Hola Review

UPDATED Mar. 2024
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Hola is a unique community-powered VPN service that makes use of advanced routing technologies to “make a better Internet”. It is based in Israel and currently used by more than 160 million people, which makes it the biggest peer-to-peer VPN network currently out there.

In this comprehensive Hola review, we will outline the results of our speed tests and talk about the VPN’s overall performance, go over its security features, examine its privacy policy, and explore if it is a good choice for streaming and torrenting. Having said that, we will focus on its free plan since the paid version is definitely not worth the cost as far as we can tell.

Hola Review homepage

Speed & Performance

Hola is definitely a peculiar provider since the free version effectively acts as a proxy service rather than a VPN. Since there was no encryption to slow down our connection speed, our tests all yielded impressive results. You can see the report submitted by our testing team located in Belgrade, Serbia (Europe) in the table below. Note that our benchmark speed was 74.97 down and 4.88 up.

LocationPing (ms)Download (Mbps)Upload (Mbps)
Americas
New York, US11071.844.85
Waterloo11673.454.56
Guadalajara18171.394.86
Europe
London, UK4073.584.84
Amsterdam, NL4272.864.84
Kassel3372.734.8
Bratislava3073.664.89
Paris, FR3673.684.88
Stockholm, SE5773.494.81
Oceania
Auckland, NZ30262.84.73
Asia
Tokyo, JP27351.794.86
Shanghai2046.140.13
Singapore206584.86
Bangalore17363.214.8

During our testing phase, we did experience a rather concerning anomaly. Namely, our test results always kept on returning with our original location rather than the one chosen in the extension.

Supported Platforms

Hola offers its free plan for Windows, macOS, and Android while iOS users have to purchase a premium subscription. Additionally, you can also install it as a browser extension on Chrome, Firefox, and Opera. Hola’s client for Windows is basically a tweaked version of Chrome, which is something we have never actually seen before.

As a free user, you can install your Hola software on one device while premium memberships allow up to 10 simultaneous connections.

Hola multiplatform

Servers

Hola VPN has an unspecified number of virtual servers spread across 200 locations paired with millions of IP addresses. Apart from this, not much is really known about Hola’s server network since the official website offers minimal information. The official FAQ section discusses the costs of running VPN servers at great length but fails to provide any info regarding the actual server network employed by Hola.

hola interface

Safety & Security

The aforementioned Windows client comes with a pretty decent ad-blocker and a video boosting functionality that had no visible effects on our streams. However, we did not like the fact that the client kept on logging things we did on our computers. A VPN client has no business storing records of unrelated app usage.

Hola covers IKEv2/IPSec, PPTP, and L2TP connection protocols. The default encryption is AES-256, but you can also opt for AES-128/192 and DES3 (also known as Triple DES). Note that this security package is reserved for premium customers only; free users do not receive any traffic protection.

Hola security

Our IPleak.net, our results were more than disappointing since they always pointed right to our real location. With that in mind, even if Hola had the best possible security suite, it would mean next to nothing since its main purpose would be to protect your real data from leaking out.

Hola does not come with a killswitch feature, which means if something manages to compromise your VPN connection, your data will simply leak out.

Bottom line, Hola is a very shaky VPN service, if one can even call it that. Between unspecified security measures and IP leaks all over the place, we simply cannot recommend this service to anybody.

Logging & Privacy

Logging practices is where Hola really crumbles down as a cybersecurity company. The collected and recorded information includes:

  • Log data – Browser type, websites you visit, timestamps, time spent on those sites.
  • Personal information – Name, email address, and IP address. If you decide to sign up for Hola using a third-party account (Gmail, for example), Hola will retrieve all the information stored by Google.
  • Social network accounts – If you choose to register with Hola using your Facebook account, for example, the company will gain access to basic information held on your personal account. This may include your real name, email, profile picture, birth date, personal description, friends list, and more.

As you can see, Hola literally logs EVERYTHING! Connection + activity logs can be used to mount successful attacks against you and steal personal information you would never want out in the public.

As you can see, Hola implements a very precarious logging practice and our only advice at this point would be to stay away from this provider.

Streaming

In spite of all the bad things mentioned in this Hola review, it still remains a good unblocking service. If the website you are trying to access does not recognize your real IP address, you will most likely be able to geo-spoof it.

Having said that, Hola does not work with major streaming platforms like BBC iPlayer. When it comes to Netflix US, we actually did manage to access it once during our testing phase, but since we were unable to do it again, we cannot say that it works with the popular streaming platform.

In terms of speed, you should not experience any lag or buffering issues since the free version of Hola software basically has zero effect on your connection speed.

Torrenting

Surprisingly, Hola does not allow torrenting on its servers, in spite of the fact that we are talking about a P2P network. Any attempt at using BitTorrent-based apps will be identified and blocked. VPN companies usually forbid illegal torrenting but have no actual mechanisms of enforcing their policies due to zero-logging. Hola, on the other hand, monitors and logs everything, so it has no problems identifying and blocking your P2P traffic.

Plans & Pricing

1 Month
3 Months
6 Months
1 Year
2 Years

1 Month
$11.95
3 Months
/
6 Months
/
1 Year
$6.99
2 Years
$3.99

As already mentioned in this Hola review, the basic version is completely free of charge. It is a proxy service, even though the company claims that it currently operates in hybrid mode with ultra-fast servers that are light years ahead of regular proxy servers.

If you decide to purchase a premium subscription, you will gain access to traffic protection (VPN protocols and encryption) as well as up to 10 simultaneous connections, 200 server locations, and unlimited data.

hola vpn price options

Hola’s premium subscription costs $11.95 for 1 month, $6.99 per month for 1 year ($83.88 billed every year), $3.99 per month for 2 years ($95.75 billed every 2 years), and $2.99 per month for 3 years ($107.55 billed every 3 years).

Every purchase comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee and the accepted payment methods include credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, American Express, JCB, and Discover), PayPal, Alipay, iDEAl, SOFORT, and Gyropay.

Support

Customer support is another field where we find Hola seriously lacking. There is no live chat or ticket system of any kind. Basically, all you can do is try and find an answer to your question inside a rather poor FAQ section or send an email at help@hola.org and hope for the best.

Hola VPN Pros & Cons

At the end of this Hola review, here’s a quick overview of the features that wowed us and the aspects of the service that could use some improvement.

Pros
  • Free version
  • No ads
  • Good platform coverage
  • Decent encryption package for premium users
  • IKEv2/IPSec is available to premium users
  • Up to 10 simultaneous connections with a paid subscription
  • Unlocks a wide array of blocked sites
Cons
  • Connection and activity logs
  • IP and DNS leaks
  • No killswitch
  • Unintuitive Windows client
  • Torrenting is not allowed
  • Does not unlock major streaming platforms
  • No live chat

User Reviews (10)

Hola customer rating based on 10 user reviews.

The Hola reviews listed below reflect the opinions and experiences of real users and are in no way influenced by the VPN provider reviewed here. Before publishing each review, our team checks whether it was submitted by an actual user in an effort to prevent false or spammy reviews.

  1. Patricia Haas | January 10, 2020

    Everything is great apart from one thing, there is a log of my history and I didn’t know that when I was deciding on Hola. The whole point of vpn is anonymity and not that I think someone from the company is going to use it against me but I don’t feel comfortable knowing thath there’s a trace of my activities.

  2. Lina Whitney | November 7, 2019

    I’ve read about the premium perks and I must say it really makes a difference! I use all Apple devices so for me it wasn’t really an option but was is impressive is that you can have up to 10 connections at the same time which I didn’t see anywhere else.

  3. Patricia Freeman | October 22, 2019

    I posted my paintings on Hola. I quickly received $21, but couldn’t payout. I used PayPal to receive the money, but it kept prompting me to enter a confirmation number that was never sent. The other two forms payments were “coming soon.” I couldn’t close my account and you can’t send an email to hola because that link doesn’t work either. This app is shady and I wouldn’t suggest it to anyone.

  4. Gabriele Milauro | November 11, 2018

    Last month I paid for the premium membership but for some strange reason my account type was “free”, so I’ve sent an email to fix it and you never answered!
    Plus to make things worse this month I got a mail where I’ve been charged again with the new premium monthly membership……
    Better to have nothing to do with this poor service

  5. Nora Pratt | November 20, 2017

    It’s simple and it’s free, so yeah, I’m sticking with this one.

  6. John Hudson | August 3, 2017

    Never trust Hola.

  7. Brad Johnson, | May 23, 2017

    Not a crappy one, but not a great one either. It does open anything and it’s easy to operate, but it’s really slow.

  8. Joana Moss, | April 19, 2017

    Amazing app, and so cheap! It flies on my phone, simply flies! Not a single website or video was blocked since I’ve started using Hola!

  9. Irene Rodriguez, | February 1, 2017

    I don’t know why people keep praising this vpn when it’s so bad. The only good thing is it’s free. And it really is easy to use, can’t argue with that.

  10. Peter Gregory, | January 24, 2017

    I’m very happy with Hola, it works smoothly and unblocks anything I need. I enjoy switching countries, it’s so easy and fun! Watched some awesome French Netflix, sweet! It just bothers me that I can’t install it on my router, I’d like to have that option.

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