If you don't want to lock yourself down for 2+ years, then Surfshark isn't cheap. I am also in no position to know how secure each service is. PIA supports port forwarding (that I've not used) but SS doesn't. For instance fact that PIA is in the 5 eyes, whereas SS is not in the 14 eyes. There are other points that are often raised but I am not sure if it really makes practical difference. As someone who travels often, this could be a plus if they perform. SS also have servers in more countries including regions where I spend time in. The fact that it did work for a short time is pretty big plus over PIA. I might try again with a different server.
Surfshark worked for about 90min earlier before it stopped working. PIA has never worked as long as I've tried. The streaming service I use is Amazon Prime (JP). Not a big deal breaker since you'll probably just set it up and minimise it anyway, but still. Aesthetically, Surfshark takes more screen estate compared to PIA at the smallest, and some of the font they use is kinda small. Functionally, like that PIA shows the ping to their various servers, and I also think that Surfshark's software load a bit slower when it first start up. With PIA though, I never had any connection issues. After doing that earlier though, right now I can disconnect and reconnect and it will do so pretty quickly without issues. It might be just the first connection after booting, I am not too sure right now, but sometime it takes up to three attempts to finally connect (but it has never failed to eventually connect) which takes a bit of time. However, I find that Surfshark can take a while to connect. Once connected, I haven't had any issues with disconnections (after about 10+ hours of use) with either VPN. After a couple of tests on different servers, including servers much further away, I found that PIA seem to provide a fraction more bandwidth, while SS seem to have a slightly lower ping, but for the most part, there is not to distinguish the two on my current connection. Speedwise, both Surfshark and PIA are similar on my connection, giving speed very close to no VPN (on the fastest server it is about 15.xx/6.xx). I must also point out that I have a pretty slow internet connection (approximately 16Mbit down, 6-8MBit up) at the moment, so I am nowhere near the limit of what the VPN can provide. This is just a first impression given that this is only the second day. Up until now, I have only ever used Private Internet Access, so this is my sole reference point. I've decided to try out Surfshark given that it is probably one of the cheapest VPN if you are willing to lock down for 2 years, and I am not too demanding on features.