WannaFlix is my favorite VPN service for speed, service and reliability, and I’ve tried a lot of different VPN’s. In this WannaFlix VPN review I’ll outline my experience with it and why I strongly recommend it for those living in China (or anywhere else).
My experience with WannaFlix
I first signed up with WannaFlix on June 3, 2019. I had been living in China and required a VPN to use Google services, and while Lantern (see my brief Lantern review here) was usually working well for me, there were times when it would go down (especially national holidays and during sensitive political events) and I wanted a backup for when it did. I had previously tried all the popular commercial VPN’s like Express VPN and found that they were rubbish, with extremely slow speeds and unreliable service — so I wasn’t expecting much with WannaFlix either. I only really tried it because they offered a free trial, so I figured I’d use it for a day to see if it was any good and then cancel when I found it to be as bad as all the other VPN’s I had tried. Here’s my email showing me signing up to the free trial (click the image to enlarge):
Since then, I’ve used WannaFlix every single day during my time in China, and it’s almost always been excellent – fast and reliable speed, tons of different services, and extremely reliable. Let’s go through why I approve of it.
Easy setup
WannaFlix has a well-made interface where you click where you’re located (China or the rest of the world), your device, and then you’ll get download links for software to use their service with. Here’s a screenshot from inside my members area:
It should only take a couple of minutes for you to get setup – after you download the software, you copy and paste your WannaFlix API key, and then you’ll get the server list come back and you can connect to them. There is 0 technical knowledge required. WannaFlix provides very clear guides on how to get started on their documentation pages: https://docs.wannaflix.com/home/
Huge server list
As of 2020-2021, I mostly use the WannaFlix V2ray proxy, for which WannaFlix has a large list of servers. Here’s a screenshot (this doesn’t even show the full list of servers):
Your experience may vary, but for me, I have not been able to connect to the ‘Shadowsocks’ servers for several months – I just connect to ‘Vmess’ servers, which work very well. There are 30+ of these servers which is way more than enough. While there are a ton of different servers to connect to, unless you need to view some website from some specific country for some reason, you’ll probably just always use the same server. I personally find that the V2ray Hong Kong and V2ray Philipines servers work the best and those are what I usually use (UPDATE: Lately I’ve been using V2ray Germany or V2ray Australia the most).
In the rare cases where none of the above servers from v2ray work, WannaFlix also offers “Eclipse VPN” servers based on the OpenVPN protocol. There are less Eclipse VPN servers (just 7 in total) but they work well, like the Vmess servers. During the times when I need to use Eclipse VPN, I always connect to the “Eclipse_Japan 1_Eclipse” server. Here’s the screen for that, showing me having connected to it:
According to WannaFlix, the V2Ray servers are faster than the OpenVPN servers if you’re in China, though both are plenty fast enough for my purposes. Which brings us to the next section:
Fast speeds
Using any of WannaFlix’s servers, I can almost always stream 1080p YouTube videos, browse Reddit and download torrents when I have the need to. My internet connection in China with China Mobile (中国移动) is for 200-Mbps. When using WannaFlix’s servers, the speed is definitely lower than that — you will not have speeds as high as when you browse the Chinese internet without a VPN. However, for the vast majority of people (myself included) I definitely feel it’s more than fast enough, and I wouldn’t care or perhaps even notice if speeds were higher through WannaFlix. Anything fast enough to stream HD videos on YouTube will be plenty fast enough for all my other needs. When downloading torrents with a lot of seeders, I’ve noticed the fastest speed I get is up to 1.5MB/s or 12-Mbps — again, much slower than without the VPN, but still plenty fast enough.
Fast fixes when things go down, and therefore very high reliability
Every now and then China will get extremely vigilant cracking down on VPN’s, shutting down practically everything outside of the Chinese internet. In these times, all VPN’s will suffer, and it can be extremely frustrating. WannaFlix, therefore, will still have issues occasionally. Over the past year, I’d estimate I’ve had issues with it maybe 1 to 2% of the time. But one of the things I really appreciate is that WannaFlix is extremely dedicated to fixing their service when things go down. As an example, in September 2019, there was a crackdown on VPN’s in China and nothing anywhere was working. WannaFlix got to work immediately trying to find a solution:
Not only did WannaFlix immediately come up with a temporary fix to the issues they had at this time, but they also implemented a new permanent and fast solution that still works to this day. This is quite unlike many VPN services that don’t work consistently hard to improve their service. Take another example. Even though their servers are working totally fine for me, WannaFlix is still working on making them even more stable (screenshot taken from the members area):
And here’s an example of the type of email they’ll send keeping their members up to date on what’s going on (this was sent in May 2020):
WannaFlix also appears to offer fast and competent support. Recently I opened a ticket with them asking to change the email address associated with my account, and it was handled within 24 hours:
UPDATE: What about Wannaflix’s ‘VIP’ servers?
On June 2 2020, Wannaflix came out with a VIP server offering, at an additional cost of $9.97/month:
I immediately signed up:
I’ve been using Wannaflix’s VIP servers ever since, and during the few weeks I’ve been using them, they’re awesome (so far – I’ll update this later if there are issues). They’re plenty fast enough to do everything I need, and never once have I had an issue with them. There are only 5 right now, but they work like a charm. Here’s my v2ray screen showing the VIP servers (since upgrading to VIP, I haven’t used the regular servers at all):
But it’s up to you whether you get the VIP service with Wannaflix, since the regular service works just fine anyway. For me, an extra ~$10/month is nothing compared to the speed and reliability that I get from the VIP servers.
UPDATE 2021: I am still paying for and using Wannaflix’s VIP servers. Zero issues. They’re fantastic.
The final word
Reliable VPN’s are not easy to find, and to the best of my knowledge, WannaFlix is definitely the best one. It simply blows the more popular commercial VPN’s like Express VPN out of the water. They’ve built a fantastic service and it’s obvious they care deeply about making it as good as it possibly can be.
Sign up to WannaFlix
If you found this review helpful and you’d like to join WannaFlix, you can sign up through this link. I may receive some compensation if you sign up through that link and it’s entirely up to you if you sign up through there or go directly to wannaflix.com. The price you pay will be exactly the same either way.
