Seed4.Me VPN review

Seed4.Me is a small yet capable VPN provider that will surprise you with its speeds and options that include P2P support and unblocking of many censored websites and services. It does have a very limited network that only counts 150 servers and its feature list is scarce but this doesn’t get in the way of its outstanding performance.

If, however, it isn’t ideal for you and you’d like to know what else is on the market, we invite you to check out the best VPN services on the market, instead.

Price

This VPN vendor offers enough pricing plans for anyone - starting with the monthly option at $5.00/month, 3-month at $3.33/month (billed every three months), the 1-year plan at $3.00/month (billed annually), as well as the cheapest, 3-year option at only $2.99/month (billed every three years).

Unlike many of its competitors, Seed4.Me doesn’t impose any limitations on the number of devices you can simultaneously protect with its platform. In other words, you can run an unlimited number of simultaneous connections. However, only three simultaneous connections are possible for manually enabled devices with PPTP/L2PT settings. If you need more, you can get in touch with customer support.

There’s a 7-day free trial on all of its apps so you can see what this provider is all about and make a final decision on purchasing its services. You don’t even need to create an account - just download the app and you can use it immediately.

It also has a money-back guarantee, although it isn’t clear how long it is. The provider only states that it’s “100%”. Customers can make their purchase using a wide selection of credit and debit cards, PayPal, and even vouchers or prepaid cards.

Alternatives

If you can’t overlook some of Seed4.Me’s drawbacks, one of the more superior platforms might be the answer you’ve been looking for. 

For example, ExpressVPN has a truly remarkable service although it costs substantially more. NordVPN and CyberGhost are also strong and reliable providers, whereas Surfshark offers more servers and customization options than Seed4.Me and at a lower price. All four have thousands of servers, tons of features, and have publicly proven their no-logging policies by inviting outside auditors to test the platforms and give their independent and honest opinions.

Streaming

Any VPN platform that can unblock popular streaming services like Netflix always gets extra points from reviewers and users alike. Seed4.Me ticks this box as well, and not just for Netflix. With it, you’ll also be able to stream BBC iPlayer, Hulu, and others.

About the company

Seed4.Me is headquartered in Taipei, Taiwan. By signing up for its services, users get access to around 150 servers in more than 40 countries, and you can even request servers in additional countries by sending an email to Seed4.Me customer support.

Privacy and encryption

Seed4.Me supports torrenting, although only two server locations (Sweden and Switzerland) are torrent-friendly at this time. Your information will be safe thanks to the strong 128-bit encryption and OpenVPN, L2TP, and PPTP transfer protocols.

There aren’t many features to tinker with in the clients but those that are included are quite useful. For instance, the kill switch immediately blocks your Internet access the moment VPN connection is terminated to protect your IP address from becoming public. There’s also a shadow mode you can turn on if you want to bypass Internet censorship in the networks with heavily restricted access.

In their own words, “Seed4.Me does not analyze or [sic] DPI traffic. We do not keep logs on VPN nodes. VPN nodes only receive and forward traffic to the end user.” What is stored, however, and on a secure server, are “general connection logs” necessary for solving network issues if they arise. They are deleted after seven days if no such incidents happen. It would be nice to know in detail what is not stored, as well as to have independent confirmation of these claims, as some other VPNs have done.

Support

It doesn’t matter what your preferred platform is - Seed4.Me has apps for most of them, be it Windows, iOS, Mac, Android, or Amazon Kindle. Other devices, like Linux, Chromebook, or certain routers, can also be covered with it if they have an L2TP/PPTP built-in client.

The Android app has been downloaded over a million times, with an average rating of 4.4 (out of 5) as judged by 28,866 users. It was last updated on July 14, 2020. The iOS app received a rating of 4.7 by 8,800 people and it was last updated on May 12, 2020.

If you get stuck anywhere, there’s a help center with FAQs that cover a lot of areas, as well as the web form option and a button that opens your email app with the recipient address support@seed4.me. Support is also available by clicking/tapping on the button inside the apps themselves but there’s no live chat option so you may need to wait for quite a while before your inquiry is answered. We received the answer to our query after 22 hours of waiting.

Speed and experience

Connecting to a server in the Czech Republic delivered excellent download speeds - 37.1Mbps on a 55Mbps testing connection. Next, we tried connecting to a server in Cyprus, which showed good results as well - 20.5Mbps. Servers far away from our current location are typically a challenge, but not for Seed4.Me. We connected to a server in the US and got the same results as for Cyprus, or 20.4Mbps, to be more precise, which is an amazing result. Even Brazil hailed a very strong 17.5Mbps.

That said, switching between servers is a bit awkward. If you select a different server from the one currently running, the app will disconnect you with no warning, forcing you to click/tap “Connect” again. Not a big deal but someone may fail to notice this and continue surfing unprotected thinking they’re safe.

Verdict

Seed4.Me is a quite good VPN provider that doesn’t boast a huge server network or a long list of features but is successful in unblocking geographically restricted streaming services, allows some torrenting, and provides privacy and safety online. We especially loved its performance, bringing speeds that match even the best and most expensive VPN providers in the industry. Its apps and customer service could certainly use some work but the overall impression is positive.

If, however, you wouldn’t mind paying more for the truly ultimate VPN experience, with impeccable apps, thousands of servers, and 24/7 live chat support, then an advanced platform such as ExpressVPN might be a better choice for you.