VpnHood

A free, open-source VPN with no account required

VpnHood! is an open-source VPN project whose consumer app, VpnHood! CONNECT, is free to download and use. The homepage sums up the offer in three lines: "Secure by design", "Undetectable" against deep packet inspection and VPN-blocking firewalls, and free, with "no account, no subscription, ad-supported." The site says plainly how the free tier is paid for: it carries ads, and a paid Premium tier adds more. Around the free app sits a wider business. There is a reseller program, a white-label offer, an affiliate program, and tools for running a self-hosted VPN service.

On who can use it, the site sets no country limits and requires no account to start. The apps are listed for Android, iOS (iPhone and iPad), Windows and Linux, offered through the site's own Download page. The site is offered in Arabic, German, English, Spanish, Farsi, French, Hindi, Italian, Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Turkish and Chinese. The platform rule matters here, because the free tier is really an Android offer. The FAQ says CONNECT "offers unlimited free data without account registration on Android", while "On iOS, Windows and Linux, VpnHood! CONNECT has no free servers" and users there need to buy a Premium Key from the pricing page. The homepage download section repeats that the iOS and Windows apps have no free server. The page does not show Premium prices, currencies or payment methods.

Open code, a security audit, and no named operator

The site makes transparency its main trust argument. It says the full source code of CONNECT, the CLIENT app, the server and the VpnHood! ENGINE behind them is public on GitHub, with "No black-box binaries, no unexplained network calls." It invites readers to "read the code yourself rather than take our word for it."

The site says VpnHood underwent "a comprehensive security audit" by Include Security, run by the Open Technology Fund's Red Team Lab, and links the report from a Security Audit page. As the site describes it, that was a security review of the project's code. The site does not name an independent audit of its logging policy, and the homepage does not make a specific no-logs statement at all. It speaks of hiding the user's IP address and "preventing tracking", and the footer links a privacy policy, terms of use and a user account deletion page. What the service itself records about connections is not stated on the homepage. Being able to start without an account does mean the Android free tier does not ask for an email or a name to begin.

On ownership, the footer reads "© 2026 VpnHood." The FAQ credits "the VpnHood team" with the ENGINE. The site does not name the company behind it or say where it is based, and it names no parent or sister brand. An About Us page and a Contact Us page are linked, but the homepage itself leaves these questions open.

How the traffic disguise and the apps work

The central technical claim is traffic shaping. In the site's words, DPI "recognizes their protocols on sight" for most VPNs, while "VpnHood shapes its traffic to look like ordinary encrypted browsing, so there is no signature to match." The FAQ names this feature Cloak Mode. That is the provider's claim about how the service behaves on filtering networks; the page names no country where it says the service works. It does, however, pitch the reseller program as "a VPN built to survive censorship."

Other features on the homepage include TCP and UDP transport, split tunneling by countries, apps, IP addresses and domains, Private DNS and Adapter DNS settings, a kill switch that blocks the connection if the VPN drops, DNS and IP leak protection, and "Point-to-Point Encryption". The site calls its encryption "modern" but does not name a cipher. It also says the ENGINE is "the first VPN developed fully with the .NET platform", which is the provider's description.

The homepage lists server countries as Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Poland, Russia, the United States, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Pakistan, India, Singapore and Australia, with a link to see every location. The site does not give a server count, and the homepage does not say which of those countries the free servers cover. The FAQ says Premium adds "servers in more countries, faster connection speeds, and enhanced app functionality." The homepage makes no streaming or torrenting claims.

Free versus Premium, and the self-hosted route

The FAQ describes the free service as coming "without any time, data, or speed limitations", on Android. Premium is sold as a Premium Key, and the page links a pricing page and a Free vs Premium comparison without quoting a price, a plan length, a renewal price or a refund policy. Support runs through guides, an FAQ, GitHub Discussions, GitHub Issues and a contact page, rather than a live chat.

The site also sells a self-hosted route. VpnHood! MANAGER installs and manages a person's own servers, lets them "monitor them live" and "hand out access keys." VpnHood! SERVER is the open-source engine for Linux, Windows or Docker, and VpnHood! CLIENT is the free app end users install. For businesses, the reseller program lets them "buy access codes at reseller pricing, sell them at your own price, and never run a server." There is also a WHMCS plugin called VpnHood! PARTNER, a white-label option with the reseller's own brand and in-app purchases, and an affiliate program.

What the site leaves open, and who it suits

The homepage does not name its operator or jurisdiction, does not state a logging policy, and does not publish Premium prices. The free tier is limited to Android in practice. The site says the free tier is ad-supported, but it does not say what the ads involve or what data they use. The Include Security review is a code audit, not an audit of logging.

For an Android user who wants a free VPN without creating an account, and who may be on a network that blocks ordinary VPN traffic, VpnHood! is easy to try, and its code is public for anyone who wants to check it. Technically minded people and small operators get more still: the same engine can run their own servers or a resold service. People on iPhone, Windows or Linux will need to pay from the start. Anyone who wants a published logging policy and a named company will need to read the linked privacy policy and About page, because the homepage does not answer either.