ExpressVPN review – how well does it work on mobile in 2025?

Using a VPN like ExpressVPN on your smartphone or tablet is just as important as using one on your main PC or laptop. In fact, it’s probably more important. After all, you take your phone everywhere, and it is invariably connected to a network. Whether a free public Wi-Fi (where you’ve already shared your email address), a corporate network, or your best bud’s home Wi-Fi, you cannot be 100% certain when it comes to privacy.

Various risks come with connecting to unfamiliar wireless networks, and if you’re not equipped with a VPN, you’re taking a massive leap of faith. Encrypting your connection with a mobile VPN app is wise – connecting without encryption is not.

Much like NordVPN, ExpressVPN is considered one of the giants of the industry, and can be found sponsoring all kinds of podcasts and YouTube videos. Founded in 2009, ExpressVPN was originated by US developers but incorporated in the British Virgin Islands. This gives it some protection from data retention laws elsewhere in the world.

More recently, ExpressVPN was purchased by Kape Technologies, a company previously known as Crossrider whose business model was based around enabling malware injection into website adverts, which is alarming news from a privacy perspective. Fortunately, this happened before its purchase of ExpressVPN and it has demonstrated better conduct since then. It also owns competing VPNS, CyberGhost and Private Internet Access (PIA).

But how does it stand up as a mobile VPN? Does it work smoothly with the best mobile games? Well, let’s find out. For this review, I’ve assessed the app on a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, running Android 14.

Specs

ExpressVPN specs:

Privacy features

Keeping your data private when using a mobile device is vital. ExpressVPN includes a number of tools to help ensure your data is encrypted, and your activity hidden. The most basic feature is the main connect button. Tapping this without selecting a server will automatically connect you via the nearest VPN server, known as the Smart Location.

You can change the server by selecting from the drop-down list, with options in the Asia Pacific, the Americas, Europe, and the Middle East and Africa. A useful panel on the app’s home screen displays both your current IP address and the time protected by ExpressVPN in the past week. You can also tap a chat button to initiate a conversation with ExpressVPN support personnel should you have a problem.

The Options screen gives you access to some of the advanced features such as split tunneling. With this enabled, you can choose apps to connect to the internet without using the VPN connection. This would be handy if, for example, you wanted to access’s a geo-restricted event in a game, but wanted your other apps to connect through your native region. However, ExpressVPN has had some difficulty with this feature, which I’ll explain in more detail later.

The auto-connect settings can also be found here, along with the a choice of VPN protocols (reliant on server), and an internet kill switch, which ExpressVPN refers to as “block internet.” When your VPN connection drops, internet data is blocked, ensuring you remain protected. This won’t happen often, but it’s a useful security measure to have in place.

ExpressVPN also gives you the option to disable trackers, malicious sites, porn, and ads. These are useful options to have, especially if your kids use your phone to play games or you’re installing the VPN on a child’s phone. You can enable these on the initial setup of the app, or later via the Upgrades tab.

The app features a few useful tools, too: a useful DNS leak test and a WebRTC leak test, along with a secure password generator.

How well does ExpressVPN run on smartphone?

Having ExpressVPN on your phone is useful, but how usable is it?
The user interface on ExpressVPN is helpfully optimized on mobile devices, with clear and obvious buttons and menus to direct you to different features. It isn’t hugely different from the desktop version, so everything will seem pretty familiar if you’re used to that.

Once connected, you can check the status with a glance at the status bar, or pull down the notification panel to jump straight into the app. There is also a handy Disconnect button here should you need to disable the connection. In addition, the app features a widget, which enables easy connection toggling.

All of these shortcuts support quick connection in any scenario, so there is little excuse not to use ExpressVPN. Especially when it features two automatic connection options. These can be set for when the phone starts, essentially keeping everything encrypted, and when unfamiliar networks are joined. Marking some networks as trusted ensures ExpressVPN only connects when non-trusted networks are connected to. This might be useful, for example, if you are connecting to a network that you know is already protected with a VPN and don’t want to waste any battery change by having the app switch on redundantly.

Performance

To assess how fast ExpressVPN is on a smartphone, I tested it with Speedtest by Ookla (this is the mobile version of www.speedtest.net). After checking for a baseline speed, I then recorded speeds while connected to VPN servers in the UK, USA, and South Korea. My internet connection is a Vodafone fiber broadband.

• Baseline: 55.7Mbps/52.7Mbps
• UK Server (Telford): 71.0Mpbs/46.3Mbps
• US Server (New York): 87.4Mbps/24.5Mbps
• South Korea (Seoul): 60.6Mbps/11.7Mbps

These are not bad results, with the difference between baseline and the UK server no doubt due to local internet traffic. Of course, it is difficult to base decisions based on arbitrary server selection; these are really for illustration. However, the difference between the baseline result and the UK server is considerable when compared with NordVPN.

Using ExpressVPN for several days, I did find that my battery drained faster than usual. In a usual day, I’d expect to recharge at bedtime, but not before. On two occasions over the week using ExpressVPN, my phone needed recharging late afternoon. Of course, other factors come into play – internet sharing, watching videos, etc. – but this is extremely unusual and will be even more problematic for anyone who plays a lot of games.

However, referring to the table at the top of the review, while the ping rate isn’t bad, the jitter with ExpressVPN is poor. If online gaming is on your to-do list while using a VPN service, you might need to rethink your options.

Privacy concerns

As alluded to in the intro, ExpressVPN has a good reputation, but this has been tarnished over the years. This is mainly due to its current owner, Kape Technologies. The malware injection controversy led directly to the company changing its business entirely and occurred before ExpressVPN’s acquisition. However, its history did not go unnoticed, and the VPN lost customers (myself included).

As mentioned above, there have been some historic issues with the split tunneling feature too. In 2024, ExpressVPN was discovered to have been leaking data through a defect in how the split tunneling worked. This is believed to have been resolved but could have been going on for some years. This does set a rather concerning precedent.

So, choosing ExpressVPN is going to need a certain degree of forgiveness and trust on your part. Given it can handle torrenting (forget the bad press, this is useful for legal downloads), overseas game servers, and the highly desirable access to overseas Netflix libraries, and is fast and reliable, there are still lots of good reasons to choose ExpressVPN.

Verdict

ExpressVPN is arguably the biggest name in consumer VPN products. It has been around for a long time, and built a well-regarded reputation. Unfortunately, this reputation has been damaged via association with its owner, Kape Technologies, and some recent privacy issues.

Taking this to one side, the software itself is fast, reliable, and easy to use. Our testing demonstrated how ExpressVPN maintains good speeds across its server network, although these are not as fast as some competitors. It handles streaming from overseas Netflix libraries well, and in fact, the mobile app is so effortless to use that it’s easy to forget you’re using it. Connecting to a VPN server is easy, and the app has the option to auto-connect to a preferred server each time you switch on your phone. ExpressVPN even gives you the option to only connect when in the presence of unfamiliar Wi-Fi networks.

From a purely personal point of view, I used ExpressVPN between 2015 and 2021, when it was purchased by Kape Technologies. My feelings about that company were enough to stop me using ExpressVPN permanently. You have to be able to trust a VPN, after all, but I understand how others might be able to look past that today.

Overall, it is a good mobile app for a fast VPN service, although it doesn’t offer the stability you might need for online gaming. The 2024 privacy issue, given the context of its ownership, is likely to dog ExpressVPN for years to come. Use it for gaming and streaming, but if privacy is your biggest concern, there are other options available to you (and you can read our NordVPN review for another of them).

Read our lists of the best iPhone VPNs and the best Android VPNs if you want to find more recommendations.