russian, Portuguese and Turkish. Payment methods are not listed on the pricing page, though the refund policy refers to payments made in cryptocurrency, which suggests cryptocurrency is one accepted method. The homepage says apps are available for several devices and links a downloads page, but it does not name the platforms or app stores. Sign-up runs through the site's own account area.

What the site says about logs and audits

The homepage says "we don't keep any logs", and the server locations page repeats the line in its list of reasons to choose the service. That is the provider's statement. The pricing page goes further: each plan lists "Independently audited no-logs", and a panel says "Securitum verified our no-logs claim". That is the provider's own claim about a named firm. The site does not link a report, give a date, or describe what Securitum examined, whether servers, code or policy, so beyond that sentence it does not publish or link an independent audit of its logging policy that a reader could check. The pricing page says the no-logs claim "is verified by independent audit, not just stated in a privacy policy"; without the report, a reader has only the provider's word for that.

On ownership, the about page describes a family business model and says the company has turned down buyers. It does not name a registered company, a registration number or an address, and it does not say where the company is incorporated. The only statement of place is that CactusVPN started in Moldova.

Servers, protocols and getting past blocks

The server locations page lists 39 VPN servers in 25 countries, with a second view that sorts them by plan and marks some as P2P or as VPN plus Smart DNS. Locations in the Americas include several US cities, Montreal and Franca in Brazil; Europe includes London and Amsterdam, listed with 4 servers each, plus Nuremberg, Zurich, Barcelona, Riga, Paris, Warsaw, Moscow, Stockholm, Kyiv and Chisinau; and Asia Pacific covers Hong Kong, Sydney, Nagano, Singapore, Faridabad and Kuala Lumpur. The page says it uses "high speed 1 gbps servers", that every VPN server doubles as a free proxy server, that there are no bandwidth caps, and that the app can sort servers by speed. No measured speeds are published.

The same page lists "7 VPN Protocols (WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2, etc)" without naming the rest, and describes the encryption only as AES-256 on the pricing page and "military-grade" on the homepage. For censorship, the homepage promises to help users "Avoid censorship and restrictions", and the locations page advises using the closest server that is not blocked by the user's ISP or government. The site does not name an obfuscation or stealth mode, does not describe any tool for networks that inspect VPN traffic, and does not name any country where it says the service works. For a censorship-focused reader, that is the main gap.

Streaming and torrents: the homepage says the service gives access to 340+ websites, sports, gaming and streaming services, mostly through Smart DNS, and links a full list. The site's pages do not name the streaming services in that list. For torrents, the locations page points to servers in the Netherlands or Romania, and the plan view tags several servers as P2P.

Prices, the rate lock and refunds

The pricing page shows 3 plans in US dollars:

• Monthly at $15 per month, billed monthly.
• Annual at $5.83 per month, shown as $70 per year billed yearly, with the page claiming a saving of 61%.
• 2-year at $3.96 per month, shown as $95 every 2 years, with the page claiming a saving of 74%.

Every plan includes Smart DNS, unlimited devices and all 25 server countries, and the page says there are no premium server tiers or add-ons. The distinctive term is what the site calls "Rates locked for life": the price paid at signup is the price at every renewal for as long as the subscription stays active and in good standing, and the page says this is written into its terms of service, with any price change applying only to new subscriptions or to plan changes the customer starts. One inconsistency: the server locations page carries a banner offering "88% OFF + 8 months FREE", which does not match the plans on the pricing page, and the site does not explain the difference.

The 30-day money-back guarantee applies, per the refund policy, if the service does not work as advertised. It excludes payments made in cryptocurrency, attempts to unblock an unsupported site or use an unsupported device, accounts terminated for policy violations, and devices or systems not officially supported. The pricing FAQ says there is no free trial because the money-back guarantee is the better deal, yet the site footer links both a "Free Trial" and "Free Smart DNS" page, so what is free and for how long is not clear from the site. Support is described as "Professional 24/7 customer support", with a help center run by the support managers named on the about page.

What stays open, and who it suits

The biggest open question is the audit: the site names Securitum but gives no report, date or scope. The legal entity and its registered home are not named. The full protocol list, the app platforms and the payment methods other than cryptocurrency are not set out on the homepage, pricing, about or locations pages, and nothing describes obfuscation for heavily filtered networks. The promotional banner and the pricing table disagree.

CactusVPN suits someone who wants a VPN and Smart DNS in one subscription, unlimited devices, and a renewal price fixed at the rate they signed up for. It is a weaker fit for anyone who needs documented tools for getting past deep packet inspection, or who wants to read an audit report before trusting a no-logs promise.