However, I just wonder why they aren't as popular as Nord or Express VPN? Do they (express/nord) offer extra services etc
One of the reasons is because mullvad doesn't do aggressive marketing like nord and express VPNs. TBH, I've seen these two vpn providers everywhere lol. For instance, I would see them sponsoring the most random video on yt lol-- I do not mean buying ad space on yt.com but sponsoring a youtuber's video.
Mullvad doesn't do paid reviews, KOLs and affiliates. It's a part of their business ethics which I have big respect for. This may be anecdotal but, I wasn't aware mullvad existed until someone in the forum mentioned it.
I do think differences in features does play a part as well. For instance, mullvad doesn't offer dedicated IPs like nord.
Marketing as much as possible is not a bad thing if I must be honest with you, I also have been seeing nord VPN advertisements on almost every where and corner of the internet, both on YouTube, X (formally known as Twitter), Facebook and so on, this only points out to one thing, and that is that they have a really high marketing budget available at their disposal, and also very much dedicated to their business.
I know quite a number of really good VPN companies that ran same level of advertising in the past, but currently have slowed down, in fact, I no longer see their ads anywhere, yet the company is still alive and perhaps, doing well.
One of such companies is Cyberghost, a VPN I've used in the past like 6 to 7 years ago and was really good, I used their free version back then, I recently downloaded their app and tried using the free version again but I learnt they no longer offer free VPN, you download the app, register and subscribe immediately, or just delete the app and look for another lolz.
