ExpressVPN vs Astrill vs NordVPN in China — The 2026 Comparison
Every general-purpose VPN gets blocked in China within hours of marketing it as 'works in China'. The ones that actually keep working — through the periodic firewall sweeps and protocol fingerprinting upgrades — are a small list. ExpressVPN, Astrill, and NordVPN are three of them, but they win on very different axes.
This is not a sponsored comparison. As of May 2026 MapTrip is not an affiliate partner of any of these (we applied to ExpressVPN and were declined for low traffic). What follows is the 2026 working knowledge from China expat forums, our own testing, and the rare honest review.
What 'works in China' actually means
Three things have to all be true:
- The VPN's protocol must defeat Deep Packet Inspection (DPI). OpenVPN and IKEv2 are detectable and routinely blocked. Lightway (ExpressVPN), StealthVPN (Astrill), Obfuscated Servers (NordVPN) all use protocol obfuscation.
- The VPN must operate enough servers outside China to route around blocks. Hong Kong / Tokyo / Singapore are the practical entry points (US/EU is too far for low latency).
- The VPN must update its protocols faster than the GFW upgrades. This is the actual moat — most consumer VPNs stop working when China rolls out a new DPI rule and don't recover for weeks.
If you tried a VPN that worked perfectly six months ago and is now dead in China, it almost certainly hasn't been updated against the latest DPI fingerprinting. The fix is rarely on the user side — switch to one of the three below that have China-active dev teams.
Side-by-side specs
| ExpressVPN | Astrill | NordVPN | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price (monthly equiv.) | $6.67/mo (annual) | $10/mo (annual) | $3.50/mo (2-year) |
| Free trial | 30-day money back | 7-day trial | 30-day money back |
| China-specific protocol | Lightway TCP/UDP obfuscation | StealthVPN + OpenWeb | Obfuscated Servers (manual) |
| Working speed in China (typical) | 35-65 Mbps | 20-50 Mbps | 15-40 Mbps |
| Reliability score (community polled) | 8.5/10 | 9/10 | 6.5/10 |
| Devices per account | 8 simultaneous | 5 simultaneous | 10 simultaneous |
| App in Chinese App Store | No | No | No |
| Setup difficulty for non-tech | Easy — single-tap connect | Medium — pick obfuscation manually | Easy — but server picking is fiddly |
| Customer support in China | 24/7 chat in English | 24/7 chat — sometimes slow | 24/7 chat in English |
ExpressVPN — the default for tourists
ExpressVPN is the consumer favorite and what most travel blogs recommend. The reason is operational excellence: their Lightway protocol is built for obfuscation, they auto-route around blocked servers in the background, and the iOS / Android apps work out of the box without any configuration.
The trade-off: not the fastest in China, and the price reflects brand premium (about 2x cheaper alternatives). For a 1-2 week China trip the cost difference is irrelevant — install, click connect, it works.
- Best for: tourists, expats who value 'just works' over speed
- Works on: iOS / Android / macOS / Windows / Linux / routers
- Headline feature: Lightway protocol — TCP fallback handles even strict networks (hotel WiFi, etc.)
- Weakness: speed sometimes 50% of advertised; price
ExpressVPN's website is blocked in China. Install it from your home App Store / Play Store BEFORE you cross the border. We've watched first-time travelers land in Shanghai realizing they can't reach expressvpn.com to sign up. The mobile app already-installed continues to work fine.
Astrill — the China expat favorite
Astrill is overrepresented among long-term expats in Shanghai / Beijing precisely because they upgrade their protocols faster than competitors when the GFW changes. Their StealthVPN and OpenWeb protocols are specifically designed for China and survive nearly every firewall sweep within hours.
The trade-off: more expensive ($10/month even annually), worse UX (you sometimes need to manually toggle protocols), Chinese-website blocked so support needs to come via email or pre-installed app, and the marketing is dated 2010s.
But: when ExpressVPN goes through a 3-day outage in China during a Party Congress or major political event, Astrill usually stays up.
- Best for: long-term expats, business travelers in China for weeks
- Headline feature: protocol diversity (4+ different obfuscation methods), can fall back manually
- Weakness: price, marketing is amateurish, app UX feels old
- Worth it if: you've been burned by your VPN dying mid-trip
NordVPN — cheap but less reliable in China
NordVPN is the marketing-heavy player and globally the largest VPN by subscriber count. In China specifically, it's third-tier reliable: the Obfuscated Servers feature does work but requires manual configuration, and during firewall tightening (typically twice a year — March/April and Oct/Nov for political events) NordVPN tends to go down longer than the other two.
If you've already got NordVPN for general use (US/EU privacy, geo-unblocking Netflix), it'll work in China most of the time, you just shouldn't rely on it as your only option.
- Best for: budget-conscious tourists who already have a subscription
- Headline feature: cheap (~$3.50/mo on 2-year plan)
- Weakness: less China-specific dev investment, outages are longer when they happen
- Reality check: as a primary China VPN, gets criticized in r/Sino and r/chinaglish forums
If you do use NordVPN in China, you MUST enable 'Obfuscated Servers' in settings before crossing the border (the option may be hidden by default). Connect to a Hong Kong, Tokyo, or Singapore Obfuscated server, NOT a regular one — those are blocked.
Practical setup for tourists — the right answer
If you have 1-3 weeks in China and you've never used a VPN before:
- Subscribe to ExpressVPN before you fly (use the 30-day money-back guarantee as a safety net).
- Install on every device — phone, laptop, tablet. Each one needs the app present BEFORE the firewall.
- Pre-configure the recommended servers: Hong Kong (lowest latency from mainland), Tokyo, Singapore.
- Verify it works AT HOME — connect to Hong Kong server, try gmail.com. If it works at home, it'll mostly work in China.
- When you land in China: open the app, tap connect. If it doesn't connect within 30 seconds, switch to Tokyo or Singapore server.
- If ExpressVPN is having a bad day (rare but happens), download Astrill as backup — but only AFTER you have ExpressVPN working, because Astrill's website is also blocked.
What about free VPNs?
Don't. Every free VPN that markets 'works in China' is one of these:
- Already blocked (Hola, TunnelBear free tier, Windscribe free) — they don't have China-specific obfuscation and the GFW takes them out same-day.
- Selling your traffic — Free VPNs need to monetize somehow. Studies show 75% of free VPNs include trackers; some literally sell user bandwidth.
- Operated by entities you don't want to trust — several free VPNs are operated out of jurisdictions where data sharing with state actors is routine. For China specifically, that's the worst tradeoff.