Server Count Doesn’t Matter, So We Won’t Talk About It Anymore

When people talk about the best VPNs, there’s a good chance they’ll tell you that they love their provider because it has a massive server network. People equate more servers with faster speeds and better performance, but is this true?

Honestly? Not at all. There are loads of factors that determine how good a VPN is, so we’re taking the focus off server quantity and putting it on quality where it belongs.

Why Is Emphasis Placed on Server Count?

Having a huge server network seems to be important to many VPN users, but why? Well, users associate a high server count with less congestion, and think more servers will give you faster speeds. We’re out to smash that misconception, which is why we’re removing server numbers from our website. 

The truth is that having fewer secure, high-quality, reliable servers is much more important than having huge numbers. A VPN could have thousands of servers distributed across the world, but this is absolutely no guarantee of fast speeds or good performance. A server needs to be able to handle its data load and give you stable connections and fast speeds. If it can’t, you’ll have shaky, unreliable connections that aren’t steady enough for streaming, gaming, torrenting, or even browsing.

When It Comes to Servers, Here’s What Actually Matters

It’s time to cast off the idea that more is better when it comes to VPN servers. Instead, let’s take a look at what really gets the job done.

Hardware Specs

VPN servers need to be able to handle heavy workloads to facilitate many people connecting to the same server at once. This means processing power and memory are extremely important.

The central processing unit (CPU) in a server takes on the bulk of the work. The faster your CPU is, the more actions it can complete per second, allowing it to perform requests more efficiently. Memory is responsible for supporting a server’s software by providing adequate space for software to function correctly. If you want great performance, server memory must be high-quality and fast. 

The hard disk is the core storage area for your server software. Servers that operate using a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) provide better storage performance and data redundancy than those with a single hard disk. 

Server Software

Server software is all the software required to adequately run the VPN, including the server operating system (OS). The software helps your VPN server communicate with other devices, websites, and applications. Some security actions, like encryption, may be performed by a server’s software or hardware. 

Security updates are a type of software used by admins to help maintain VPN servers. Properly administering updates to servers ensures you’re always using the safest version of the software.

Server Locations

Reliability and distribution of VPN servers is crucial. The core functionality of the server and its location help ensure the best speeds and stable connections.

Security

Regular security updates are essential for optimum performance. While having multiple servers is often a focus, having properly maintained servers is far more important. Hardware and software security should be performed regularly on VPN networks to ensure it’s secure.

Auto-Connect

Auto-connect helps ensure you’re never left unprotected. VPNs with an auto-connect feature either immediately connect you to a secure server when you connect to a network or deliver a prompt requesting you to decide what you’d like to do. 

Dedicated Servers for Specific Actions

Servers that have been optimized to perform certain actions — like gaming, streaming, and torrenting — make finding the right server effortless. When you choose a server optimized for a specific action, you always get the fastest speed and performance for the task.

VPN Performance Has More to Do with Your ISP than It Does with Server Count

You might not realize it, but your ISP has a lot more to do with your VPN’s speed and performance than your provider’s server count. While VPNs can assist you by preventing ISP throttling so you get the maximum speed available from your provider, no amount of servers will increase your internet speed — only your ISP can do that. 

No matter how many servers a VPN has, your speed can only ever be as fast as the maximum speed your ISP provides. Ultimately, you may need to go shopping for a new ISP if they can’t meet your needs.

What You Can Expect with CyberGhost’s Servers

CyberGhost VPN’s apps make finding the fastest, most reliable connection for your task easy. Our Best Location feature uses an algorithm to look at where you are in relation to our 100+ server locations and how busy our servers are, then connects you to the best server geographically. All you have to do is open the app and click to connect — we’ll take care of everything else.

We also have a preconfigured Auto-Connect feature built into our apps. This instantly connects you to a server, or prompts you to take action the moment your device attempts to connect to a network. Auto-connect is on all platforms and has two functions:

1. Auto-connect on startup: Automatically connects you to the VPN when you turn on your device. 
2. Wi-Fi rules: Allows you to customize rules so the VPN is automatically enabled whenever you connect to public Wi-Fi. 

This means no matter how many networks you hop across during the day (school, work, coffee shop, etc.), you’ll always have a secure connection. Our app also has dedicated streaming and downloading profiles for Windows and macOS, as well as a gaming profile for Windows. You’ll never have to jump from server to server to find the best server for your online activity.

We make sure our servers are always running the latest security software. Our VPN uses a wide variety of security measures to update our server fleet and protect it from attacks. General updates are performed every 3–5 months, including security, as well as every time a security patch is needed. We stay on top of server issues, too.

“Depending on the underlying issue, server issues can be resolved within business hours. If it’s purely on the VPN server side it would be 1-2 hours max if it’s DC (data center) related, it could take a bit longer because Ops team will first have to open a ticket and the DC support team will need to investigate further.” – Alex Danaila, CyberGhost VPN Product Manager

Not only that, our servers run on RAM only, which means we don’t need RAID. The moment the server restarts, any temporary files on it are wiped. Although these files only contain non-identifiable information, we don’t take any chances with your data. Our servers run 10-Gbps network cards so you won’t need to worry about speed or stability, either.

(Network) Size Doesn’t Matter

We’re proud to offer you a reliable network of high-quality servers with locations worldwide. Fleet size really doesn’t matter, so we’re shifting our focus to the quality of the servers in our network, instead of the quantity. We won’t be mentioning server numbers anymore, but we’ll definitely be focusing on the quality of our servers and the satisfaction of our loyal Ghosties.