SlickVPN Review: It Will Disappoint You!

While providers like ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, and NordVPN reign supreme, sometimes, we have these obscure VPNs that are surprisingly good. In this SlickVPN review for 2024, we decided to test this rather obscure and unknown provider and see how good it is for the money. We’re talking about a full-fledged premium service that doesn’t have a free trial, free plans, or anything similar. SlickVPN is far from being very popular. It’s a provider you most likely haven’t heard about, yet, its expensive pricing makes you think it’s something special.

Well, unlike AirVPN which is a solid VPN despite not being very popular, SlickVPN is something else. During my time with it, I was very disappointed at what it offers – or what it doesn’t offer, to be precise, which left a bitter taste in my mouth after my SlickVPN test.

Nevertheless, I will be brutally honest in this review as I am right from the get-go. Today, we have many tests to go through, as we’ll check the results that SlickVPN achieved in terms of ease of use, streaming, performance, torrenting, bypassing censorship, customer support, and pricing.

It’s going to be an interesting review, no doubt, but I already gave you full spoilers on my opinion about SlickVPN. However, I still recommend reading this test to the end because I prepared excellent alternatives that’ll cost you LESS than this provider, yet, provide many more features.

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The 3 best alternatives to SlickVPN:

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SlickVPN User Experience & Device Support

SlickVPN comes with a hefty price tag but it doesn’t feel like a premium VPN. Sure, its device support isn’t as bad as you’d think it is but the overall experience and the UI leave a lot to be desired. Let’s start with device support regarding basic platforms.

The provider works on Windows and macOS but it also has numerous setup guides for devices like iOS, Android, Linux, and other platforms. One of the worst things about SlickVPN is that it has native apps only for Windows and macOS – all other platforms require some sort of manual setup.

If you’re on Android, for example, you’ll need to download the OpenVPN client and set up SlickVPN manually. iOS users will follow the same steps. Interestingly, the provider even supports Linux, albeit, only one distro – Ubuntu.

Moving on, I found that SlickVPN also works on Chromebook, which isn’t a big deal since it’s not a very popular device. However, among all these supported devices, the provider didn’t include an app for Amazon Firestick TV, which, to be honest, is a deal-breaker in 2024.

On that note, we wrote about the best VPNs for Amazon Fire TV recently, so check this article out if you’re in dire need of one. Finally, when it comes to simultaneous connections, SlickVPN won’t reinvent the wheel. It gives you 5 simultaneous connections, which is just about enough for an average user.

Desktop and Mobile Apps

In this SlickVPN review for 2024, I was very disappointed with the overall feeling of the provider’s apps. I use Windows as my main platform and the look of the app is displayed below. As you can see, it’s one ugly window that looks like it belongs to the 90s.

The center of the screen is taken by the connection log and a big connection button. To be able to connect, you’ll need to copy and paste the username and password into the two blank text boxes. You’ll find your VPN username and password if you log in to your account on the website.

Once that is finished, SlickVPN will connect to the server you want – or a random server if you just use the connection button. Clicking on Locations reveals a server list, which, honestly, looks comprehensive, and you even have these CORE servers clearly displayed.

More about them later in the review of SlickVPN. Another interesting feature is this Speed Test. It’s very useful at first but once you see that it fakes the results, you’ll think differently of it. When compared to speedtest.net – my main speed-test site, its results are exaggerated.

SlickVPN thinks it’s faster than it actually is, rendering this speed test somewhat irrelevant. Finally, we have Preferences at the end, where you can tweak some of the features. Unfortunately, SlickVPN isn’t feature-rich and you don’t have much to work with.

In this test, I won’t comment on its mobile integration because it has no mobile apps. As said, everything goes through the OpenVPN client which is a third-party app for establishing VPN connections. It has nothing to do with this provider, so it makes no sense to review it.

TV Apps

Smart TV and VPNs go well with each other. A VPN lets you bypass geo-blocks and access restricted streaming platforms with ease. SlickVPN isn’t a champ of streaming, which we’ll prove later in this review, and neither will it work on a boatload of smart TVs.

However, downloading the OpenVPN client on your Android TV will allow you to connect to SlickVPN’s server and enjoy additional privacy. If it’s not available on Google Play for you, you can sideload it and use it normally, which I ended up doing.

As stated in this review, SlickVPN doesn’t support Fire TV Stick but you can use it on Nvidia Shield. Moreover, since it has router support, users with Samsung and LG TVs can take advantage of it but only if they have what it takes to complete the complex setup that must be done.

Regardless, if you want a better VPN for your Smart TV or any other TV system, I suggest using ExpressVPN instead. It’s easier to set up, has better support, and is infinitely better for geo-restricted streaming services.

Gaming Apps

Gaming with SlickVPN isn’t impossible. I mean, it supports all “gaming” platforms like Windows, iOS, Android, macOS, and Linux. But what about gaming consoles? Well, SlickVPN isn’t “official” in this regard and you’ll find no mention of PlayStation or Xbox on the site.

The good thing is that it supports routers, which can be used to hook up a VPN to your gaming console. One thing I dislike is that it has no support for SmartDNS, so if you want to stream on a gaming console without setting up a VPN, you’ll be in great disappointment.

ExpressVPN offers SmartDNS called MediaStreamer, so it’s, again, a better choice for gaming consoles and gaming, in general.

Router Support

Lastly, let’s talk about router support. As said earlier in this SlickVPN test for 2024, you’ll get support for a router but not the best one in the business. Surely, ExpressVPN and CyberGhost have better support but SlickVPN isn’t too far behind.

It supports DD-WRT and Asus-Merlin routers. If you don’t have support models, flashing a router is always an option but a dangerous one, as it can void your warranty and brick the router if you’re unaware of what you’re doing.

Moving on, SlickVPN also supports QNAP and Synology. For both platforms, the service uses OpenVPN, which also applies to the supported routers. Either way, the provider isn’t particularly rich in protocols, which we’ll discuss very soon in this test.

Is SlickVPN Safe & Secure? All Security Features Examined

For me, the most important thing about a VPN service is the overall security. People often use a VPN for streaming but I think that, if it’s not safe and secure, all of its other features are obsolete and useless. Let’s see if SlickVPN is safe and secure enough to be considered great.

256-bit Encryption

256-bit encryption is a gold standard in today’s industry. This is the highest level of encryption you can get and the one that’ll encrypt your traffic and make it untraceable by your ISP. SlickVPN uses AES-256 encryption, which is great news.

Keep in mind that this encryption is also used by banks and the military around the planet, so you’re getting the creme de la creme of online security. Albeit, there’s one small caveat because the provider isn’t ALWAYS using this level of encryption, as determined by the protocol.

More about that in a second.

Automatic Kill Switch

Let’s talk about the kill switch. Does SlickVPN have it? Yes, it does, and it’s a bog-standard automatic kill switch that disables all internet traffic if you lose your VPN connection. Does it work well? Again – yes! I had a few connection issues during this review and I noticed its activation right away.

Unfortunately, this is a typical kill switch, with no advanced features. It works on the system level only and blocks traffic for all apps, with no ability to add exceptions. A more advanced kill switch can be found in NordVPN and I strongly suggest checking out this VPN as well.

OpenVPN & IPSec Support

Remember what I said about encryption? I hope you do because if you don’t, you might want to do a brain scan. All jokes aside, the provider supports just two protocols, which include OpenVPN and IPSec. How are these two different in this case?

Well, OpenVPN is used on pretty much all of the supported devices, whereas, IPSec is used only on macOS and iOS. OpenVPN connections rely on 256-bit encryption but IPSec connections take advantage of 128-bit encryption instead.

This is what I wanted to point out. If you’re using an iPhone, SlickVPN will give you weaker encryption, actually. It’s not the end of the world, as 128-bit encryption is still rock-solid, albeit, it’s definitely weaker than the 256-bit encryption we all love.

I also don’t like that IPSec is used on iOS and Mac. OpenVPN works perfectly fine on Mac so I don’t see a reason not to use it. They could’ve at least gone with IKEv2, which is a perfect alternative to OpenVPN, with great performance and security.

CORE Servers

While ProtonVPN has Secure Core servers, SlickVPN has CORE servers. There’s a big difference between the two, putting aside the lexical similarity. Secure Core servers in ProtonVPN are MultiHop servers, which means they route your traffic through two servers and double your encryption.

CORE servers are… well, we don’t know precisely what they are and I think SlickVPN also doesn’t. It claims that these servers are faster than regular servers, yet, they also offer 256-bit encryption and “100% reliability” whatever the hell they mean by it.

The description of these servers looks like a description of a typical server, so I’m not sure what’s the point. Most importantly, there are NO differences in performance or stability, making these servers rather pointless. They’re here just for show – nothing else.

HYDRA

In this SlickVPN review, I’ll mention one more feature called HYDRA. This very feature can be called MultiHop or Double VPN if you will. As SlickVPN says, connecting to a server using HYDRA routes your traffic to another VPN tunnel and doubles your encryption.

This feature indeed works but it needs a bit more polish, as it’s not the fastest and provides a level of performance that won’t make you particularly happy. If you want to know what is Double VPN, I think NordVPN is a prime example that implemented this feature far better.

SlickVPN IP and DNS Leak Test

To make sure everything works as it should in SlickVPN, I decided to test the service practically and perform a few IP and DNS leak tests. First, I connected to the US server and then I visited the site ipleak.net – I got these results.

You can see that only US IP and DNS addresses are shown and I’m located in Eastern Europe, which implies SlickVPN properly concealed my whereabouts.

Another site I wanted to use just to double-check the provider is browserleaks.com. The results speak for themselves – take a look:

The provider showed no IP/DNS leaks here either, as only American addresses are displayed. So far, SlickVPN showed decent results and in a very important test like this one, it scored 10/10 points – good job!

Does It Have a No-Logging Policy?

Logging practices are another vital factor. Yes, I value security and having all these fancy features but at the end of the day, logging is what makes or breaks a VPN. SlickVPN isn’t based in a privacy-friendly jurisdiction, which will raise some eyebrows.

For the start, the company is located in the United States. The US is one of the worst countries for a VPN service due to it being a founding member of the 5 Eyes. 5 Eyes countries are known for government surveillance and data collection, which is extremely anti-privacy.

Before talking about its privacy policy, I want to mention that not all US-based services are bad. Many of them offer no-logs policies with external audits, remaining trustworthy in 2024. Fortunately, SlickVPN doesn’t store logs either, so from a privacy standpoint, it’s not bad.

Which Information Isn’t Stored?

I like that its privacy policy isn’t very long. It’s short and tells you everything you need to know about it in the first part. First of all, this is a no-log service, so it won’t store data like your online activities, IP addresses, DNS requests, connection logs, geolocation, and other information.

Which Information Is Stored?

For the service to function properly, some information must be stored. In this case, we’re talking about your email address and payment data, both of which are needed to maintain your subscription and require the necessary payment upon expiration.

SlickVPN uses cookies on its site and it’ll track your activity only on its website. This is fairly normal and is used for further improvement of the service and the site, in general. The provider claims not to sell user data to third parties, which is another redeeming factor.

None of these facts are backed by an external audit, though. Can we fully trust SlickVPN in this case? Well, partially yes, because it’s still free of any data-leaking scandals unlike PureVPN, HMA, or IPVanish, making it a bit more “legit.”

However, a third-party audit would solidify SlickVPN as one of the safest VPNs akin to ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, or NordVPN.

SlickVPN for Streaming: Streaming Platforms TESTED

When you think about cheap and more expensive VPNs, the difference in security doesn’t always have to be huge. An affordable provider like CyberGhost is still extremely secure and offers a no-logs policy in the same fashion as the more expensive ExpressVPN.

Where more expensive VPNs usually excel is streaming. SlickVPN isn’t cheap by any means but despite paying a hefty price for it, it won’t provide you with an exceptional streaming experience. First, it’s not very fast, which wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for subpar streaming capabilities.

SlickVPN fails to unblock the majority of streaming services, and when discussing the most popular ones, you can forget about them. SlickVPN is easily detected by American streaming platforms, so accessing the most viral content is out of the picture.

As for the TV channels, we can say that the provider showed a decent performance. Watching restricted foreign TV channels is possible but some US channels were quick to detect the VPN and block it. The same, unfortunately, applies to certain UK channels that did the same.

Overall, SlickVPN isn’t a great option in this regard, although it’s capable of streaming Full HD content if you’re not using a server overseas. The problem is unblocking the content, which can be solved by using a more reliable VPN like ExpressVPN or CyberGhost.

Speed Tests: Here’s How Fast SlickVPN Really Is

Since I touched on speeds, let’s talk about how fast SlickVPN is in my review. Before divulging my speed test results, however, I first need to talk about testing parameters, which greatly dictate the provider’s speeds.

For the start, I’m located in Eastern Europe and when using the internet without a VPN, my native speeds look like this:

Once I completed this speed test, I went ahead and tested SlickVPN. The testing procedure is simple. I tested the service for 3 days in a row, 3 times a day, across 4 server locations that include the UK, the US, Australia, and Japan.

Since I’m in Eastern Europe, this is a good combination of near and distant servers that’ll give you a good overview of how fast or slow the service is. The VPN protocol I used was OpenVPN since I performed my tests on Windows.

Sadly, I’m not an owner of a Mac, so testing IPSec was impossible. Either way, the OpenVPN results will always be better, so let’s take a look at them together:

UK:

US:

Australia:

Japan:

Judging by the speed test results, SlickVPN is slow. It’s not the slowest VPN out there but if we compare it to ExpressVPN and its blazing-fast Lightway protocol, this service is definitely on the slower side. The UK speed test results were decent, not gonna lie.

However, as soon as I “moved” overseas, everything started to crumble like a tower of cards. SlickVPN immediately bumped up my ping, decreased overall speeds, and made the experience worse. This explains why its streaming performance isn’t great.

Whatever the case, you’ll be better off with ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, or NordVPN if you’re looking for better performers. SlickVPN isn’t there yet and I doubt it’ll ever be.

Is SlickVPN Good for Gaming?

Gaming with SlickVPN isn’t the most enjoyable thing to do. Sure, you can get away with it by connecting to a server near your location and reducing your latency. However, many people want to use servers overseas to play games with people outside of their regions.

For this scenario, we always recommend ExpressVPN due to its fastest speeds. SlickVPN doesn’t have the firepower required to give you a smooth and lag-free gaming experience. Playing slow-paced titles isn’t all that bad and I must admit that gaming on my iPhone with this VPN was “okay.”

Once you try and go for something more “exotic” like cloud gaming, you’re in for a rude awakening. SlickVPN produces a very noticeable lag input when using Xbox Cloud Gaming and PlayStation Now, making it impossible to enjoy the gameplay to a full extent.

In fact, SlickVPN is never advertised as a gaming VPN in the first place. It’s not great for streaming due to slower speeds and by the same analogy, it’s also not great for other bandwidth-hungry activities, one of which is gaming which requires low latency and stable connections.

Can I Use SlickVPN for P2P and Torrenting?

Torrenting usually isn’t allowed when talking about free services. They forbid P2P traffic for a reason,  but since SlickVPN is a premium service, you can expect a P2P allowance. Granted, the provider doesn’t have thousands of servers, so picking a fast server isn’t as easy.

On the other hand, the provider isn’t popular either, so servers are very rarely congested. Either way, it’s vital to point out that every server is torrent-friendly, so it doesn’t matter which one you go for, as long as it’s close to your location to maximize the performance.

As indicated by our test and a screenshot above, you can see that SlickVPN indeed works properly. After using it for quite some time, I noticed that it’s actually decent for this purpose and because I used a server in my country, the speed reduction wasn’t noticeable.

On top of that, SlickVPN is safe and secure enough that it won’t store my download history and hand it out to the authorities thanks to a no-logs policy. All of this makes the provider a suitable P2P option that you can use for this purpose without the fear of jeopardizing your privacy or losing performance.

Is It Working in China & Other Censored Countries?

This SlickVPN review for 2024 also contains a part where we talk about bypassing censorship. As per my experience with SlickVPN, it’s not great in this regard and it didn’t work in China. To be frank, I didn’t expect it to work because of several factors.

First of all, the provider has no obfuscation, so it can’t hide the fact that you’re using a VPN from your ISP. For this very reason, my friend in China who used my subscription couldn’t make it work. As soon as he tried to connect, the VPN disconnected immediately and refused to work after that.

Another thing that “kills” SlickVPN is not having advanced protocols or features like NoBorders, Obfuscated Servers, Stealth Mode, etc. All of this means that the provider will always fail to work in China and countries with the same censorship level.

Although, our findings showed that the service works in the UAE and Russia, in Turkey, it showed mixed results based on certain conditions in the country. To make sure you have a reliable connection in a censored country, I suggest VPNs like ExpressVPN, NordVPN, and Surfshark.

Servers and Server Locations

Being a smaller, less popular provider, you can’t expect SlickVPN to exceed your expectations with a huge server network. Or you can, if your expectations are as low as the ground itself. Either way, the company is at least transparent about the server fleet, which I’m very fond of.

You see, the service boasts 150 servers in 45+ countries. The number of countries isn’t bad – it’s close to NordVPN. The server number, on the other hand, is critically low and while I don’t need 30,000+ servers, 150 servers aren’t something you should even pay for.

I recently talked about TunnelBear and my observation made me realize it has 500+ servers in 30+ countries that you can use for FREE. SlickVPN has the most servers in the US and the UK, with many European countries on the list.

It has servers in Australia and New Zealand two, and African servers are based only in South Africa. South American servers are sparse and you get 1 in Chile and 1 in Brazil. There are CORE servers, as said, but from my experience with this VPN, they bring nothing new to the table.

If you want more servers in more countries with better server variety, try CyberGhost. It has 9,000+ servers in nearly 100 countries, which will serve you better than the minuscule server park of SlickVPN.

Customer Support: How to Contact SlickVPN?

Customer support in this SlickVPN review for 2024 was one of the weakest links. I’ll be honest – I don’t like when VPNs offer no live chat support because its presence makes things 10 times easier while its absence makes things much more difficult.

If we factor in that the support team isn’t working 24/7, you get a recipe for disaster. SlickVPN is as slow as death itself, so getting a response will take around 24 hours, often up to 96 hours. They don’t work during the weekend either, so factor in these days as well.

The support team isn’t particularly talkative but it does its job well. There’s a contact form on the site that you need to fill out and submit – that’s the only way of contacting the VPN. The on-site support is actually not bad because there are lots of setup guides and troubleshooting solutions.

Still, I think the company could’ve done a bit better job in this regard. But on the other hand, they don’t really need to because they don’t have many customers to service, hence the absence of 24/7 live chat support is somewhat justified.

SlickVPN Pricing Review

After trying out SlickVPN for this review, I realized just how expensive it is for what it offers. And no – it’s not Astrill VPN expensive but rather not worth the asking price, which isn’t too expensive, to begin with.

As you can see, the provider offers three subscription plans, each ranging in price and duration. The shortest plan is the most expensive by tradition – this is a monthly plan at $10 a month. Then, there’s the 6-month plan at $5 a month or $30 every six months.

Finally, the cheapest plan is the annual plan which costs $4 a month or $48 a year. As you can see, this plan isn’t overly expensive but if we take into account what the VPN offers, it’s not worth the money, I’m sorry. Are there some alternatives?

Yes. The first one is ExpressVPN and its annual plan with 3 free months, discounted by 49%. You also have CyberGhost that costs double the less a month in the 2-year plan. Even NordVPN can be an alternative, as its annual plan is just marginally more expensive than SlickVPN’s annual plan.

All three VPNs, don’t forget, offer WAY better performance, more servers, better speeds, stronger security, and everything else. For this price, SlickVPN isn’t worth the cash, so if you’re thinking of buying it, I suggest you think twice – or perhaps, three times, just to make sure.

Available Payment Methods

The silver lining is that SlickVPN supports all of the standard payment methods. You have PayPal and credit cards but I was surprised to see the Bitcoin option. Sadly, only Bitcoin is supported, so paying using Litecoin, Ethereum, or other crypto-currencies isn’t possible.

How to Get a Refund from SlickVPN

What about a refund? Well, after putting it to the test and doing everything I needed with it, I requested a refund using the support form on the site, as explained previously in the review. The good thing is that you get a 30-day refund policy for all plans.

There aren’t any special conditions or anything similar. If you’re dissatisfied and you request a refund in the first 30 days, you’ll get it no questions asked. Refund times also differ, so if you use PayPal, it’ll be quicker, and if you use credit/debit cards or Bitcoin, it’ll be slower.

I can’t complain about the support team’s job in this regard. After requesting a refund, I got it in about two days, which is just about right.

What We Don’t Like About SlickVPN

In this SlickVPN review and test for 2024, it’s easy to see that we aren’t impressed with the service. We can say the same about the worst free VPN, which is Urban VPN – check our Urban VPN review here. SlickVPN is still a bit better and definitely safer.

However, I strongly dislike its absence of native iOS and Android apps but also its dated apps for Windows and macOS. Another thing that goes on my nerves is the absence of WireGuard and the use of IPSec protocol on iOS/macOS, which is far less secure.

SlickVPN’s CORE servers also aren’t to my liking since they bring literally nothing to the table. Not to mention its poor streaming capabilities that won’t let you unblock geo-restricted services efficiently. Our team disliked SlickVPN’s inability to work in China.

Bypassing censorship won’t work with it due to no obfuscation – another red flag. We also don’t like its customer support, which isn’t here 24/7, so it’s hard to contact. All of this is “crowned” by the inappropriate pricing that plagues every subscription plan.

A VPN with an extremely small server fleet and every other downside I mentioned shouldn’t cost this much. If SlickVPN reduces its price a bit, it might gain some users. If not… well, it’s going to fall into oblivion, which is basically its current situation.

How Do Other People Rate SlickVPN?

Since SlickVPN isn’t available on many platforms, finding online reviews about it is pretty hard. The good news is that I’ve been able to find some reviews on Trustpilot, so let’s see what people on this site think about it.

As you can see in the screenshot above, SlickVPN has around 360 reviews and exactly 2.0 stars on Trustpilot. This is one of the lowest scores we’ve seen regarding VPNs on this site. Yet, the reviews on Trustpilot are surprisingly varied.

Some people praise its support, which I find strange, as well as its stable performance and overall security. However, most reviews have a strong stench of dissatisfaction. Namely, a big number of reviewers state that SlickVPN is slow.

We also have complaints about customer support, the application for Mac, the inability to unblock restricted content, frequent disconnects, and other VPN-related issues. With 2.0 stars, we don’t need to debate too much over whether or not people love it.

2 out of 5 stars are more than enough to see that people definitely don’t enjoy this service.

Conclusion: Stunningly Disappointing

If you ask me to summarize this SlickVPN review for 2024 in two words, I’d say stunningly disappointing. I’m baffled at how much a paid provider can suck and this one, if it weren’t for its no-logs policy, wouldn’t even be on my to-review list.

The only redeeming factor is a no-logs policy and some solid security features, coupled with decent device compatibility. Other than that, and the fact that it’s P2P-friendly, SlickVPN is one disappointment machine that’ll leave a bitter taste in your mouth.

It’s slow, offers terrible support, and makes it hard to unblock geo-restricted streaming services. Above all, it’s expensive for what it provides, especially because the company looks like it’s given up on its VPN and let it drift away into oblivion.

SlickVPN didn’t receive the love and care it deserves, which is why it has outdated protocols, ugly-looking apps, and everything else I mentioned. My sincere advice is to avoid it in favor of more quality providers mentioned during this review.

ExpressVPN is the #1 alternative but if you want cheaper options, consider CyberGhost and NordVPN. These VPNs all offer refund policies, with CyberGhost bumping it up to 45 days. As stated in our best VPN guide, these three services are the cream of the crop of the VPN marketplace.

SlickVPN… well, I’m afraid it’s not up to our high standards and I can guarantee it’ll disappoint you as well. For the price, there’s absolutely no reason or any logic to get it when these three VPNs exist. So act logically and think straight – avoid this service!