Team Behind ExpressVPN Launches EventVPN, a Private, Free VPN With Ads

The new free VPN EventVPN — launched by the ExpressVPN team on Sept. 18, 2025 — offers unlimited data, 35 server locations and critical privacy VPN features, including a kill-switch, RAM-only servers (which wipe all data with each server rest), a no-logs policy, post-quantum WireGuard encryption and a built-in private browser.

ExpressVPN has long been known for its quality premium VPN being very beginner-friendly while also being one of the best VPNs for privacy, security, streaming and more. However, an ongoing criticism has been its pricing — though recently ExpressVPN embraced tiered pricing to give users more options between features and cost.

Now it seems that ExpressVPN has taken this one step further to address a larger issue within the VPN world — that most free VPNs are shady at best and outright dangerous at worst. Many people on a budget might opt for a free VPN thinking it’s protecting their privacy, when it could be compromising it.

“The nature of privacy is changing materially across the world. Social media bans, censorship, and restrictions of digital accessibility are on the rise and, in many ways, have become expected. Each and every time online privacy is threatened, downloads of unsafe VPNs peak. Privacy should be a human right, not just limited to those who can pay for it with money.”

Shay Peretz, Chief Operating Officer at ExpressVPN

Not all free VPNs are bad, but even the best free VPNs have some limitations, whether it’s capping data usage or restricting country server options. For example, PrivadoVPN offers unlimited data but throttles speeds after 10GB and allows only 10 country server locations.

That said, EventVPN does have some limitations: it can be used on only one iOS device, and you’re limited to 35 servers. If users want to upgrade, they can get the EventVPN premium plan without ads and access over 125 server locations and connect up to eight devices at a time; one year costs $69.99, which is slightly cheaper than one year of the ExpressVPN Basic plan.

Private Advertising

Nothing comes for free, and EventVPN’s free tier will earn its revenue through advertising.

Notably, currently existing “best” free VPNs don’t use advertising because it compromises user privacy. However, EventVPN has found a way to make ad-based VPN revenue private.

ExpressVPN’s press release about the VPN launch explains how the “privacy-first advertising model” works: “In-app advertising hinges on Apple’s ATT and IDFA systems. This advertising ID is a random identifier that detaches user data from the advertising process. Practically, this means that any advertising stays entirely separate and distinct from the hardware that makes VPN connections possible.”

EventVPN has a no-logs privacy policy, and it claims it won’t collect data related to VPN tunnel activity, such as browsing history, connection timestamps, IP addresses, bandwidth consumption or DNS queries. GDPR residents need to give consent for personalized advertising, and users can revoke advertising-related consent at any time. 

Lingering Questions

Some details remain vague with this announcement, though. It’s unclear how EventVPN fits into the Kape Technologies umbrella. The ExpressVPN team built the new VPN, and Kape Technologies owns ExpressVPN; however, EventVPN’s no-logs policy lists Netshield Limited as the party responsible for data management.

It’s also unclear how connected ExpressVPN and EventVPN are — for example, if they are sharing the underlying VPN infrastructure, which could hypothetically add more load to VPN servers. 

We inquired with Kape Technologies about both of these questions.

Update: We received confirmation from the ExpressVPN team that EventVPN uses the underlying ExpressVPN infrastructure.

“We have made sure to use only high-capacity ExpressVPN locations via dedicated IP ranges and bandwidth, so neither service is noticeably impacted,” said Shay Peretz, the chief operating officer at ExpressVPN, in an email response to our questions. “Should we see more EventVPN users than we expect, however, we have contingencies that will leave ExpressVPN users unimpeded.”

We will do a deeper dive into EventVPN’s infrastructure, privacy policy and audits in an upcoming EventVPN review.