All good, just trying to get the right info out there for anyone wondering the same.

Well if we’re strictly talking about the ability to hide what you’re downloading from your ISP then the end result is the same.

Except debrid services also gives you premium access to dozens of file hosting sites as well (megaup, 1fichier etc.) - in the case of file hosters the download is streamed to you immediately so there’s no waiting for RD to download first.

Seedboxes will also impose storage limits. In the case of real-debrid you’re limited to 2TB per torrent, or 72 hour download time.

torrentio just gives you the torrent

If it’s not cached there’ll instead be links that makes RD start a new download of that torrent (this can be disabled in Torrentio settings). The reason not to use those links would just be because you have to wait for RD to finish the download, but in either case you’re never torrenting yourself. You’ll see “RD+” above the quality label of streams which tells you it’s from real-debrid, so you’ll always know if it’s not.

Real-debrid is already doing what a VPN does for you - it downloads the files on your behalf then sends them to you via an encrypted connection. Your ISP will see you’re downloading from RD, but they won’t know what. If you’re doing regular torrenting via another client then of course use a VPN, but it’s not necessary with solely Torrentio+RD.

Edit: didn’t mean to send this as a reply