- NordVPN has expanded its network with 211 new servers
- It now competes directly with ExpressVPN and PIA in the US
- It still lags behind ProtonVPN in terms of country coverage
NordVPN has expanded its server network by adding 211 server locations worldwide and significantly strengthening its presence in the United States.
With the upgrade, TechRadar’s best VPN on the market takes first place in terms of geographic coverage, with NordVPN overtaking former leader ExpressVPN, which remains in second place with 189 locations covered.
The network expansion also sees NordVPN catch up to both ExpressVPN and Private Internet Access (PIA) by offering servers in every US state, directly competing for the crown as the best US VPN app.
While celebrating its victory, the VPN continues to strive to win another race: to consolidate its position in the highest number of countries, a challenge that many consider even more important and where NordVPN is currently still in second place.
Taking over the world
The number of VPN server locations is often touted as a key selling point by VPN providers. A more extensive network significantly improves VPNs’ speed, as data passes through a wider number of servers for less latency, while bypassing geopolitical restrictions to increase anti-censorship capabilities.
For NordVPN, 211 places represents a pretty significant outpacing of other VPNs – for example, ExpressVPN currently covers 189 locations, Proton VPN 188, Surfshark 142 and PIA 152.
When comparing NordVPN’s server footprint from October 2025 to April 2026, the newly supported locations represent a massive jump. There was everything 46 new additions since then. Locations in new countries previously revealed include Barbados, Ivory Coast, Fiji, Mauritius, Togo, Chad and Suva.
In it USThe VPN has gone the extra mile and it now covers every state in the country. Until now, only ExpressVPN and Private Internet Access have been able to make this claim.
US users will be pleased with coverage that now spans the less populated Lewiston, Fargo, New Haven and Providence to the more populated Las Vegas, Detroit, New Orleans and Portland.
The race continues, and new VPNs may once again change this line-up.
Proton VPN, for example, has also recently expanded its server networks, increasing the number of server locations from 164 to 188 over the past six months. Other VPNs have moved more slowly: Surfshark, for example, has only added one location, while ExpressVPN has added two.
Another race to win
However, many would argue that the number of countries a VPN covers is more important than the number of locations it serves – and that’s a fair observation.
Covering a large number of countries is particularly important to ensure greater IP security and wider coverage. Users turn to a VPN for various reasons: for example, they may need to spoof their location to a specific geographic area in order to access certain resources, such as Amazon, Netflix or HBO streaming services, which require the user to be in that country.
The less obvious aspect concerns security. In this case, what matters for security and privacy when using a VPN often depends on the entry and exit points of the network. For example, if all the servers were located in one country, the country itself could monitor the entry and exit points and possibly be able to correlate this data.
It’s worth noting that while physical servers must follow local regulations for monitoring and data retention, virtual server locations do not. People like NordVPN, Proton VPN and other secure services generally choose this option to offer local IPs to people living in authoritarian countries while avoiding compliance with their intrusive regulations.
And if countries win over locations, the undisputed winner here remains ProtonVPN, with a presence in 145 countries, well ahead of NordVPN with 135 countries. In comparison, Surfshark has 100 countries and ExpressVPN has 108 countries – but the race may be far from over.
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