What is a firewall, and how is it different from a VPN
A firewall decides which connections are allowed in or out of a device or a network. A VPN decides where your traffic goes and who can read it on the way. They are frequently sold together and they solve different problems, and knowing which problem you have is the difference between buying the right thing and buying both.
- median printed entry price, per month
- $2.69
- providers with a verified printed price
- 11
- use cases with measured demand
- 3
Figures on this page come from the VPNCompareHQ price index: 11 providers, median printed entry price $2.69 a month, each quoted from the provider's own page and dated.
- 11 VPN pricing pages verifiedevery figure matched verbatim to the provider's page
- Quoted and dated, never estimatedlast verification pass 2026-09-09
- 3 use cases coveredeach with measured search demand behind it
Printed prices, verified
| Provider | Entry price | Renews at | Prepaid term | Source | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Private Internet Access | $1.79/mo | $69.81/3yr | 39 mo term | privateinternetaccess.com | September 2026 |
| CyberGhost | $1.99/mo | $51.74/yr | 26 mo term | cyberghostvpn.com | September 2026 |
| PureVPN | $2.15/mo | $47.95/yr | 27 mo term | purevpn.com | September 2026 |
| IPVanish | $2.49/mo | $99.99/yr | 24 mo term | ipvanish.com | September 2026 |
| Surfshark | $2.49/mo | 27 mo term | surfshark.com | September 2026 | |
| hide.me | $2.69/mo | $69.99/26mo | 26 mo term | hide.me | September 2026 |
| ExpressVPN | $2.99/mo | $99.95/yr | 28 mo term | expressvpn.com | September 2026 |
| TunnelBear | $3.33/mo | tunnelbear.com | September 2026 | ||
| NordVPN | $3.49/mo | $139/yr | 27 mo term | nordvpn.com | September 2026 |
| Windscribe | $5.75/mo | 12 mo term | windscribe.com | September 2026 | |
| IVPN | $6/mo | 1 mo term | ivpn.net | September 2026 | |
| Mullvad | No printed price on the page; quote or in-app only (checked September 2026) | ||||
| Proton VPN | Pricing page could not be read (checked September 2026) |
The three firewalls you already have
- The one in your router. Every home router filters unsolicited inbound connections as a side effect of sharing one public address between your devices. This is why the internet at large cannot reach your laptop directly, and it is running today whether you thought about it or not.
- The one in your operating system. Windows and macOS both ship a software firewall that is on by default and controls which applications may accept incoming connections. It is the one that produces the dialog asking whether an app may accept connections.
- The one a VPN provider may add. Some providers list a NAT firewall, which applies the router's inbound filtering to your tunnelled connection. It is included where offered rather than sold separately.
- What none of them does. None inspects the content of what you fetch. A firewall is about which connections are permitted, not about whether the thing at the other end is trustworthy.
Firewall or VPN: which problem do you have
If the worry is something reaching your device uninvited, that is a firewall question, and the answer is usually that you already have two. If the worry is who can read your traffic on the way, or which address a service sees, that is a VPN question and a firewall does nothing about it.
The two overlap only at the edges. On an untrusted network a VPN is doing the useful work, because the risk there is other people on the same network observing traffic rather than connecting inbound to your device.
Why the words get mixed up
Consumer security products are sold as suites, so a firewall, a VPN and an antivirus arrive in one subscription and one marketing paragraph. That bundling makes it hard to tell which component is doing what, and it is why comparison pages that list features rather than explain them are of limited help.
This site prices VPNs and says so. It does not rank firewalls or antivirus products, because it holds no measured data on either, and a ranking without data is exactly what its own about page refuses.
Common questions
- Do I need a firewall if I have a VPN?
- You already have at least two firewalls and they solve a different problem. A VPN does not replace them and they do not replace it.
- Is a NAT firewall from a VPN useful?
- On a public network with no router of your own, yes, modestly. At home your router is already doing the same job.
- Does a firewall stop viruses?
- No. It controls which connections are allowed, not what a file you chose to download contains.
Not sure which provider you need?
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Cite or embed this figure
The median printed entry price per month in the consumer VPN market was $2.69 in September 2026, across 11 verified provider pricing pages recorded in VPNCompareHQ Consumer VPN Price Index.
Cite as: "VPNCompareHQ Consumer VPN Price Index", updated 2026-09-09, https://vpncomparehq.com/what-is-a-firewall/.