Use Mullvad, unless you absolutely require port forwarding.

Mullvad is currently highly trusted by the community. If you lost your trust in proton I recommend switching back to it.

Mullvad is cheaper, and probably a bit more trusted, but Proton has port forwarding. Currently I use Mullvad. I don't like the Mullvad's 5 device limit on Wireguard clients though. You can only have 5 devices added to the account, no matter if just 1 or all 5 are currently connected. And after using Wireguard once, I don't want to use OpenVPN again where wg can fully replace it.
Both support cash payments, though Proton makes me feel like they expect it for larger sums of cash:

We cannot be responsible for lost shipments, so we strongly recommend sending your payment using a service that provides a tracking number so you can track the shipment. It’s also helpful to notify us that you’re sending us cash in the mail, so we know to expect it.

While Mullvad asks you not to use registered mail nor send larger amounts of cash. I feel like the latter is implied by asking to notify them. I suppose "Hey, I am sending you 10 bucks via mail." is not what's expected here.

What I absolutely like is the fair pricing. It's same price no matter how much time you buy, whether it's 1 month, a year or two. Even their direct competitor IVPN does this crap (and so does Proton). I value that quite a bit.

So currently Mullvad is winning for me.

Isn't mullvad better and cheaper?

Mullvad is very trusted by community generally they haven't given any reason to mistrust for now that I know of. They don't allow port forwarding anymore though so that's something to keep in mind if you need that.

Mullvad is better imo, unless you need port forwarding. I'm currently using Proton since I pay for Unlimited for that encrypted drive space, and using their VPN saves me money since I just think of the payment as just for Proton Drive. This is a change I made just a few days ago though, for about a year I've paid for both Proton Unlimited and Mullvad, and I legitimately prefer Mullvad over Proton, it just made sense for me to switch money wise. Can't really go wrong between the two imo.

they're both good but I use mullvad only because I use proton for email and I don't want one company to have both my emails and web traffic

Huge fan of Mullvad for the work around respecting users privacy. They are implementing ways of skewing AI-guided traffic analysis. VPN encrypts your data but companies are starting to use AI to look at traffic patterns and help determine what that data is. I won't pretend to understand it completely so I'd recommend reading their blog about it.

I've been eyeing PIA for it's price and the inclusion of port forwarding but not sure if anyone has experience with PIA.

IMHO Mullvad

Mullvad only!!!

Experience wise i’ve had a better time with mullvad at every corner when it comes to vpns than proton.

Protons still a respectable company i’d say but there focus is gonna become spread more thin while mullvads gonna continue providing a stable and simple experience.

Plus mullvads never gonna confuse you when it comes to pricing unlike proton, no extra time spent finding the difference between a monthly and annual subscription.

I used ProtonVPN for years. I use MullvadVPN. Both are totally fine, in my experience. I left ProtonVPN because I couldn't get port forwarding on Linux, and then less than two months after I did that Mullvad removed that feature, so that's how it goes.

I switched from ProtonVPN Free to Mullvad last month when I needed to torrent something. ProtonVPN Free doesn't allow P2P traffic, and Mullvad is cheaper than ProtonVPN Pro (or whatever it's called these days).

The AI doesn't seem too bad, but I'd prefer it not be there at all. I have no opinions about the crypto, as there is a legitimate use for it, but I have no use for the wallet as I have had a lot of trouble getting ahold of any cryptocurrency.

I'm also happier with the company and the experience. I paid with a card, but I liked that they accept cash and Monero.

On top of that, nobody seems to have anything bad to say about Mullvad. Privacy? They keep no logs and are pretty damn transparent. Limitations? No port forwarding, but I can just use Windscribe if I need that. Clients? They don't exclude Linux or arm64, and BSD users can just use wireguard-go or something.

There's also a story when one time the Polisen came to Mullvad HQ with a search warrant, but had to leave after discovering that there were no logs kept, and therefore nothing they could do.

Furthermore, they've made my favourite web browser (which is essentially Tor Browser without Tor) by collaborating with the Tor Project. It's one of only three browsers which give good results in Cover Your Tracks (although I have not yet tested anything with CreepJS; and I tend to change the settings in everything, so your mileage may vary).

TL;DR: I recommend Mullvad over ProtonVPN, but not because of the AI or crypto.

I also recommend Posteo over ProtonMail, Filen over Proton Drive, Bitwarden over Proton Pass, and I stopped using Proton before we got Proton Wallet.

Mullvad/IVPN for their pay with cash policies

Always mullvad for privacy, top tier. Only know you as a number and you can pay physical cash whole os (iirc) & vpn server runs in RAM and is gone on powerloss, the best.

Unless you are trying to get around geo blocks as they publish all their servers, so it’s easier for them to get blocked https://mullvad.net/en/servers.

Or if you are using it constantly, then just go with whoever is cheapest/has the features you like as you are only hiding from your ISP, everyone else still knows.

Mullvad

Both options are very good. Neither the wallet nor the writing assistant impact your vpn experience, so not sure what you're looking for in alternatives.

Anyway, sticking with proton or using mullvad are two equally good but different options. Want a VPN without port forwarding and only a VPN? Mullvad. Want port forwarding, or are interested in using their other privacy minded products? Proton.

I found that Proton always had connectivity issues tbh. Frequently had to disable my vpn just to use the internet which defeated the purpose. Never had this issue with Mullvad; I've found it very reliable. Also Mullvad is absolutely more privacy oriented. They don't require any kind of personal data. Proton will be tied to your Proton account so possibly your email, proton drive, etc.

What was the reason for you to switch from Mullvad in the first place?

I'm using a combination of Astrill (paid) and Proton (free, as a backup) since they are the only ones that reliably work in China, but once I'm out of here and my subscriptions expire, I'll be on Mullvad again.

I suggest RiseupVPN.

Only reason to use proton is because you're already paying for their email/drive/whatever.

I switched to Proton because I use all the products of their unlimited plan so it makes financial sense to go for that.

However, I feel like Mullvad VPN is vastly superior. Their no bullshit payment options are fanstastic. 5 euros a month, no matter if you buy 1 month or 10 years. I feel like speed and connection stability was noticeably better as well.

I miss Mullvad VPN, really.

I daily drive Proton mostly because of speed for gaming, but I keep a mullvad account handy for special occasions. I have zero interest in the full Proton stack, I don’t want to centralize my data like that. Especially once they joined the AI train, I’m glad I kept my VPN and email separate.

I host my own private git server and use Unix Pass for my password vault, FastMail for email, Syncthing and SMB for file sharing, don’t really use crypto so I couldn’t care less that they added a wallet. The VPN interface on mobile and Windows/Mac is fine. I’d love to see the Linux options improve, but I just use OpenVPN profiles and it works well enough.

I personally use mullvad for all outgoing traffic and then airvpn for any let forwarding I require. Basically airvpn is exclusive to incoming traffic, like my self hosted services or game servers, and then anything I do on the internet routes through mullvad. All setup through opnsense since they both support wireguard.

I always had issues with proton's port forwarding being reliable in the past. That being said, if you need things like video streaming services, mullvad seems to be having a hard time with these recently where as proton worked well for me back when I used it (unsure if that's still true).

Mullvad because, much like going raw, VPN's are used for special occasions.

mullvad. I've been having issues with proton on windows, but its cheaper for me since I get cloud storage, aliases, and some other stuff with it