# URnetwork vs Mysterium

Mysterium is the most established paid-residential dVPN; URnetwork filters
what leaves a member's line and splits the path so the exit never learns who
you are and the operator cannot read the sealed session.

**Choose Mysterium** if you want the longest-running network of this kind, a
plug-and-earn hardware ecosystem, and per-gigabyte billing. **Choose
URnetwork** if you want a split path, filtered member exits, and an
email-free account with a free tier. Both pay consenting residential exits,
the opposite of Hola-style silent peer harvesting. Mysterium has the more
established supply side. URnetwork splits visibility between its operator
and a member-run provider.

[Mysterium](https://www.mysterium.network) has run since 2017, developed by
BlockDev AG of Zug, Switzerland, with its development team in Lithuania.
Node runners share their connections and earn MYST tokens; consumers buy a
tiered subscription in ordinary money. The node software is GPL-3.0 and
under active development.

URnetwork uses member-run exits. The provider does not receive your source IP
on the relayed path. Native apps seal traffic to the provider by default.
[How URnetwork works](/docs/overview) explains the full design. The
[threat model](/docs/threat-model) holds the complete record of what is stored
and enforced.

## Six differences that affect the choice

| | Mysterium | URnetwork |
|---|---|---|
| Trust model | Direct tunnel to your chosen node; that node can see your IP and your destinations together | Two relay parties; the exit never sees your IP, and the operator cannot read the sealed session |
| Participation safety | An identity allow-list decides who may connect; no content filtering in the node; use at the runner's sole risk, per its terms | An open-source filter at each exit drops file-sharing and attack traffic before it leaves; every byte moves under a signed contract |
| Maturity and coverage | Running since 2017; ~10,400 live nodes in 119 countries by its own API in August 2026 (22,000+ / 135+ claimed) | Young network; a location is listed only while a member's device is online in it |
| Supply side | Dedicated nodes and plug-and-earn boxes (Raspberry Pi, Avado, Nebra, DAppNode), paid in MYST | A switch inside the regular app; providers participate in the UR protocol |
| Metered payment | Per-gigabyte MYST billing in the legacy desktop app | One-off data packs priced in USDC |
| Account and price | Email-linked subscription; $10.49–18.49 month to month; no free tier | One-tap account with no email; free daily allowance; Pro $5/month or $40/year |

Caveats below the table:

- Both sides are open source: Mysterium's GPL-3.0 node and URnetwork's apps
  and server code. Neither has an independent audit of its protocol or
  server code; the details are under Limits.
- The residential premise is partial on Mysterium's side. Its own discovery
  data classifies about 60% of live nodes as residential and roughly a third
  as hosting or CDN space, with Oracle Cloud the largest single network in
  the fleet, and sixty of its 119 live countries held ten nodes or fewer.
- Post-quantum encryption runs URnetwork's way. The X25519MLKEM768
  client-to-provider session is default in the native apps, skipping any
  provider it cannot seal to rather than downgrading; the browser extension
  has no sealed session, and there the operator's data path logs nothing,
  pinned by a test in the open code. Mysterium makes no post-quantum claim.
- Platforms split on Mysterium's side: the current app covers Windows,
  macOS, iOS, Android and a Chrome extension, while Linux lives only in the
  legacy app, which has no iOS build. URnetwork ships on Android, iOS,
  macOS, Windows, Linux, the browser extension and the web, each with an
  explicit kill switch.
- Speeds on both fleets move with the devices carrying you. URnetwork puts
  its average streaming speed at 40 Mbps+.

## One fleet, two kinds of customer

On Mysterium, your machine is the exit when you run a node: whatever a
paying stranger requests leaves your line under your IP, and abuse and
copyright complaints go to the address that was observed. Mysterium's
default protection is an allow-list. Its trust service publishes one policy,
titled "Whitelisted traffic" and described as "Traffic vetted via business
contracts"; a node in the default mode refuses any consumer identity not on
the list, which held about 194,000 identities when last queried. Accepting
public traffic, the open consumer VPN, is a separate choice. The help centre
states that it carries "a higher risk of abuse since it is open to anyone,"
with higher earnings to match, and names seven countries where it recommends
against open exits: Canada, the US, the UK, Italy, Australia, Germany and
India. That disclosure is clearer than most bandwidth-buying schemes manage.

The limits are on the record too. The allow-list decides who may connect,
never what they may do: the node's open-source code contains no
file-sharing, copyright or attack-traffic filtering of any kind, the
optional hostname allow-list is off by default, and a permitted customer's
request leaves a runner's line unexamined. The terms say so. Mysterium
"cannot guarantee that no illegal or criminal traffic passes in or through
the Network and that you will never face any legal liability," use is "at
your sole risk," and the runner indemnifies the company. Vocabulary is the
other gap. The default customers are commercial data-collection ones, and
Mysterium's developer docs ship a web-scraping workshop describing nodes as
HTTP proxies on residential networks, yet "proxy" and "scraping" appear
nowhere in the node-runner signup flow, which asks how you would like to
"sell your Internet data" to "verified businesses," and nowhere in the terms
a runner accepts. The facts are published, just not where you agree to them.

URnetwork engineers for the person sharing. Providing is a switch inside the
regular app, off until a member turns it on, with a choice of audience: the
public network, or only your own account's devices. Every byte is metered
under a signed contract. Before traffic leaves a member's connection, an
open-source filter on the member's own device drops the two classes that get
sharers in trouble, file-sharing signatures and attack patterns. A match
drops the packet and records no destination, domain or payload anywhere; a
plaintext file-sharing signature also flags the sending device to the
operator with exactly two fields, a device id and a boolean, and the
operator stores nothing on receipt. The demand a member's line carries is
the same metered traffic the apps and SDK generate; no separate
data-collection product is resold on members' lines.

![Sharing a connection: what protects you — Hola's silent peer monetization vs URnetwork's opt-in, metered, filtered model](/docs-assets/infographic-sharing-safety.svg)

*The cautionary case on the left is Hola, not Mysterium; the right column is
what URnetwork adds on top of consent.*

## What the node sees, and what the record shows

Decentralization changes who could log, thousands of small operators instead
of one company, but not what can be seen. The Mysterium node you exit
through carries your tunnel and forwards your traffic: one party positioned
to see both your address and your destinations, the same both-ends view a
conventional VPN server has. Mysterium's own consumer help article is direct
about what does the protecting: node runners cannot read your traffic
because almost everything is HTTPS, the sites' encryption rather than the
tunnel's, since the tunnel ends at the node.

"No logs" is policy on top, and the policy is in tension with itself. The
consumer privacy policy pledges not to store "the websites you visit, your
IP addresses, browsing history, or session data," then discloses processing
email address, bandwidth volumes and session timestamps, server logs
containing your IP address, and a processor list including Google Analytics,
Firebase, Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar, Reddit and X Corp. The node-runner
terms forbid runners from keeping timestamps, bandwidth figures or user IPs,
while Mysterium's own safety article tells runners those IPs appear in the
node logs, and nothing in the software enforces the ban.

The dated record: in July 2026 a critical flaw was published in the node
itself (CVE-2026-31309, CVSS 9.8). An unauthenticated request to the node's
local management endpoint could rewrite its configuration and take the node
over. It was present from a May 2023 release and fixed in version 1.36.0 in
November 2025, eight months before the July 2026 disclosure — the ordinary
coordinated-disclosure order, not a gap left open. A public proof-of-concept
exists. No published evidence
says it was exploited or that user traffic was exposed, and the risk fell on
node runners' own machines. Beyond that, no confirmed breach of Mysterium
user data has surfaced in nearly a decade.

On URnetwork's side the split holds instead: the provider never receives
your source IP, and the operator relays a sealed session it cannot read, so
no single party holds both your identity and your activity. Locations are
counted the strict way, existing only while a member's device is online in
them, with the city derived from the connection the network observes rather
than declared by the node; an address that looks like hosting, a VPN or a
re-announced range is demoted in the ranking, not excluded. URnetwork states
2,000+ cities; read that as a company figure, with the mechanism as the
checkable part.

![Anonymity vs everyday usability — qualitative placement of single-hop VPNs, URnetwork's four legs, Tor, and mixnets](/docs-assets/infographic-anonymity-latency.svg)

*Separation lengthens the round trip, which is why URnetwork stops at four
legs.*

## The payment rail

Mysterium splits its consumer product across two apps. The current app is a
tiered subscription in ordinary money, and signing up creates an account
tied to your email address. The legacy desktop app bills per gigabyte from a
MYST wallet, the more private of its two paths. Advertised rates of roughly
$2.59 to $4.79 a month require a two-year prepayment; month to month the
same tiers run about $10.49 to $18.49 as of August 2026, and there is no
free tier. Node runners are paid in MYST.

URnetwork's metered equivalent is on-chain USDC: Pro can be paid in USDC
from a wallet, and one-off data packs are bought the same way, priced in
USDC and chain-neutral, so you pay for a gigabyte allowance without
attaching an identity. Metered buying is a convenience on both sides;
neither is an anonymity advantage over the other. The account itself can
hold no email at all: an Instant Account is created in one tap, and its only
credential is a recovery seed phrase URnetwork generates and shows once.
Sign-in by wallet signature (Solana or Bittensor) is an alternative, where
the wallet signs a challenge and URnetwork receives an address, a message
and a signature. URnetwork never asks for a wallet's seed phrase or private
key; the recovery phrase is URnetwork's own credential and nothing else.
URnetwork is free at the base with a daily allowance, and Pro is $5/month or
$40/year (current numbers at [ur.io/products](https://ur.io/products)).
Providers participate in the UR protocol, which [ur.xyz](https://ur.xyz)
documents in full.

## Where Mysterium wins

- Maturity: the longest-running network of this kind, with the most
  established paid-residential fleet and very active open-source
  development.
- A real plug-and-earn hardware ecosystem: dedicated boxes that earn on a
  shelf.
- Per-gigabyte billing from a MYST wallet in the legacy desktop app, a
  metered alternative to a subscription.
- Disclosure to node runners that is clearer than most such schemes: the
  business-traffic default is stated in its help centre, along with the
  countries where it recommends against open exits.

## Where URnetwork wins

- Participation safety is engineered, not only consented to: signature
  filtering of file-sharing and attack traffic at every exit, signed metered
  contracts, and no separate data-collection product resold on members'
  lines.
- The split. The provider never sees your IP, and the operator cannot read
  the sealed session. No single party holds identity and destinations
  together; a Mysterium node sees both ends of the tunnel it terminates.
- Storage minimization enforced in open server code, with no analytics or
  session-replay processors between you and the service.
- Locations that exist only while a member's device is online in them, with
  the city derived from the observed connection rather than declared.
- A free daily allowance, a one-tap email-free account, and an explicit kill
  switch on every platform.

## Limits and evidence

URnetwork's main limits:

- No independent audit covers the protocol, the connect engine, or the
  operator's server code. Two 2025 third-party assessments cover other
  surfaces: a penetration test of the web application and API (April–May
  2025), and the Leviathan MASA AL2 assessment of the Android app, which
  passed. Leviathan writes that its assessment "should not be read as a
  holistic security evaluation or comprehensive penetration test." Neither
  examined logging, retention, or the data path.
- The split assumes the operator and the providers in your window are
  independent. Nothing in the system attests that independence, and no
  outside party has measured the fleet. See the
  [threat model](/docs/threat-model), §6.1.
- The WireGuard-compatible fallback endpoint assigns one stable tunnel
  address, so several providers could recognize the same client across
  sessions. The native tunnel is the recommended path.
- Coverage counts are self-published on both sides. Mysterium's can at least
  be queried live through its public discovery API; URnetwork's have no
  outside measurement, and the mechanism is the checkable part.

Mysterium's limit is structural. The tunnel terminates at the node you
picked, so one small operator stands where it can see your real IP and your
destinations together, with HTTPS rather than the tunnel keeping content
unread, as Mysterium's own help centre states. For the person running that
node, the protection is an allow-list over who may connect, with no
filtering of what a permitted customer sends. No named independent audit
exists for Mysterium either; both codebases are open.

Trying URnetwork costs nothing: the Instant Account takes one tap and no
email, so you can test both networks against your own sites before paying
for either. More questions are answered in the [FAQ](/docs/faq).