VPN for remote work

Updated 21 September 2026 · How we research

"VPN" means two different products. A corporate VPN exists to get you into a private network. A consumer VPN exists to get you out of the local one. Confusing them causes both security gaps and support tickets.

Two different tools

If you need both, understand which one your traffic is using at any moment.

	Corporate VPN	Consumer VPN
Purpose	Reach internal systems	Change your route to the public internet
Who runs it	Your employer	A commercial provider
Who sees your traffic	Your employer's security stack	The VPN provider
Typical protocol	IPsec, SSL-VPN or a zero-trust agent	WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2
Appropriate for personal browsing	No — it is monitored	Yes

Do not run personal traffic through a work VPN

Corporate tunnels are logged and inspected as a matter of policy. That is legitimate on a company network and a poor place for personal browsing. Equally, do not route work traffic through a consumer VPN unless your employer permits it — it may breach policy and will often trip security alerts.

Running both at once

Two tunnels on one machine frequently conflict, because both want to install default routes. Practical options, in order of preference:

Use the corporate VPN only while working, and the consumer VPN otherwise.
Use split tunneling to send only work applications through the corporate tunnel.
Run one of them inside a virtual machine, which keeps the routing tables separate.
Configure the consumer VPN on your router and the corporate VPN on the device, so they operate at different layers.

Zero trust is replacing the corporate tunnel

Many organisations have moved from a network-perimeter VPN to identity-based access, where each application is reached individually after device and user checks. If your employer uses that model, there may be no corporate tunnel to conflict with — and a consumer VPN alongside it is usually unproblematic, though you should still check policy.

Providers compared

Commercial terms as published on VPN Sherlock.

#	VPN	Best for	Key features	Protocols	Devices	Price	Learn more
1		Best overall	Six published protocols — the widest range among the five compared here	6 (incl. Shadow, ZoogTLS)	Unlimited	$2.49/month	Get dealRead review
2	Proton VPN	Clearest obfuscation	The only provider here that publishes how its obfuscation protocol is built	3 (incl. Stealth)	10	$4.99/month	Get dealRead review
3	PureVPN	Most devices covered	Native Apple TV and Fire Stick apps, which removes the usual reason to configure a router	3 (WireGuard, OpenVPN, IKEv2)	10	$3.24/month	Get dealRead review
4		Most obfuscation options	Two proprietary transports, one of them available at router level. No IKEv2	4 (incl. OpenWeb, StealthVPN)	5	$5.00/month	Get dealRead review
5	Windscribe	Most flexible	Manual config generation for all three protocols, plus a free tier you can evaluate first	3 (OpenVPN, IKEv2, WireGuard)	Unlimited	$3.00/month	Get dealRead review