Are you having problems with Astrill VPN? Since March of 2016, we have been seeing a lot of complaints about this VPN provider on our Twitter, but also in user reviews here on Best10VPN. Users seem dissatisfied with Astrill VPN since they have had extended outages, poor customer service, and overall connection problems.
Two of Best10VPN viewers left these comments:
“The biggest letdown and disappointment is recent, at around midnight of March 31st,2016 (Beijing Time). suddenly even after logging in I had zero connection, and even after trying all servers I could get it to work.”
“There is no excuse for terrible customer service. They should be sending us emails, pop-ups, providing online chat and doing whatever they can do to keep us informed as they change the processes. Instead, we’ve been left to fend for ourselves and try to figure out different ways to try to connect, or whether there’s any use in trying at all!”
And then another Reddit user explains his difficulty only seven days ago, suggesting problems are still rampant. I am having “huge problems. Posted in r/China. Since 11:30 yesterday. New version worked on Ubuntu last night an hour, windows and phone were OK, today Android/Windows/Linux completely dead. I’m going crazy.”
Another user on Twitter explains “Using #VPN when I first got to #China in Sept. was thrilling. Now, HAVING to get on @Astrill is merely annoying. #ThisIsChina #OverIt’.
So Astrill VPN is obviously having some significant problems. The question then becomes, which VPN should you use for China?
Our most recommended VPN for China is TorGuard VPN, and it has none of the problems that Astrill does. In fact, we just nominated TorGuard as the best VPN for China in 2016 in this blog post. In this article, we will show you each point that Astrill suffers and explain why TorGuard excels in every area.
Astrill VPN is expensive – Astrill VPN = $39 a month / TorGuard VPN = $6.33 a month
If you want to use Astrill VPN in China, you will need to purchase add-on security features like an NAT firewall, home plan, StealthVPN, ProAddon, and VIP. The total price of all of these add-ons equates to $29 extra dollars a month! That’s not even including the standard fee for Astrill VPN, which is $30 for three months. So if you want to use Astrill VPN in China, you will need to spend an average of 39 dollars a month! 
For TorGuard VPN, they automatically include Stealth VPN servers, Stealth Proxy, an embedded NAT firewall, include five simultaneous devices, as well as specially optimized servers for China. You can get all of that without spending more money, and it only cost $19 for three months. That’s only $6.33 compared to Astrill VPN’s 39 dollars a month.
Astrill’s customer support is bad
We’ve received numerous complaints about how Astrill VPN isn’t responding to customer requests that well. We’ve experienced this first hand when dealing with their service when we reviewed it! Astrill VPN support is laggy, and quite honestly, not very competent. To get Astrill VPN working, especially in China, be prepared to jump through a bunch of loopholes and strange policy decisions that the website mandates (like mandatory phone verification).
TorGuard’s customer support, on the other hand, is unquestionably the best in the VPN industry. They maintain one of the only 24/7 live chat services you can find that is always looking to help you with your problems quite quickly. Not only that but their forum community, as well as numerous blog posts, are only a quick search away.
Servers are unreliable
If you’ve been having bad connections or slow server performance, you might want to consider checking out TorGuard. TorGuard offers the best combination of servers with 42+ locations with over 1600+ servers. Not only that but they optimize individual servers for higher speeds for Chinese users–and they keep adding more servers to their list, like a new one in Guan Zhong.
Astrill doesn’t work with Netflix
Lastly, if you want to access Netflix in China, or anywhere in the world with a VPN, TorGuard is your best option. Astrill doesn’t work, and a majority of VPNs don’t work. Now, TorGuard has stepped up to the plate even more, as they have made every one of their servers automatically connect to Netflix with some smart IP filtering solution. Connecting to Netflix with a VPN is now SUPER easy. Sorry Netflix. You might have lost this battle.
Conclusion:
If you need a VPN in China, you can easily see why TorGuard beats out Astrill VPN. Astrill VPN might have the advantage of age, but clearly, that’s not longer an advantage. They are struggling to hold onto their user base, and many users are leaving their service altogether even after years of loyalty. Read our Astrill VPN review, to see what we think of the service in an in-depth examination.
Ken Jones
Had problems with Astrill last year 2018, when trying to connect with UK TV. Astrill then started to work for a short time.
We hoped their problems had been resolved, so we just renewed our subscriptions (July 2019).
Within days of renewal the system stopped working again when trying to connect to UK TV.
After numerous contacts with the Astrill support team they came back with the previously used response – basically saying the UK are actively searching out VPN servers with multiple-users but if you pay us more money you can be provided with a system that works. This is the same as they responded last year after a lengthy outage of their service. They have a NO REFUND policy, so are selling a product that does not work.
If you want to connect to UK TV from outside the UK – DO NOT USE ASTRILL!