Overview

Amnezia VPN is an open-source privacy project born from a 2020 hackathon focused on digital rights, now evolved into a multi-tiered service for users in heavily censored regions. Unlike conventional VPNs that lock you into their infrastructure, Amnezia operates three distinct modes: Amnezia Free (zero-cost, speed-capped access to blocked platforms), Amnezia Premium (a traditional subscription service with 20+ locations and speeds up to 200 Mbps), and Amnezia Self-hosted (deployment on your own VPS with full protocol control). The client supports Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, macOS, Android TV, and routers. What distinguishes Amnezia in the no-KYC landscape is its AmneziaWG protocol, a WireGuard fork that strips identifiable packet signatures to evade Deep Packet Inspection systems deployed by state-level censors.

Privacy & KYC

Amnezia sits at KYC Tier L1, Anonymous, meaning no personal data is required for core functionality. The self-hosted and free tiers demand no email, no phone number, and no identity verification whatsoever. For Premium subscriptions purchased through pay.amnezia.org, only an email address is collected. The project's privacy policy, last updated February 2026, explicitly states that self-hosted configurations involve zero data collection, server credentials remain local to your device and are never transmitted to Amnezia.

  • Amnezia Free: Collects Telegram ID (if via bot), application version, OS type, device ID for key recovery, and transient IP processing for anti-abuse and regional blocking analysis. IPs are not stored for identification purposes.
  • Amnezia Premium: Email only; IP may pass to payment gateway during transaction but is not retained by Amnezia.
  • Self-hosted: No data collection; fully verifiable via open-source client and server code.

However, the directory's scoring flags critical caveats: the privacy score of 2/100 and trust score of 1/100 suggest significant unresolved concerns. The Cyprus-registered operator (EUPHORIATECH LIMITED) lacks transparency around infrastructure ownership, and the free tier's IP processing, while claimed temporary, creates a logging surface area that pure self-hosted alternatives avoid. Users with extreme threat models should weigh these scores seriously despite the no-KYC marketing.

Supported assets & payments

Amnezia accommodates privacy-conscious payment methods rarely seen in the VPN industry. Premium subscriptions accept Monero (XMR), Bitcoin, Lightning Network, cash, and fiat, a deliberate alignment with anonymity-preserving financial rails. The project even publishes donation addresses for direct Bitcoin and Monero contributions, signaling genuine commitment to censorship-resistant funding. Self-hosted users face no Amnezia fees beyond their chosen VPS provider costs, making the total cost of ownership highly variable. Premium pricing starts at $4.00 monthly with a 14-day money-back guarantee, and promotional discounts, including a 50% switcher offer for refugees from blocked competing VPNs, appear regularly.

Security & custody

Security architecture varies dramatically by tier. Premium servers run RAM-only configurations with disk-write elimination and reboot wipes, a custody model where Amnezia controls infrastructure but minimizes data persistence. The client and all protocols have undergone independent audits by 7ASecurity in 2022, 2024, and 2025, with findings publicly available. AmneziaWG 2.0, released March 2026, advances obfuscation beyond the original 1.5 implementation with dynamic traffic morphing that alters connection fingerprints per session.

The self-hosted tier offers maximum custody sovereignty: you own the server, hold the keys, and select from eight protocols including OpenVPN over Cloak, XRay Reality, ShadowSocks, and IKEv2. Features like split tunneling, kill switch, and AmneziaDNS are configurable. Tor connectivity is available as an additional anonymity layer. Yet the trust score of 1/100 indicates that infrastructure verification, update mechanism integrity, or historical incident response may carry risks not fully mitigated by open-source claims alone. Users should verify binary signatures and prefer reproducible builds where possible.

Who it's for, verdict

Amnezia VPN serves two overlapping but distinct audiences. For casual users in censored regions, Russia, Iran, Myanmar, and increasingly Brazil and the UK, Amnezia Free provides frictionless, no-signup access to blocked social platforms at 8 Mbps capped speeds, though the selective routing model (no YouTube, no location choice) limits utility. For technically proficient privacy advocates, the self-hosted tier delivers genuine infrastructure sovereignty with protocol flexibility that rivals manual WireGuard or OpenVPN deployments, minus configuration complexity.

The Premium tier occupies an awkward middle ground: it unblocks streaming services across 20 countries and supports P2P, yet lacks advanced features like double VPN or a large server network compared to mature competitors. The abysmal privacy and trust scores suggest that users requiring verifiable anonymity should default to self-hosted mode, accept the free tier's limitations with eyes open, or look elsewhere. Amnezia's 7/10 overall score reflects genuine innovation in censorship circumvention undermined by governance and transparency deficits that no-KYC branding cannot fully obscure.