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Cybersecurity · head to head

Mullvad VPN vs Teleport

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Mullvad VPN

Cybersecurity

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

From
$5/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Teleport logo

Teleport

Cybersecurity

Certificate-based access to servers, Kubernetes, databases and apps, replacing shared credentials and VPNs

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Mullvad VPN offers no free trial or free tier, unlike several consumer VPN competitors.; Teleport pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • They diverge on capability: Mullvad VPN covers Flat single pricing, Teleport covers Short-lived certificates.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Mullvad VPN and Teleport differ
AttributeMullvad VPNTeleport
Starting price$5/monthOn request
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
Platformswindows, mac, linux, ios, androidLinux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud
Founded2009Unknown

Identical on both: free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Cybersecurity).

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 Teleport

  • Short-lived certificates
  • Protocol coverage
  • Session recording and replay
  • Access Requests
  • Device Trust
  • Identity provider integration
  • Machine identity
  • FIPS and FedRAMP builds

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 Teleport
  • Avoiding tiered upsells with a single flat-rate plannot Teleport
  • Signing up without providing an email addressnot Teleport
  • Verifying a provider's privacy claims via independent auditsnot Teleport

Teleport

  • Removing long-lived SSH keys and shared database passwords so that offboarding an engineer takes one action in the identity providernot Mullvad VPN
  • Producing session recordings and per-user database audit trails as direct evidence for SOC 2 or FedRAMPnot Mullvad VPN
  • Giving contractors or on-call engineers time-boxed, approved access to production instead of standing admin rightsnot Mullvad VPN
  • Replacing a flat VPN with per-resource authorisation across servers, Kubernetes and internal web appsnot 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.

Teleport

  • Pricing is not published and is described as active users plus protected resources, so an autoscaling estate cannot forecast the bill and finance teams discover the true cost only after the first true-up.
  • The proxy is a hard dependency on reaching production, so it needs its own high availability deployment and a tested break-glass path or an outage in Teleport becomes an outage in your ability to respond to outages.
  • The open source Community Edition omits Access Requests, Device Trust and the FIPS builds, which are exactly the controls an auditor asks about, so the free tier rarely survives a compliance review.
  • Self-hosting means running and upgrading a certificate authority and its backing store, and Teleport releases frequently enough that upgrade work becomes a standing operational commitment.
  • Coverage across protocols is uneven in depth, so teams with legacy systems, unusual databases or bespoke network appliances find gaps that still require the old VPN to remain in place alongside it.

Pricing, plan by plan

Mullvad VPN

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

Teleport

On request
  • Teleport Community Edition$undefined/year
    • Open source, self-hosted
    • SSH, Kubernetes, database and app access
    • Session recording
  • Teleport Enterprise$undefined/year
    • Cloud-hosted or self-hosted
    • Access Requests and approval workflow
    • Device Trust and hardware key enforcement

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 Teleport if

  • You need short-lived certificates.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
  • You also want protocol coverage.
Teleport review

Questions people ask

Is Mullvad VPN or Teleport better?
Neither clearly leads. Mullvad VPN starts at $5/month and Teleport at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Mullvad VPN or Teleport?
Mullvad VPN starts at $5/month and Teleport at On request.
Does Mullvad VPN or Teleport run on more platforms?
Mullvad VPN runs on windows, mac, linux, ios, android. Teleport runs on Linux, macOS, Windows, Kubernetes, Cloud.
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 Teleport is typically brought in for.
What can Mullvad VPN do that Teleport cannot?
Mullvad VPN covers Flat single pricing, Account-number signup, Cash and crypto payments, WireGuard support. Teleport covers Short-lived certificates, Protocol coverage, Session recording and replay, Access Requests.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Teleport: Is the open source edition usable in production?

Yes, but it lacks Access Requests, Device Trust and FIPS builds, which most compliance programmes end up requiring.

Teleport: How is it priced?

Not publicly. The vendor prices on active users and protected resources and provides a quote after a sales conversation.

Teleport: What happens if Teleport goes down?

Nobody reaches the resources behind it, so you need a highly available deployment and a documented break-glass procedure.

Teleport: Does it replace our VPN?

For anything you put behind it, yes. Legacy systems and appliances it does not support will keep the VPN alive.

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