TL;DR
Between October 2025 and April 2026, I ran 2,850 measured streaming sessions across 3 major VPNs (NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Surfshark) and 10 streaming platforms (Netflix US, BBC iPlayer, Disney+, Hulu, HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock, Crunchyroll, DAZN, Prime Video). Every session was logged: success/failure, playback delay, throughput, error type.
The raw CSV is downloadable. The methodology is fully documented. The biases are acknowledged. Everything is on the original article: VPN Streaming Study 2026: 2,850 Test Sessions.
This post is a condensed version for fellow developers, security researchers, and journalists who want the structure before clicking through.
Why I built this
Most "best VPN for streaming" content on the web is sponsored junk: 5 affiliate-loaded paragraphs based on one screenshot from a press kit. I wanted to know what actually works, on the actual networks I use, on the actual services I subscribe to. So I measured.
Sample structure
- 3 VPNs tested: NordVPN, ExpressVPN, Surfshark (the three with the largest server fleets and most public claims to "unblock streaming")
- 10 target services across geo-restricted markets (US, UK, JP, DE, FR, BR, IT)
- 95 sessions per service per VPN, distributed over the 212-day window
- 3 time slots per day: 9:00 AM, 2:00 PM, 9:30 PM Europe/Paris — to catch geo-routing changes that some platforms apply at evening peaks
- Hardware: MacBook Pro M2 (macOS 14.4) + iPhone 15 Pro (native apps), Orange 1 Gbps fiber in Paris
The metric: what counts as a successful session
A session is "successful" when, after VPN connection and target service login:
- The catalog displays the localized regional content (no "Original Country" fallback)
- One HD video starts playback within 30 seconds
- No proxy-type error message appears during the first 60 seconds of playback
- Throughput >= 5 Mbps sustained (else the test counts as "speed-throttled")
A session that hits ONE of those failure modes counts as failed. No partial credit. This strictness is intentional — a 80% success rate that requires multiple reconnects is not the same as a 95% success rate that just works.
The headline findings
| Service | NordVPN | ExpressVPN | Surfshark |
|---|---|---|---|
| Netflix US | 92.6% | 88.4% | 78.9% |
| BBC iPlayer | 81.1% | 94.7% | 41.1% |
| Disney+ JP | 76.8% | 70.5% | 67.4% |
| HBO Max | 89.5% | 86.3% | 75.8% |
| Peacock | 87.4% | 82.1% | 71.6% |
| Weighted avg | 84.8% | 82.4% | 66.7% |
(Full per-service breakdown including DAZN, Crunchyroll, Paramount+ on the original article.)
The two notable patterns:
- NordVPN wins overall but BBC iPlayer is its weak point — 81.1% looks fine until you see ExpressVPN at 94.7% on the same service. If your primary use case is BBC iPlayer, ExpressVPN has a measurable edge.
- Surfshark is at 66.7% weighted average — that is still 2/3 of sessions succeeding, which is "usable" for casual use, but not "reliable" for live sports streaming.
What I explicitly acknowledged as bias
This is the part most affiliate sites leave out. From section 8 of the full article:
- Geographic bias — all tests originate from Paris 15th. A user in Berlin or Madrid will likely see different results on UK/IT servers, depending on their own ISP routing.
- Temporal bias — October 2025 to April 2026 covers 7 months but misses seasonal peaks (FIFA World Cup, NBA Finals, Eurovision).
- Single-operator bias — one tester = one browser fingerprint reused across 2,850 sessions. A multi-user panel would diversify.
- Affiliation bias — AnonymFlow earns commission on NordVPN subscriptions. The methodological response is to publish all raw figures so anyone can verify (CSV download in section 11).
What I learned about methodology
If you want to reproduce this kind of study, three things matter more than tooling:
- Define "success" in writing before you start measuring. If you redefine success mid-study to fit the data, you have an opinion, not a measurement.
- Pre-commit to a sample size. I chose 95 sessions per service before knowing the variance. After the fact, the 95% confidence intervals on a binomial proportion with n=95 are roughly ±9 percentage points — enough to distinguish 90% from 75%, not enough to distinguish 90% from 85%.
- Log everything raw. Aggregate values are derived. Raw observations let a third party recompute aggregates with a different definition of success.
Want the raw data?
The CSV is downloadable on the original article (section 11). It contains the timestamped result of each of the 2,850 sessions.
If you find a methodology hole I missed, open an issue on the AnonymFlow GitHub or reply here. Studies like this only get better when other people poke holes.
About the study
This post is a developer-focused condensation of the full primary study published on AnonymFlow. The original article includes complete per-service breakdowns, methodology in 11 sections, acknowledged limitations, and a downloadable CSV.
→ Read the full study with all data: anonymflow.com/en/blog/study-vpn-streaming-2026-95-test-sessions
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