Astrill VPNAvis 

Astrill is supposed to be "the" VPN to use in China, but I have found it to be extremely limited in terms of server options, inconsistent at the best of times and frequently useless during the non-best of times. It has an app whose functionality is reminiscent of a 1990's Win98 bit of software. When it needs to updated, the only notice you get is the one saying "you can no longer use this app until you update it," which is a bit behind the power curve since the app needs to work in order to download the (new) app, at least in China. Like most things these days, it's better than nothing... but not by much.

There was no clear indication or warning before paying for their service. What I mean by this is, I was looking for a VPN to use with my particular modem. It is the latest model, the GL-MT6000, with OpenVPN. They didn't have any warning that it wouldn't work. Only after I purchased it could I check. They don't even offer refunds. Don't use this service; there are more trustworthy ones.

Bad experience. Astrill left me stranded in a foreign country (in China) with sick family back in my home country. Forget about astrill. No taxi, no connectimg with family without vpn!
After I finally found free reliable Chinese vpn that only takes data (find me on wechat I'll share the name!) astrill blamed me that I had 2 vpn's that's why astrill didn't work! Ha... did you read my 1st and 2nd sentence? Result, i now have ended up with 2 phones, and a relentless fight for what is right and a flight back home.... it's too complicated! astrill just gave me a very bad experience! Bad!
Astrill I'm still waiting to hear from your ceo... somewhere your middle management are not giving proper feedback ! CEO CALL ME.
Lesmari (name in wechat)

Absolutely horrendous service. There’s zero reinvestment into their app — no meaningful updates, no improvements, just the same caveman-era UI that feels like a bad joke in 2025. The OpenWeb mode? Doesn’t even connect anymore, it’s dead weight.

When it does manage to connect, the speeds are complete sh1t — unstable, inconsistent, and nowhere near what you pay for. It genuinely blows my mind that this company still exists

AstrillVPN is just such a huge waste of money. Paid $180 for one year, they advertise about their OpenWeb solution but for 10 months this hasn't worked and they cannot provide an ETA. The VPN takes so long to connect to a server and most of the time it doesn't connect, or when it does connect, there's no real connection. On Mac you need to force-quit the application because you cannot turn off the application otherwise. Such a waste of time. I went to Wannaflix even though I still got 3 months of Astrill left.

Just now using it in China to write this review. Had no problem on using Google, Gmail, Facebook, and all the other tools that are usually banned.

VPN just doesn't work well... Want to go to China, but they can't even make it work in the Netherlands. Was testing it, customer service tried but couldn't help me and since the're is a 'no refund policy', I literally just paid for nothing.. Don't use this one!

Stay far away from them. After 10 years using them i had to quit. Terrible connection, terrible customer service, no refund policy and a price that just keeps increasing. So many better options..

Doesn’t work in Hotel. the Wi-Fi is not connecting. China - Guangzhou total failure also it doesn’t work on my iPhone. It cost €30 and I cannot use it. So don’t buy this product.

Absolutely disgusted with this product and customer ’service’. Wish I’d read the reviews first!
Simply didn’t work in terms of getting around the ‘great firewall of China’. In fact, it blocked ‘western’ sites/apps; and switching it off and just using my eSIM got me access to western websites.
Whilst ‘these things happen’, it’s the after service that’s really shocking. I reported the issues almost immediately and requested a refund. This was refused, initially because I hadn’t reported it at the time, then when I proved I had reported it, it was refused because I hadn’t responded to their email providing a list of “things I could try”. I have better things to do on my holiday than try a ton of things that might work (they did not btw). I reported it again once back in the uk. They simply doubled down on their no refund policy, despite their product being useless.

Best to flush your $30 or whatever they’re chattering and flush it down the toilet. Same you a lot of grief and you’ll have no expectations that you’ll get internet access whilst in China.

Vpn is a scam, everything is outdated, customer support is horrible and on top of that the refund policy is a scam. Don't use this VPN

I have been using Astrill for over 5 years and despite it being one of the most expensive VPNs it has served me well in China. Last year the subscription fee got ridiculously crazy and in the last two months the connections have been extremely unstable.
I extended for another month for a subscription fee of USD 30 which is insane and will use this time to find another VPN.

They claim to have servers in Mainland China, but when you buy it, those servers aren't there.

No trial to figure it out, no refund policy, their support team doesn't care.

They're running a scam.

Worse and worse in China. I've been using it for 12 years and at the beginning was great, but for 3-4 years ago it's worse and worse... Lost of connection, down servers, unable to use if for 10 minutes in a raw on iOS. The APP never updated for years... Terrible! and the most expensive one.

I was using Astrill since August 2022. It used to work very well in China. Since summer 2024 the connections are terrible. I get the error message authentication handshake failed order just error. Many servers cannot be connected. TCP is completely off since nine months. On Windows 11 it’s actually never working right and the solution from the support is just new installation on Windows. No solution for iPad and iOS. iOS and Windows is changing over the years, the app had no updates on all OS since years. No wonder it does not work. Definitely never again.

I have been using Astrill in China since 2021. It used to work well until a few months ago.

After three months of being unable to use the service, I contacted the support, and what a joke...

The agent (Wade) just left the chat telling me to send an email to the support team after not listening to what I was saying, being rude telling me "You need to elaborate" when I already explained in detail, and not offering any compensation for the 4 months of the service not working.

It used to work well, and I understand technical issues but support like this... It's on my blacklist forever.

I've used Astrill for a couple of year, based in China.
Up until July 2024 or so, my experience was that it worked really well on iOS. But for past months there are hardly any servers to connect to on iOS. The 2-3 servers left work pretty well, so for YouTube and social media it's fine. But streaming is gone, unless you want the German edition. It doesn't look like this is going to be fixed.

On Mac it works pretty well most of the time, can usually find a US server to connect to, and the speed is good. For PC it works relatively well.

Express VPN has completely stopped working in China, so although very expensive and no refund when not working, Astrill is the only choice right now. Tried Nord, didn't work.

Worst service ever from a service provider company! They do not offer a trial and is ripping you off! Once you subscribe, no turning back and say good bye to your money!

Stay away! ... Speed Testing - the most important feature of Astrill - was suddenly deleted, which makes the whole thing a tedious guessing game, especially if you live in China or any other country with a firewall. Their refund policy however, is completely inflexible. I'm only into my 2nd month of a whole year worth of payment, and I already want to change to a different company.

F You！I have paid $180 but can not connect！Never renew it again！