Best VPN for Switzerland 2023: Simulate a Swiss IP-Address

Would you like to connect with Switzerland? Perhaps you're longing to watch an SRF documentary or some Swiss sports? Unfortunately, most of the Alpine country's media libraries restrict content to those with Swiss IP addresses. There is a work-around for this though, namely, by enlisting the help of a VPN.

These don't only make your Internet connection more secure, but also, more international. By establishing a link to a server somewhere else, you'll receive an IP address for that country. Websites you visit will treat you as though you were a visitor from whatever country you've selected, and you'll be afforded access to otherwise geo-blocked content.

In our comprehensive EXPERTE.com VPN review, we took a closer look at 27 providers. Below, we'll let you know which of them provides the most reliable access to content from Switzerland.

To gauge how well a VPN performed for accessing content from Switzerland, we relied on three criteria: The provider's score in our overall review, the speed of its Swiss server(s), and how reliably it unblocked Swiss content.

We measured speed daily, compiling results into an average (for more details, be sure to consult the table in the "Performance" section). For streaming, we used SRF's Mediathek as a benchmark. If you're interested in learning which services from our sample excelled at unblocking international content, don't miss our articles for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, and Disney+.

Without further ado, here are our Top 3:

NordVPN emerged ahead of all other providers in our comprehensive EXPERTE.com assessment. Thanks to its polished interface, a nice variety of features, high security, and excellent performance, the service handily won first place in our review. So far as speed is concerned (both overall and for Switzerland specifically), it also secured the top spot in our speed test. Its Swiss download and upload speeds were 168.7 MB/s and 31.4 MB/s, respectively.

With more than 5,000 servers spread across 60 countries, NordVPN's global reach is impressive. Around 100 of the provider's servers are in Switzerland, and these are reliable: We were able to access content from SRF's Mediathek from abroad without issue.

NordVPN's most affordable package will set you back $3.99 per month if agreeing to a 24-month contract. A one-month plan costs $11.99.

If you're in the market for a reliable VPN that won't hurt your wallet, you'll likely get the most at the lowest cost with our price-performance pick Surfshark. The relatively young British Virgin Island-based provider only costs $2.49 per month (2-year subscription) or $12.95 on a monthly basis.

Surfshark did well thanks to its feature-laden VPN clients and ability to tweak lots of settings. It also finished just behind NordVPN, securing second place in our speed test.

Our price-performance winner offers access to more than 3,200 servers spread across 65 countries. Unfortunately, we're unable to say how many of its servers are based in Switzerland, however, owing to its third-place finish in our Swiss speed test, the provider certainly isn't overburdened or under-equipped there. Rounding things out, we didn't encounter any issues when streaming content with Surfshark from the SRF Mediathek.

ProtonVPN was our first choice among free VPNs. However, you'll only be able to connect to Swiss servers if you've booked one of its paid subscriptions, which start at $4.00 per month. In our Swiss speed test, ProtonVPN did well enough for fifth place, which should be just fine for streaming.

During testing, ProtonVPN didn't evidence any issues providing us with access to the SRF Mediathek. The provider's main advantage though is its commitment to security: ProtonVPN's apps are completely open-source and include extra features such as Secure Core servers.

So, you'd like to have a Swiss IP address but aren't ready to commit to a paid VPN subscription? If that's the case, Windscribe is worth looking into.

However, just to be clear: Owing to both data limits and its blocking of commercial video streaming, even Windscribe's free version isn't going to help you to watch Swiss documentaries or programming.

Of course, if you'd like a Swiss IP address for any other reason, Windscribe is highly recommended, since its 10 GB monthly data limit is very generous. And, should your interests expand beyond Switzerland, Windscribe also offers nine other locations to choose from:

In the event that you want to take full advantage of what a VPN has to offer, there aren't really any alternatives to a paid subscription.

Once you've subscribed to a VPN, you're only a few clicks away from enjoying content from Swiss media libraries. Using Surfshark, we'll show you how to do this below.

1. Download your VPN's client for your operating system. Open the program once installed.

2. Search for Switzerland in the country list and click on the result.

3. Once connected, head to the website you'd like to view content from, such as that of SRF's Mediathek. Thanks to your new Swiss IP, you should be able to freely access this.

We closely examined all 27 providers from our sample in order to assess their strengths and weaknesses. The overall score we awarded is a composite of individual scores across five categories. Below, we've provided a brief summary of each of these:

Installation and Features

Your VPN's client is your gateway to a more international Internet and should be as user-friendly as possible. We paid attention to which operating systems and platforms each supports. Beyond that, we also took a closer look at the extent to which you can customize your connection's settings, and whether all of the most important features are included. The services that fared best in our evaluation combined intuitive usage with plenty of features.

Server Network

Here, two numbers matter: How many servers are available, and the countries they're based in. Put bluntly, the more the better. Those providers which offered several thousand servers spread nicely around all populated continents took maximum points in this category.

Performance

Speed is the first aspect of performance that we examined, and in our EXPERTE.com VPN speed test, we assessed this continually, by compiling averages for each service. Apart from that, we also checked whether the VPN held up during everyday usage and if we experienced connection problems or interruptions. How well a service did in terms of streaming also factored into our final score.

Specifically for Switzerland, we used SRF's Mediathek as a benchmark. Our Top 10 are presented below:

From the table below, you can see which of our Top 10 providers make it possible to access the SRF Mediathek's streaming content:

Security and Privacy

Is your data in good hands with the VPN provider you've selected? We comb through each service's data security guidelines and let you know whether everything is above board. To reinforce our assessment, we also pay attention to general security matters, such as the encryption and protocols on offer, rounding out our opinion by performing VPN leak tests.

Customer Support

To get our stamp of approval for support, VPNs should offer reliable direct contact options as well as a neatly-organized and informative help center. We particularly like live chat options and hope that emailed queries are addressed within 24 hours. Static support should be full-text searchable, clearly arranged, and include FAQs that cover all of the most important topics.

You're not in Switzerland but want to access Swiss content? Based on our experience, you can easily do this with any of the services from our Top 3.

On the other hand, if you're looking for the best VPN overall, that's also reliable for connecting to Switzerland, we recommend taking a look at our EXPERTE.com overall ranking of the leading VPN providers:

Geo-blocks are annoying, however, as we've shown above, anything but unavoidable. Should you not physically be in Switzerland, but have a longing for the SRF's Mediathek, or other Swiss programming, you can enjoy it with the help of several VPNs. Based on our evaluations, these provide reliable access to Swiss content. Our favorites are NordVPN, Surfshark, and ProtonVPN.

For free access to a Swiss IP address, you can also check out Windscribe, even though it won't help for streaming and you'll be limited to 10 GB of data per month. To gain access to the SRF's Mediathek, you should be ready to pay a few dollars per month.

Detailed reviews of 27 popular VPNs are available in our comprehensive EXPERTE.com VPN assessment.