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Cybersecurity · head to head

Mullvad VPN vs Steampipe

M

Mullvad VPN

Cybersecurity

Privacy-first VPN with one flat price and no email required to sign up

From
$5/month
Free plan
No
Full reviewWebsite
Steampipe logo

Steampipe

Developer Tools

Query cloud APIs, SaaS tools and code with SQL, with no extract or load step

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Steampipe has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Mullvad VPN offers no free trial or free tier, unlike several consumer VPN competitors.; Steampipe aGPL-3.0 across all four engines is a procurement blocker at organisations that ban the licence outright, and the network clause reaches any internal portal or service that puts a web interface in front of it.
  • They diverge on capability: Mullvad VPN covers Flat single pricing, Steampipe covers SQL over live APIs.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Mullvad VPN and Steampipe actually diverge.

Attributes where Mullvad VPN and Steampipe differ
AttributeMullvad VPNSteampipe
Starting price$5/monthFree
Pricing modelsubscriptionOpen source, with paid hosting through Turbot Pipes
Free tierNoYes
Platformswindows, mac, linux, ios, androidmacOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, Web
CategoryCybersecurityDeveloper Tools
Founded2009Unknown

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Mullvad VPN

  • Flat single pricing
  • Account-number signup
  • Cash and crypto payments
  • WireGuard support
  • Independent audits

Only in Steampipe

  • SQL over live APIs
  • Wide plugin set
  • Embedded Postgres
  • Compliance benchmarks
  • Joins across providers
  • Hosted option

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Mullvad VPN

  • Paying for a VPN anonymously with cash or cryptocurrencynot Steampipe
  • Avoiding tiered upsells with a single flat-rate plannot Steampipe
  • Signing up without providing an email addressnot Steampipe
  • Verifying a provider's privacy claims via independent auditsnot Steampipe

Steampipe

  • Security teams answering posture questions against live cloud accounts rather than a nightly exportnot Mullvad VPN
  • Compliance evidence gathering where the answer must reflect the account at the moment it is askednot Mullvad VPN
  • Inventory and drift questions spanning several cloud providers in one querynot Mullvad VPN
  • Engineers who would rather write SQL than learn each provider command line toolnot Mullvad VPN

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Mullvad VPN

  • Offers no free trial or free tier, unlike several consumer VPN competitors.
  • Lacks a bundled tiered structure, so there is no cheaper limited plan for occasional users.
  • Server network and streaming-unblocking performance is smaller than large mainstream VPN providers.
  • No annual discount, meaning long-term subscribers pay the same monthly rate as short-term users.

Steampipe

  • AGPL-3.0 across all four engines is a procurement blocker at organisations that ban the licence outright, and the network clause reaches any internal portal or service that puts a web interface in front of it.
  • Dashboards, benchmarks and mods were removed from Steampipe entirely at version 1.0 in October 2024 and now live in a separate product, so pre-2024 documentation and tutorials describe commands that no longer exist.
  • Live querying is bound by cloud provider API rate limits and keeps no persistent store by default, which is why a separate DuckDB-backed product exists for log volumes and why large accounts return slowly.
  • The company is fifteen people and bootstrapped, maintaining four command line tools plus a hosted service plus two further products, and the newer tools have thin community traction relative to that surface area.
  • Hosted tiers include only three users regardless of tier, with additional Enterprise users charged separately, so a team of thirty costs an order of magnitude more than the headline figure before compute and storage are counted.

Pricing, plan by plan

Mullvad VPN

$5/month
  • Mullvad VPN$5/month
    • Flat rate regardless of subscription length
    • 5 simultaneous devices
    • No email required

Steampipe

Free
  • Steampipe CLIFree
    • AGPL-3.0
    • All plugins
    • No user or query limits
  • Pipes DeveloperFree
    • One user
    • 400 compute minutes
    • 3GB storage
  • Pipes Team$49/month
    • Three users
    • 2,000 compute minutes
    • 20GB storage
  • Pipes Enterprise$249/month
    • Three users
    • 10,000 compute minutes
    • 100GB storage

Which should you pick?

Choose Mullvad VPN if

  • You need flat single pricing.
  • You work on windows, mac, linux, ios, android.
  • You also want account-number signup.
Mullvad VPN review

Choose Steampipe if

  • You need sql over live apis.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, Web.
  • You also want wide plugin set.
Steampipe review

Questions people ask

Is Mullvad VPN or Steampipe better?
Neither clearly leads. Mullvad VPN starts at $5/month and Steampipe at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Mullvad VPN or Steampipe?
Steampipe has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $5/month for Mullvad VPN and Free for Steampipe.
Does Mullvad VPN or Steampipe run on more platforms?
Mullvad VPN runs on windows, mac, linux, ios, android. Steampipe runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, Web.
Can I use Steampipe for free?
Yes. Steampipe has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Mullvad VPN starts at $5/month.
What is Mullvad VPN best used for?
Mullvad VPN is most often used for paying for a vpn anonymously with cash or cryptocurrency, avoiding tiered upsells with a single flat-rate plan, signing up without providing an email address, verifying a provider's privacy claims via independent audits. Of those, paying for a vpn anonymously with cash or cryptocurrency and avoiding tiered upsells with a single flat-rate plan are not what Steampipe is typically brought in for.
What can Mullvad VPN do that Steampipe cannot?
Mullvad VPN covers Flat single pricing, Account-number signup, Cash and crypto payments, WireGuard support. Steampipe covers SQL over live APIs, Wide plugin set, Embedded Postgres, Compliance benchmarks.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Steampipe: When did Steampipe become AGPL?

May 2021, about four months after the project went public. It is a settled licence rather than a recent change, and predates the Business Source Licence wave it is often confused with.

Steampipe: Where did the dashboards and benchmarks go?

Into Powerpipe. They were deprecated in March 2024 and removed from Steampipe at version 1.0 in October 2024, so the check, dashboard, mod and variable commands are gone.

Steampipe: Is it fast on a large cloud estate?

Not always. Queries call provider APIs at request time, so rate limits rather than query planning set the pace, and there is no persistent store by default.

Steampipe: Does the AGPL affect internal use?

Running it internally for your own analysis is fine. Putting a web interface in front of it that other people use is where the network clause becomes a question for your legal team.

Steampipe: Is a bootstrapped vendor a risk?

It cuts both ways. There is no investor pressure toward a licence change or an exit, and there are also fifteen people supporting a large product surface.

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