WiTopia Review
Price Range$4.99 to $6.99 – Visit Site
WiTopia boasts a large network with plenty of servers across the globe and seems well received with various mentions and positive reviews from reputable publishers displayed on their homepage. They are also distinguishable for having 24/7 – 365 days per year support available over email and chat. WiTopia packages come at fair price, but a premium cost is required to have the option to use OpenVPN, which was a bit of a letdown. However, the bigger problems arise from poor performance across many of the servers we tried. Let’s see how they did overall.
Features:
The server list from Witopia is composed of hundreds of servers across 44 countries and 72 different cities. Although impressive in size, it is not a tier-1 network, meaning much of them are managed by third party companies. The pro package is also the only way to get the full list of servers and we only tested the basic package. Another downside to not having the full server list on basic, is that you don’t have the option to use OpenVPN, we always suggest to use OpenVPN where possible and having to pay a premium bothered us and wanted to test the basic package to see what the average customer would get from picking the lower cost option.
Software is available for both Mac OSX and Windows, both versions we’re easy to download, install and run. We did not encounter any bugs or disconnecting and the basic package still had a huge list of servers. Not having OpenVPN, we turned to their online guides for setup on various devices from computers to smartphones. WiTopia offers written setup guides on the site, but they we’re far from being the best we have used and we had a few problems on first try with the mobile setup guides. While some contained pictures, making setup a breeze, the iOS setup guides could use some improvement.
No bandwidth or transfer limits is also offered but overall there is not much that makes WiTopia stand out from the crowd. The 24/7 support every day of the year is really nice however, and not something you see from many VPN service providers.
Security:
WiTopia’s log policy seems to be fair enough and honest. They do not keep any logs of your activity and advise of a tailing log of indirect data being kept for about a week, to protect themselves from abusers using the service to send out spam or cybercrime activities.
Security wise, WiTopia did not lack any protocol compatibility but as mentioned, having to with the Pro package for OpenVPN and SSL 256-bit encryption is something to really consider. OpenVPN offers the easiest setup possible, most reliable security but also the best speeds overall when compared to PPTP or L2TP.
Since we tested the Basic package, we used both IPSec and L2TP/IPsec. PPTP is too dated and unsafe to our taste and preferred to leave it out. Using the AES-256bit encryption, we jumped on their servers and started testing them out.
Speed & Stability:
As far as stability goes, no complaints with WiTopia, the OSX and Windows software ran smoothly and was a breeze to change between servers. Unfortunately, we had to do lots of server changes to find anything really fast. Most speed tests we’re churning out slow 2-5Mbps on a 20Mbps line. It took a few minutes before we found one that was hitting 15Mbps. We think a bit reason for the slower speeds is due to not using OpenVPN over the tunnel. We decided to keep tested for a few days just to make sure it was not a fluke and unfortunately, there we’re some servers that we’re consistently above average but most we’re too slow.
Going for the Pro version also includes premium servers. That alone would probably make the whole difference. So if you are looking to try WiTopia and speed is important, you do not have a choice but to go with the full Pro package.
Updates:
WiTopia is a very active VPN provider, with constant monitoring of their network, they try to alleviate overloads and maintain good redundancy, promising 99.9% uptime. Other than constant network monitoring, they have new servers added from time to time have a great support team always available. As far as software and setup guides, WiTopia can do with some improvements by developing software for more platforms and bettering their setup tutorial guides for all devices.
Pricing:
As mentioned, WiTopia has two types of packages, the Basic and the Pro. The price is competitive on the Basic package and average for the Pro. Let’s go over both and their respective pricing options.
WiTopia personalVPN (Basic)
You get access to all the cities and countries available across the WiTopia network, with the exception of some reserved servers for the Pro package only. But the biggest downfall of the Basic package is that OpenVPN is not available, leaving you with PPTP, L2TP/IPSec and Cisco IPSec.
1 Month – $5.99
3 Months – $14.99
6 Months – $28.99
1 Year – $49.99
WiTopia personalVPN (Pro)
With the Pro package, you get a full list of servers, and we would hope the additional ones to be blazing fast, considering we had average to poor speeds on most of the tested servers from the Basic package. Keep in mind that using OpenVPN is not only safer, it’s also faster and should wield better results.
6 Months – $39.99
1 Year – $69.99
Although they offer a 30-Day money back guarantee, once at the package selection page, it states 30 days is only valid for 1 year packages. For 3 or 6 month packages, you only have 10 days to cancel. As far as monthly packages, no money back guarantee is offered.
Customer Service:
Customer service is a strong suit for WiTopia. As mentioned more than once, they are one of the only VPN services that offer customer technical support all the time, 24 hours a day, 365 days out of the year. It is easy to reach them, either by chat on the WiTopia website, or you can send them off an email and expect a short turnaround response. When it comes to fixing troubles, reviews seem to say they are absolutely great and we can vouch for them. We spotted some issues with the mobile setup guides and overall they can get spruced up a little bit with up to date information and maybe some pictures would be nice. More software for various platforms is something lacking as well.
Conclusion:
As a summary of WiTopia, we can’t really say they we’re exceptional. The customer support certainly was, but everything else lacked. Starting with no OpenVPN on the Basic package, all unexperienced users purchasing that package may be left unsatisfied. Server speeds we’re slow to average on most servers we tested and it would take a few minutes to find really fast ones, which is not something you want if speed is an important factor in your choice. Finally, they had a tricky 30-Day money back guarantee that was displayed but on checkout, a note mentions it’s validity is for 1 year packages only, which some buyers might miss. All that together gave WiTopia a low overall score.