Saily vs Drimsim: which eSIM should you buy in 2026?

This is the weirdest pairing on the page because Saily and Drimsim exist for almost opposite reasons. Saily is a premium privacy-first eSIM for people who care about tracker-blocking on every app. Drimsim is a bare-bones pay-as-you-go eSIM for people who want zero-maintenance data they can forget about for a year at a time. If you're genuinely torn between them, you probably want to buy both and use them for different trips.

Quick comparison

The case for Saily over Drimsim

Saily's ad and tracker blocking work at the profile level and cover every app on your phone, not just the browser. Drimsim offers none of this. For anyone who works from cafes, uses hotel wifi while tethering, or just generally cares about not having every connection leak metadata, Saily is the clear pick — Drimsim isn't even trying to compete on this front.

Saily is also significantly cheaper per GB for any planned use. The 5 GB / 30-day plan at $11.99 works out to about $2.40 per GB. Drimsim's pay-as-you-go rate of roughly $4 per GB is nearly double, and that's before you factor in that Drimsim's top-up amounts don't always land in round numbers.

Read full Saily review → Get Saily →

The case for Drimsim over Saily

Drimsim's one killer feature is the no-expiry balance. You buy it once and it sits on your phone ready for whatever comes next. Saily plans expire in 7-30 days, which means if you buy a plan and your trip gets cancelled, the money is gone. For travellers who don't know exactly where they'll be next month, Drimsim is the only stress-free option on this page.

Drimsim also covers more countries than Saily — 197 vs Saily's roughly 150 — and the gap is concentrated in exactly the places where you're most likely to need an emergency backup SIM: Africa, the Pacific islands, Central Asia and the less-touristy bits of Latin America. If your travel style includes unplanned detours, Drimsim has you covered in more places.

Read full Drimsim review → Get Drimsim →

Where each falls short

Saily: Country coverage is the smallest on this page at around 150 countries. No unlimited plans. Every plan has an expiry date, so you can't buy far in advance. The VPN adds a small but real latency overhead that bothers heavy Zoom users. And as a newer entrant, Saily's support track record is still shorter than the more established providers.

Drimsim: Pay-as-you-go at around $4 per GB is genuinely expensive compared to any fixed plan. No privacy features, no VPN, no ad blocking, no bulk discounts. The app is noticeably older and the account dashboard feels dated. And while the balance doesn't expire, it does require one usage per 12 months or the account can get archived.

The verdict: Saily or Drimsim?

For any planned trip to a mainstream destination — Europe, Japan, mainstream Southeast Asia — Saily is cheaper per GB, has better features, and gives you the privacy bonus for free. For the role of "always-installed emergency backup eSIM," Drimsim is still the only real option because it's the only provider whose balance doesn't quietly evaporate. The honest answer is that these aren't competitors, they're complements. If you travel enough to need both, the combined cost is still less than one month of international roaming on most US carriers.

Our 2026 four-provider rundown rounds out the picture with Airalo and Yesim.