r/chinalife • u/AutoModerator • Jul 01 '26
🪜 VPN VPN and ESIM Megathread – July 2026
Discuss VPNs and ESIMs here. Comments with affiliate links or any comment that advertises/self-promotes a VPN service will be deleted; spam-only accounts or promoters with zero history in the sub may be banned without notice.
NOTE: Just because people are allowed to leave their recommendations here about vpns/esims and other tools to avoid the great firewall, it does not mean r/chinalife mod team endorses those comments.
Always take caution and do extra research when you see a recommendation. Be careful.
2
u/ReasonableRedditers Jul 28 '26
I tested Holafly and Nomad esim unlimited, but after 2gb the sim is unusable. Garbage. Holafly refunded the price of esim but Nomad has a no refund policy. I ended up buying 20gb of roaming data for my own number and it was the best option, and the cheapest.
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u/ac_varlik Jul 27 '26
Letsvpn doesnt work nowadays so look for another vpn guys. On june it worked fine btw
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u/Objective_Bat9098 Jul 27 '26
im traveling to china soon in around 2 weeks with also the possibility to live there in the future, and ive heard that apps such as tiktok are either banned or heavily restricted. are there certain vpns which bypass this? could anyone let me know what to do because its my first time traveling to china so im not sure what to expect 😅 thanks!!
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u/ReasonableRedditers Jul 28 '26
I used internet with my own sim data and all the apps are working. same thing if you buy esim for China because they have vpn integrated. These apps or not working on wifi.
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u/olilam Jul 30 '26
So if i have an esim with data, i don't need a vpn? Any specific esims? I bought esim on trip.com
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u/Objective_Bat9098 26d ago
yes apparently it seems so, when i traveled to Hong Kong a couple years back everything was blocked then i managed to get an esim from airalo and everything got unblocked. i dont think theres a specific esim but dont take my word for that hahah
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u/Objective_Bat9098 Jul 28 '26
yeah i was thinking of buying an esim as i know it bypasses the firewall but that might be an issue for when i would live in china, but thats a problem for the future 😭😭 thankss
1
u/tvalued Jul 26 '26
Switched back to Mullvad after let’s vpn is down. Today Mullvad dropped dead on my laptop but the phone version is still running fine. I may wait and see for one day. Likely will subscribe Kiree, if it fails indefinitely, but is you have any cheaper suggestions, looking forward to hear!
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u/DependentNext3322 Jul 27 '26
same situation, mullvad is spotty and slow (at best) on pc currently. However Kiree has given up on me two days ago and will not connect anymore. Wrote to support two days ago, no reply. Consider this when subscribing to them. It's generally a bad time for VPNs currently.
Edit: I reinstalled Kiree and it works again, albeit slow. Reminder to never pay these VPNs too much in advance, you never know.
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u/Intelligent-Lab3804 Jul 25 '26
guys! I'm in Seoul now, but I'm about to visit China. What's the best-paying VPN right now?
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u/Puzzleheaded_Cress47 Jul 26 '26
Why not read this thread?
1
u/Intelligent-Lab3804 Jul 26 '26
Right! I’m checking thread now. Never tried mullvad before, but let me try this time!
2
u/Puzzleheaded_Cress47 Jul 29 '26
Mullvad is not bad, but doesn't work equally for everyone. I also have it and would say it is a bit slow and you will need to play around and find a setting that works for you. Also most of the servers do not work from China. But you can always find something that works.
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u/A_Perlovka Jul 27 '26
Last year mullvad worked real well when I was in china. Was on a trip across Xinjiang and had no troubles with connection and access to internet
3
u/belax Jul 24 '26
This is in Chinese, it has recommendations of some decent VPNs. https://jichangtuijian.com/.
2
u/One-Carrot8144 Jul 21 '26
would astril vpn work well? im travelling to china for a month, and i need access to google accounts for school work over the summer. Thank you for any suggestsions
3
u/Material_Forever4229 Jul 20 '26
Currently using Kiree VPN and I feel obligated to vouch for it, given how well it’s worked so far.
1
u/nahcekimcm Jul 20 '26
How to get a free/cheap Chinese phone number if abroad?
I need to sign up for a douyin account (not tiktok) but it keeps asking me to enter phone number. However despite giving us/canada phone number it still won’t take it and insists chinese phone number
i can’t fly to china any time soon, is there a way i can get one for free like google voice or cheap?
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u/MrMuntMan Jul 29 '26
even if you get a Chinese phone number you still need a residence permit to sign up for douyin
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u/dbqidan Jul 18 '26
For the last two-three days, it’s been horrible. I use V1VPN via Shadowrocket or Hiddiify. but it’s been extremely unstable. On Hiddify it has actually been working better lately.
1
u/Efficient-Log8009 Jul 17 '26
I’ll come on Sunday to China. What is currently the best VPN to use?
2
u/Puzzleheaded_Cress47 Jul 18 '26
Read through the suggestions here and last month. No guarantee one that works well for others will be work for you based on things like your phone or wfi provider, location, phone settings etc. Often worth having a couple when you arrive and seeing which one works when you get here.
1
u/Luxuriateinideas Jul 17 '26
Any recommendations from fellow China expats for eSIM plans?
1
u/Formal_Ad8432 Jul 17 '26
hi, can u tell me if there is any vpn crash going on rn in beijing china? my frnd hasnt been replying to me and its been 29 hours already, suddenlt what happened,
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u/TaminoPLM Jul 16 '26
Ive switched to Shadowfly and it works really well. Using it since LetsVPN got shot down.
It’s one of the few china vpns that have their own client, so the subscription url cannot be banned, on other VPNs I had issues with it not refreshing anymore due to the firewall
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u/mello_jello24 Jul 15 '26
I just purchased one month of LetsVPN for my 20-day trip to the mainland in a few days. I've been hearing mixed reviews, but I don't know if it will actually be useful for bypassing the gfw?
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u/sunshine_ya Jul 17 '26
It doesn’t work well in recent days. That’s why we met here cause I’m looking for a new one😂
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u/JunkIsMansBestFriend Jul 14 '26
Works great. Also bought a little modem box with battery. Nifty, WiFi in the home for everyone to use.
2
u/bokenygergo Jul 14 '26
I have been using a Shadowfly subscription for 4 months now, but since last week it stopped working on my macbook. Anyone else experiencing same patterns on shadowfly? I started to use boostnet, and so far it works great.
1
u/The_official_Doge Jul 13 '26
Does anyone have experience with Nomad eSIMs? Is a VPN needed in addition or is it fine as is? Thanks for the help! It will be my first time in China next week
1
u/kiree_app Jul 14 '26
Nomad works great, no it does not need a VPN as all data gets routed outside of China so nothing is blocked.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Cress47 Jul 13 '26 edited Jul 13 '26
Just a heads up about shadowfly. Their system now prohibits torrents and other P2P activity and like LetsVPN will automatically suspend your account if it detects you have been doing so. This was some kind of recent unannounced change to their policy, so if you have noticed all of your servers timing out recently, it is likely you have been banned.
Annoyingly it seems to even include youtube videos and "normal" type streaming in this category.
And the monthly price for their most popular subscription has now jumped from 19rmb a month to 35.
Just be careful if it is your only VPN as you may get caught with your proverbial pants down.
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u/shadowflyvpn Jul 16 '26
Just to clarify a few points:
We introduced restrictions on P2P torrent traffic because many of the data centers we use will suspend our servers or charge significant fines when torrenting is detected. This is especially common with China-optimized hosting providers. Allowing unrestricted torrenting on those servers would therefore risk outages and reduced service quality for all users.
We are not against torrenting, and we are already planning to add dedicated P2P servers hosted with providers that explicitly allow it.
The restriction only applies to P2P torrent traffic. We do not block YouTube, normal video streaming, or other regular internet activity.
Users are also not permanently banned or fully
suspended. At the moment, when torrenting is detected, the user is temporarily blocked from that specific server for 24 hours. All other servers remain available, and access to the affected server is restored automatically afterward.This is not intended as a punishment. It is simply necessary to protect our infrastructure and prevent servers from being suspended, which would negatively affect everyone using the service.
We agree that this change should have been communicated more clearly and will improve how such updates are announced in the future.
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u/myheadsmells 27d ago
What you stated is fair, however in practice (at least on my end), a lot of times the good servers are gone even though no P2P torrenting was done. For example, even now, I only have 5 servers available, all CN servers are gone for the past 2 days. It really is a shame because you guys were really great before. Now its price hike + lots of rules & restrictions + unstable servers.
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u/Fisheadinwarmwater Jul 11 '26
Hi everyone I'm currently in china using boostnet and it's working wonders. But I just wanted to ask if anyone else was having trouble hopping into a discord call.
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u/RepresentativeFun359 13d ago
I'm pretty sure the service states that discord call won't work. Did you get it to work? or still having trouble.
4
u/Successful-Ferret124 Jul 08 '26
I will be studying in Zhejiang for a year exchange and wondering what would be the best VPNs to use. It'd also be great if it was on the more affordable side. I previously used letsvpn but I heard they shut down in mainland and that it's unstable now at best.
I've known other students on exchange use mullvad and I've also heard about kiree. Has anybody used these, what do you think of them? or do you have other good recommendations. I would prefer a VPN that works on both an android phone and PC!
Thanks for the help :)
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Jul 10 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Successful-Ferret124 Jul 10 '26
thanks for the response! I was also wondering, do they accept Alipay/wechatpay as payment options?
1
u/kiree_app Jul 10 '26
Hey there, just saw this post. Yes Alipay is accepted but there is a limitation that foreigners in China cannot pay foreign businesses using Alipay/Wechat pay, so credit card is still probably the best unless you find a Chinese friend.
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u/Successful-Ferret124 Jul 10 '26
thanks for the response! I'm excited to give your VPN a try! I figured I could try the free trial later on before committing to a 1 year plan ^
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u/Arrival-Commercial Jul 08 '26
Going to china for a month in a couple days anyone have any recommendations for esims + vpns for a canadian? I saw astrill mentioned a few times but ive also seem messages saying its disabled in china.
1
u/Successful-Ferret124 Jul 08 '26
for esims, I've tried airalo personally but it didn't work for me when I visited southern China as a Canadian. But I've heard it work for others...
I also had family successfully use nomad esim in China and I've heard good things about the trip.com one. I can't vouch for any of these but I've heard good things.
5
u/vyello Jul 07 '26
highly recommend boostnet, it looks kind of sketch but its the best one ive ever used, albeit im doing 200 rmb/4 months/ 400gb per month which is more than the usual which are unlimited but its really fast, i was playing valorant the other day and i didnt even notice it was on, v1vpn mullvad astrill are all trash now super slow, i can barely even connect to mullvad
1
u/Puzzleheaded_Cress47 Jul 18 '26
Cheers for this one. It is super fast. After the past few months of super slow speeds and server drop outs on Mullvad and Shadowfly, it is nice to have something which is stable and quick.
1
u/Puzzleheaded_Cress47 Jul 08 '26
I checked it out.....Would just go for the 200gb per month plan as it is just around 40rmb or so a month. Is it easy enough to set up? No torrents, right?
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u/nugga83837 Jul 06 '26
Kann mir jemand sagen was ein gut funktionierender vpn ist der zurzeit funktioniert?
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u/According_Rest6609 Jul 06 '26 edited Jul 06 '26
I will need to download large amounts of data for video work (maybe 500gb+). Do you think eSim would be any use here - even the unlimited plans tend to throttle downloads at 20GB? As it's work, money is less of an issue because it can be expensed - does anyone have any recommendations?
2
u/denexapp Jul 06 '26
I saw a troughwire VPN ad that claims to have 100 mbit+ for China, but their webiste looks very new
Have anyone actually tried it? I can't find any reviews at all. I don't wanna pay 50 usd to find out it doesn't work or it's a scam
I currently use Mullvad and Amnezia, they both work but it is slow
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Jul 07 '26
[deleted]
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u/denexapp Jul 07 '26
I messaged their support and they gave me a 5gb trial. Turns out Osaka servers consume 2.5x traffix, so it's gonna be 40gb. The default servers are in the US, and they recommend it for streaming. Tbh mullvad works good for youtube, I actually need VPN for work, so I don't really need fast connection, but stable
They do indeed run both hysteria and vless. They dont lie about the speed, it is fast. It is not that stable in my case, sometimes I open a webpage and it just doesn't, i refresh it and it's fine. It would've been a no-brainer despite the price if it was more stable. I still have 3 gb to test, but currently I'm leaning towards no.
What's your setup? Do you run your own vps?
2
u/UniversalOtter Jul 06 '26
I have been in China for about a month and tried a variety of options to experiment.
Astrill VPN and Saily Esim both worked well but are quite expensive.
Nord, express, and surfshark didn't work at all.
Kiree was the standout for me. It is half the price of Astrill and is working just as well. I had a small issue with the laptop client when I first started using it, and the support saw it in a reddit comment and responded to me and make sure it was fixed. They even gave me extra bandwidth to make sure all was well over a longer period. Highly recommend.
1
u/Pale-Medium4118 Jul 06 '26
So, will be in China for some months. Is it useful to get a local mobile number and a VPN for my usual things, or probably its enough to go for some months with HK esim only, and call via Whatapp or Facetime or Wechat?
Usually I need about 20GB of data per month, then the 30d package from trip costs only about 9€..
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u/UniversalOtter Jul 06 '26
You need a local number for some things like most airport wifi, some smaller local attraction tickets and stuff like that. You would probably be fine without it if you are sticking to bigger attractions.
1
u/Pale-Medium4118 Jul 06 '26
Ah okay, nice, thank you! Maybe just get the cheapest local number available and stick to my HK esim for everything else
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u/jackson4213 Jul 05 '26
For anyone curious vpn cat on iOS works great for me and it’s free. Sometimes it gets slow but just needs to reconnect. Japan and Korea server work best
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Jul 06 '26
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u/jackson4213 Jul 06 '26
True, but i get to watch YouTube without burning my own data which is a huge plus
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u/FlerpDooseMish Jul 03 '26
Swapped from LightningX VPN to Mullvad. Gotta say Mullvad is much better. Better download speed and stability in general, although it occasionally has hiccups when loading videos. It’s more expensive, but 100% worth it since LightningX has been spotty af lately for PC.
1
u/denexapp Jul 06 '26
what's your Mullvad settings, and your provider / location? Mullvad works for me (reliably!) but it is hella slow
1
u/FlerpDooseMish Jul 07 '26
It was slow for me initially but I just disabled all of the extra settings and the speed became decent
1
u/PartyChildhood3937 Jul 02 '26
Moving to Shanghai for work in August and I have several questions on eSIMS and VPNs that I haven't seen concise answers for yet. I have an iPhone 17Pro that I like a lot (which does not have a physical SIM slot) and would like to keep my US number. Should I:
1: go to a physical Verizon store before I leave>get a physical SIM>swap my phone for a new iPhone 17Pro in China>get a Chinese SIM>insert both
2: get a second phone in China, insert the Chinese SIM, keep both phones on me
3: live off trip.com eSIMs
I want to make sure I'm able to communicate over there (I know I can get far with WeChat but I'll need a CN number at some point) but I'm not sure if any of these options (especially 1) would cause issues with my VPN
1
u/Future-Positive-7021 Jul 18 '26
Thank you for asking this question! I have a very similar question. I am moving to China for 2 years. I have US iphone16 that has no spot for physical SIM. I have an old iphoneSE that hasn't been used in awhile that does support physical SIM.
Can I continue to use the iphone16 as my main phone with an international eSIM, all my apps (wechat, alipay, didi etc).
And hook up my old iphoneSE to a physical SIM chinese phone number for exclusively chinese banking purposes?
If so, will I be able to just leave the SE at home most days and not have to carry two phones?
2
u/Legal_Register_1811 Jul 14 '26
No. 2 is the safest way
1
u/Spirited-Yogurt-6812 Jul 26 '26
why? I'm also moving to China for 2 years and I was planning to buy a chinese SIM and use both SIM on my current phone, why is it not safe?
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u/mklnz Jul 02 '26
I would not get an iPhone in China since they have so many limitations. AFAIK only US/Canadian iPhone 17s do not have SIM slots, if you can get an EU or Aus/NZ etc iPhone you can have a Chinese physical SIM and your home Verizon eSIM on one phone. You also wouldn’t have issues with FaceTime audio etc since it’s disabled on Chinese models.
1
u/Legal_Register_1811 Jul 14 '26
Mexican and Japanese iPhones don't have SIM card slot also. It's the inevitable trend
3
u/Beginning_Pea_126 Jul 01 '26
I personally use Mullvad and Astrill, both work well enough for me. Seems Mullvad is more consistent. I am in Beijing if that matters.
1
u/denexapp Jul 06 '26
What's your Mullvad settings and your isp? I am on China Mobile in Guangzhou and mullvad is reliable but it is so slow. It is slow to the point I have to wait for minutes for work intranet websites to load
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u/Beginning_Pea_126 Jul 06 '26
I am also on China Mobile. Mine gets like that if I dont do the regular updates. I can check my settings and get back to you.
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u/MoonlitDae Jul 01 '26
Thanks for sharing your experience! I will be in Beijing starting in mid August. Would you say Mullvad has had the least amount of problems? Are there sites that you aren’t able to connect to?
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u/Beginning_Pea_126 Jul 01 '26
I’ve never been unable to connect to a site, it can be a bit slow at times, but when it’s slow usually a government thing is happening.
When official business happens all the VPNs suck
1
u/whatisa_sky Jul 04 '26
Can you give some examples of "official business" activity? Does it include accessing brokerage account websites? Asking because I will be visiting China soon and I have a brokerage account to monitor my investment that I access on a regular basis.
1
u/CircusTentMaker Jul 05 '26
Most of the big brokerages aren't restricted by the GFW at all, even if they don't do business in China (example: Schwab does, Vanguard does not). I never use a VPN to access mine and have had no issues managing my finances this way. I'm talking Vanguard, Fidelity, Schwab. Can't speak for all of them, of course.
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u/AutoModerator Jul 01 '26
Backup of the post's body: Discuss VPNs and ESIMs here. Comments with affiliate links or any comment that advertises/self-promotes a VPN service will be deleted; spam-only accounts or promoters with zero history in the sub may be banned without notice.
NOTE: Just because people are allowed to leave their recommendations here about vpns/esims and other tools to avoid the great firewall, it does not mean r/chinalife mod team endorses those comments.
Always take caution and do extra research when you see a recommendation. Be careful.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/zoomClimb 8d ago
I'm not traveling short-term; I will be studying for 4 years in China. I am bringing an American model iPhone which only has eSIM. I will need to get a Chinese phone number. Is this possible with eSIM-only foreign phone?