Peak download speed is close to irrelevant for torrenting. What matters is whether throughput holds up over hours, whether the kill switch actually engages when the tunnel drops, and whether the provider supports port forwarding. We test all three.
Nothing here is advice about what to download. Use it for the large legitimate transfers people actually use P2P for — Linux distributions, game updates, open datasets — and obey the law wherever you are.
The three things that matter
- Sustained throughput: a six-hour transfer to see whether the provider throttles long sessions.
- Kill switch reliability: 40 forced network drops, counting any packet that escapes the tunnel.
- Port forwarding: without it, you connect to fewer peers and transfers are slower.
1. IPVanish — the pick
Held 88 MB/s across a full six-hour soak with no throttling, the best sustained result of the cycle. P2P is allowed on every server, not a restricted subset. The kill switch held through all 40 forced drops without leaking a packet, and connections are unlimited so your NAS, desktop and seedbox all count as one.
The trade-off is jurisdiction: IPVanish is US-based, inside the Five Eyes. Its no-logs claim has been independently audited twice, most recently April 2025, but the legal exposure is what it is.
2. Private Internet Access — best port forwarding
Port forwarding on supported regions at no extra cost, P2P network-wide, open-source clients you can audit yourself, and a no-logs record that has been tested in court rather than merely audited. Speed is the weakness — 767 Mbps nearby and noticeably inconsistent between runs.
3. hide.me — best outside Five Eyes
Malaysian jurisdiction with no data retention regime, port forwarding and a SOCKS5 proxy included rather than upsold, and P2P permitted on every server including the free tier. 806 Mbps nearby. The best choice if jurisdiction is a priority.
Who to avoid for P2P
NordVPN and Proton VPN are both excellent VPNs that do not offer port forwarding, and the torrenting community complains about it consistently. CyberGhost also lacks it. They will work, but you will connect to fewer peers than you should.
A kill switch that leaks for two seconds is worse than no kill switch, because you think you are covered.
Set it up properly
- Turn the kill switch on before you start, and verify it by killing the VPN process while a transfer runs.
- Bind your torrent client to the VPN adapter specifically, so it cannot fall back to your normal connection.
- Enable port forwarding if the provider offers it, and check the port is actually open.
- Run a DNS leak test while connected — a leak here defeats the point entirely.
