Best VPN for Security Cameras 2026

Best VPNs for security cameras compared

Why security cameras behave differently from laptops and phones behind a VPN

A laptop can run a VPN application directly. Most IP cameras cannot. Reolink, Hikvision, Dahua, Amcrest, UniFi Protect cameras, video doorbells, and inexpensive Wi-Fi cameras typically expect the router, NVR, or vendor cloud infrastructure to provide their network path.

That creates several separate layers in a security-camera installation:

• Camera LAN address: normally a private address such as 192.168.1.40 that only exists inside the local network.
• NVR or camera service: RTSP, HTTPS, ONVIF, vendor-specific ports, or another interface used to retrieve video.
• Router NAT: separates private camera addresses from the public internet.
• VPN tunnel: can change how traffic leaves the camera network but does not inherently make private LAN addresses reachable from outside.
• Vendor cloud/P2P relay: many consumer cameras establish outbound connections to the manufacturer’s infrastructure so the mobile app can reach them without traditional port forwarding.

Suppose an NVR sits at 192.168.10.20 and your home router connects to a commercial VPN server. The NVR may now reach the internet through the VPN IP address, but typing 192.168.10.20 into your phone while away from home still will not reach it. That address is private to the camera network.

This distinction is more important for security cameras than server count or the ability to select dozens of countries. Router compatibility, LAN routing, inbound connectivity, port-forwarding behavior, and whether the VPN interferes with local camera discovery are the characteristics that actually matter.

1. Private Internet Access – best VPN for self-hosted security cameras

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Private Internet Access takes first place because it provides something unusually relevant to self-hosted camera systems: VPN-side port forwarding together with controls for allowing local-network traffic.

That combination matters if the VPN client runs on a Windows or Linux machine hosting Blue Iris, Frigate, Agent DVR, Home Assistant, an RTSP proxy, or another surveillance service. The host may need to communicate with cameras over private LAN addresses while simultaneously using the VPN for its external traffic.

The LAN side is easy to overlook. If an NVR at 192.168.1.50 connects to PIA and the VPN client blocks local traffic, the NVR may suddenly lose access to cameras at 192.168.1.101, 192.168.1.102, and 192.168.1.103. Allowing LAN traffic keeps those local camera paths available.

Port forwarding solves a different problem. It can expose a specific listening service through the VPN endpoint rather than through the residential ISP address. That can be useful for a deliberately configured remote-access service, but we would not forward an IP camera’s administrative interface directly simply because the feature exists.

For direct camera access, a safer architecture is generally to expose a hardened gateway or remote-access service and let that system reach the cameras internally.

Best fit: self-hosted surveillance users running an NVR or camera server who specifically need LAN connectivity and controlled inbound access rather than merely changing the cameras’ outbound IP address.

2. ExpressVPN – best for putting cameras behind a VPN router

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ExpressVPN is particularly relevant to security cameras because its Aircove router moves the VPN from the endpoint to the network layer.

That solves a basic compatibility problem: an IP camera, smart doorbell, baby monitor, or inexpensive Wi-Fi camera normally cannot install ExpressVPN itself. If it connects through Aircove instead, the router can apply the VPN route without requiring anything from the camera firmware.

Device Groups are useful in a surveillance network because cameras do not necessarily need the same routing policy as phones, TVs, or computers. A camera group can use the VPN while another set of devices follows the ordinary ISP connection. Devices can also be excluded from the VPN when a particular cloud-camera platform fails to operate correctly through the tunnel.

Aircove is also more suitable than installing a VPN on the computer used to view the cameras. Protecting only the viewer does nothing to change how an internet-connected camera itself reaches its manufacturer’s cloud service.

For larger installations, however, Aircove should not be confused with a managed PoE surveillance switch, firewall, or dedicated camera VLAN. A professional installation with dozens of cameras is normally better served by network hardware specifically designed for segmentation and routing.

Best fit: home users with Wi-Fi cameras, pet cameras, smart doorbells, or a small NVR installation who want the VPN applied at the router because the camera hardware cannot run VPN software.

3. NordVPN – best for an existing VPN-capable router

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NordVPN is a better security-camera choice when you already have networking hardware capable of acting as the VPN client.

That includes common surveillance-friendly platforms such as OpenWrt, pfSense, OPNsense, ASUS routers, MikroTik, DrayTek, EdgeRouter, DD-WRT, and several other router environments. This matters because camera networks are often built around infrastructure rather than individual applications.

For example, you can place a group of cameras and an NVR on a dedicated subnet and define the VPN policy at the gateway rather than trying to modify each camera. The cameras continue using ordinary Ethernet or Wi-Fi while the router determines how their internet-bound traffic is handled.

There is one particularly important limitation for remote camera access: NordVPN should not be treated as an inbound tunnel into your home LAN. Routing an NVR outward through a NordVPN server does not automatically provide access from your phone back to the NVR.

If your actual objective is to open your camera app while away from home and connect directly to a private NVR address, you need an architecture designed for remote LAN access rather than simply an outbound commercial VPN connection.

Best fit: users with an existing advanced router or firewall who want the entire camera subnet routed through a commercial VPN without installing software on the cameras.

4. ProtonVPN – strong for Linux NVRs and controlled inbound services

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ProtonVPN becomes interesting when the surveillance system is built around a Linux host rather than a collection of cloud-only cameras.

Frigate installations, custom FFmpeg recording servers, Home Assistant machines, RTSP gateways, and other Linux-based surveillance systems can sit between the cameras and the VPN. That is technically much cleaner than expecting each camera to understand VPN configuration.

ProtonVPN also supports port forwarding on paid configurations. For a camera setup, the useful interpretation is not “open every camera port.” It is that a carefully chosen service running on the NVR host can accept an inbound connection through the VPN when the architecture specifically requires it.

The distinction matters because cameras frequently expose powerful interfaces. An RTSP endpoint can reveal the live feed, while a web administration interface may provide configuration access. ONVIF can expose discovery and device-management functionality. Every unnecessarily exposed service increases the attack surface.

We would therefore terminate remote access at the NVR or another controlled gateway whenever possible instead of forwarding separate ports to every camera.

Best fit: technically experienced users running Frigate, Home Assistant, Linux NVR software, or another surveillance server where VPN routing and inbound services can be managed centrally.

5. Surfshark – good for WireGuard router camera networks

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Surfshark makes the most sense for security cameras when the router already supports WireGuard or OpenVPN client configurations.

WireGuard is particularly attractive on smaller routers because encryption has to be handled continuously by the gateway. A camera may only stream a few megabits per second, but four, eight, or more simultaneous cameras can create a much heavier sustained workload than ordinary smart-home devices.

This is where VPN-router CPU performance matters. A router that easily handles a 500 Mbps internet connection without encryption may deliver dramatically less throughput when it has to encrypt every packet itself. Camera traffic is continuous, so inadequate router performance can manifest as dropped frames, delayed cloud uploads, or unreliable live views.

There is another consideration with cloud-connected cameras. Some camera ecosystems depend heavily on their own cloud infrastructure. If a particular camera repeatedly loses cloud connectivity when routed through Surfshark, routing that device outside the VPN can be more sensible than repeatedly changing VPN locations.

Best fit: users with WireGuard-capable routers who want to route several cameras through one VPN connection and have enough router performance for continuous video-related traffic.

6. CyberGhost – useful when a NAS or Raspberry Pi sits between the cameras and internet

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CyberGhost fits security-camera environments where a Synology NAS, Raspberry Pi, or similar always-on system already acts as part of the surveillance infrastructure.

That can include Surveillance Station, an RTSP relay, recording software, MQTT integrations, or other services that consume camera streams locally. Running the VPN on the intermediary system avoids trying to modify camera firmware that may expose few networking controls.

This architecture also makes troubleshooting easier. If cameras can still record locally while the NAS loses external connectivity, the fault is probably somewhere in the VPN or WAN path rather than between the cameras and recorder.

Local recording should ideally remain independent of the commercial VPN connection. A temporary VPN outage should not prevent a PoE camera from sending its stream across the local switch to an NVR sitting a few metres away.

Best fit: small surveillance installations where a NAS or Raspberry Pi already aggregates camera traffic and can act as the VPN endpoint.

7. IPVanish – suitable for conventional whole-router camera protection

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IPVanish is most relevant when the surveillance requirement is straightforward: several cameras share a network and the existing VPN-capable router handles their external connection.

The advantage is architectural rather than camera-specific software. Cameras continue talking to the NVR over the LAN, while the router becomes the only system that needs VPN configuration.

This can work well for inexpensive IP cameras where installing additional software is impossible. It is less compelling for someone whose primary objective is direct inbound access to RTSP or an NVR from outside the property, because that requires a separate remote-access design.

As with the other router-level options, test local camera discovery after changing the network. Some configuration tools expect the viewer and camera to be on the same local subnet and may rely on broadcast or multicast discovery rather than a cloud account.

Best fit: users who already operate a compatible VPN router and primarily want outbound camera traffic handled at the gateway.

Does a VPN actually let you access security cameras remotely?

Not automatically.

This is probably the most important misconception around VPNs and security cameras.

Imagine a camera with this address:

192.168.1.120

That address is valid only inside its private network. If the router connects to a commercial VPN server in another country, the camera may appear to websites and cloud services as coming from the VPN server’s public IP.

The camera is still 192.168.1.120 internally.

If you want your phone to behave as if it were physically connected to the home network, what you normally want is a VPN server at home, not merely a commercial VPN client sending the home network outward through a provider.

Commercial VPN vs a private VPN server for security cameras

The two architectures solve different problems.

With a commercial VPN:

camera/NVR → router or VPN client → commercial VPN server → internet

This primarily changes the outbound path.

For direct remote camera access through your own VPN:

phone → encrypted tunnel → home VPN server/router → camera VLAN or NVR

The second architecture can make an internal NVR reachable without publishing its management interface directly to the open internet.

This is particularly useful with RTSP and ONVIF cameras because these protocols were designed primarily for camera interoperability and streaming, not as hardened public-facing internet services.

A commercial VPN can still be part of the first architecture, but it should not be mistaken for the second.

RTSP, ONVIF, and NVR traffic change what matters in a camera VPN

Security-camera networks are unusually dependent on persistent local traffic.

An RTSP camera might continuously send an H.264 or H.265 stream to an NVR. ONVIF may be used for discovery, configuration, PTZ control, profiles, or event handling. The NVR may simultaneously upload notifications or selected footage to an external service.

These traffic paths should be separated conceptually.

• Camera → NVR: normally keep this local.
• NVR → internet: can be routed through a commercial VPN if required.
• Remote viewer → NVR: preferably use a controlled remote-access tunnel.
• Camera → vendor cloud: depends on the camera ecosystem and may require direct outbound connectivity.

Sending local camera-to-NVR traffic through a remote commercial VPN server is normally unnecessary and can make the system worse.

Why camera traffic should normally stay on the LAN

Suppose four cameras each record at 8 Mbps.

That represents roughly:

4 × 8 Mbps = 32 Mbps

of continuous video traffic before considering additional streams, audio, overhead, retransmissions, cloud uploads, or remote viewing.

If the cameras and NVR are on the same property, there is no benefit in deliberately sending those 32 Mbps across the internet to a VPN server and back. The recording path should remain inside the LAN whenever the network design permits it.

The VPN should affect traffic that actually needs to cross the WAN boundary.

Why CGNAT causes problems with direct camera access

Carrier-grade NAT is common on mobile broadband, 4G/5G home internet, and some residential ISPs.

With ordinary NAT, your router normally receives a public internet address and can potentially accept a forwarded connection.

Under CGNAT, there is another NAT layer at the ISP:

camera → home router → ISP CGNAT → internet

You control the home router but not the ISP’s upstream NAT device.

That means forwarding TCP or UDP ports on your own router may accomplish nothing because unsolicited inbound traffic never reaches the router in the first place.

This is one reason many modern camera manufacturers use outbound cloud/P2P connections. The camera initiates the connection from inside the network, avoiding the need for an inbound residential port.

For a self-hosted NVR behind CGNAT, an outbound overlay tunnel or another remote-access architecture is usually more practical than trying to force traditional router port forwarding to work.

Why directly forwarding a camera’s web interface is usually a poor design

It is technically possible on many networks to create a rule such as:

public-ip:8443 → 192.168.1.120:443

That makes the camera reachable from the internet.

It also turns the camera itself into an internet-facing service.

For an IP camera, this can expose:

• the login interface;
• camera firmware;
• RTSP endpoints;
• vendor APIs;
• ONVIF services;
• administrative controls;
• whatever vulnerabilities exist in that specific firmware version.

A better design is normally:

internet → authenticated VPN gateway → private camera network

The cameras remain non-public, and the VPN gateway becomes the controlled entry point.

What to do if security cameras stop working after enabling the VPN

The NVR can no longer find local cameras

Check whether the VPN client is blocking LAN access. The NVR still needs a direct route to private camera addresses such as 192.168.x.x or 10.x.x.x. Do not start changing RTSP credentials or resetting cameras until you have verified basic LAN connectivity.

The cameras record locally but the mobile app says they are offline

This usually separates the local recording path from the cloud path. Check whether the camera or NVR can still reach the manufacturer’s cloud infrastructure through the VPN. Temporarily route the affected camera outside the VPN to confirm whether the VPN path is the differentiating variable.

The camera works locally but cannot be reached from outside the house

A commercial VPN client does not automatically provide inbound access to private LAN addresses. Check whether you are relying on vendor cloud access, a private home VPN, VPN-side port forwarding, or ordinary router port forwarding. These are different mechanisms.

RTSP streams start dropping after moving the router behind a VPN

Determine whether the RTSP stream is actually crossing the VPN. Local camera-to-NVR streams should normally remain local. If internet-bound video traffic is being tunneled, also check the router’s sustained VPN throughput rather than its advertised non-VPN Wi-Fi speed.

The cameras work without the VPN but disconnect when it is enabled

Route one camera outside the tunnel as a test. If it immediately reconnects, the problem is probably related to the VPN path, VPN IP reputation, DNS, routing, or a vendor cloud dependency rather than the camera’s Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection.

Remote access stopped after switching to 5G home internet

Check whether the new ISP places the connection behind CGNAT. Traditional inbound port forwarding may no longer reach your router even though the forwarding rule itself looks correct.

Should security cameras be placed on a separate VLAN?

For installations where the router or firewall supports it, placing cameras on a dedicated VLAN or subnet is often more useful than simply routing every household device through the same VPN.

A simplified network might look like this:

Main LAN:     192.168.1.0/24
Camera VLAN:  192.168.20.0/24
NVR:          192.168.20.10
Cameras:      192.168.20.101–120

Firewall rules can then determine exactly what the cameras are allowed to reach.

For example, cameras may be allowed to communicate with the NVR but blocked from initiating connections to laptops and phones on the main LAN.

If a camera needs its vendor cloud service, outbound internet connectivity can be added specifically for that subnet or device. If it does not, internet access can potentially be restricted further.

A commercial VPN can then be applied selectively at the gateway rather than becoming the only security control protecting the camera network.

Which VPN should you choose for security cameras?

For a self-hosted NVR, Private Internet Access is the strongest option in this comparison because its combination of port forwarding and local-network controls maps directly to the networking problems that occur with RTSP, NVR, and remote-access systems.

Choose ExpressVPN if the cameras themselves cannot run VPN software and you want the simplest router-level architecture. Aircove is particularly appropriate for consumer cameras, smart doorbells, and other IoT hardware where the gateway has to provide the VPN connection.

NordVPN becomes more attractive when you already use OpenWrt, pfSense, OPNsense, ASUS, MikroTik, DrayTek, or another configurable router platform.

The larger architectural question is more important than the provider ranking. If the objective is directly accessing your home NVR from outside, consider a private VPN server or other authenticated tunnel into the camera network. A commercial outbound VPN and a remote-access VPN solve different problems.

Frequently asked questions

Can I install a VPN directly on an IP security camera?

Usually not. Most IP cameras do not provide a normal operating environment in which you can install NordVPN, PIA, ExpressVPN, or another consumer VPN application. The VPN normally has to run on the router, firewall, NVR, NAS, Raspberry Pi, or another gateway handling the camera’s traffic.

Can a VPN let me watch my home cameras remotely?

Yes, but only with the correct VPN architecture. A private VPN server connected to your home network can let a remote phone or laptop reach the NVR or camera subnet. Merely connecting the home router outward to a commercial VPN provider does not automatically provide that inbound path.

Which VPN is best for an NVR?

Private Internet Access is particularly useful for self-hosted NVR environments because local-network access and port forwarding are directly relevant to surveillance servers. ProtonVPN is another interesting option for technically managed Linux-based NVR installations.

Should I expose an RTSP camera directly to the internet?

Avoid doing so unless there is a specific reason and you understand the security implications. Keeping the RTSP endpoint private and reaching it through an authenticated VPN gateway generally exposes less of the camera itself to unsolicited internet traffic.

Will a VPN stop my security camera from being hacked?

A VPN is only one part of the network design. It does not repair vulnerable camera firmware, replace firmware updates, change weak passwords, disable unnecessary services, or automatically isolate cameras from other devices. For IP cameras, segmentation and limiting unnecessary inbound exposure are particularly important.

Why can’t I access my camera after connecting my router to a VPN?

There are two common causes. The VPN configuration may be preventing LAN communication, or you may be expecting the commercial VPN to create an inbound route to the private camera address. Verify local access first, then determine which mechanism is supposed to provide remote connectivity.

Can I use a VPN with Reolink, Hikvision, Dahua, Amcrest, or UniFi cameras?

Yes at the network level, provided the router, firewall, NVR, or another gateway handles the VPN connection. Whether the manufacturer’s mobile app and cloud functions continue operating normally depends on how that particular camera ecosystem communicates with its external services.

Does a VPN work with PoE cameras?

Yes. Power over Ethernet only changes how the camera receives power and network connectivity over the Ethernet cable. The VPN is handled higher in the network stack, typically by the router, firewall, or NVR gateway.

Do I need port forwarding for security cameras?

Not necessarily. Vendor cloud cameras often make outbound connections and require no traditional inbound forwarding. A private VPN server can also provide remote LAN access without exposing individual camera services publicly. Port forwarding is mainly relevant when a deliberately self-hosted service must accept an inbound connection.

Why does port forwarding fail on my 4G or 5G connection?

Your mobile ISP may use CGNAT. In that arrangement, your router does not control the internet-facing NAT layer, so an inbound connection can be blocked before it ever reaches the forwarding rule configured on your router.

Should my cameras and NVR use the same VPN route?

Not necessarily. Local camera-to-NVR traffic should normally stay inside the LAN or camera VLAN. Apply the VPN at the gateway only to traffic that actually needs to leave the local network, and avoid sending continuous internal video streams through a remote VPN server without a specific reason.