How Forbes Advisor Rates Password Managers

Password managers are a popular tool for generating and storing the small army of logins you need to go about your day-to-day life as an individual or a business. However, the sheer size of the password manager market can leave some feeling overwhelmed with choices. That’s why Forbes Advisor Small Business has worked tirelessly to provide you with the best recommendations and analysis we can.

Unfortunately, we previously did not test these products when making these recommendations, and while we’ve updated our Best Password Manager list to reflect new testing done by our expert, this testing does not currently have an impact on our scores and rankings. We’re working hard to add testing experience to our methodology in the future, however, and wanted to give you a better idea of the process we used to give you our recommendations and scores.

Forbes Advisor Small Business helps small businesses of all kinds make the best decisions for their growth and success. We strive to help entrepreneurs across industries make sense of complex products, services and concepts so they can make the best choices and focus on growing their businesses.

We may earn a commission from select partner links on Forbes Advisor. However, the compensation we receive does not influence our editorial decisions, nor does it impact our product recommendations or any advice we offer in our content.

Pricing

Pricing is fairly self-explanatory. We want to make sure prospective customers for these products are getting the best deal possible. As part of that, we check if a password manager has a free version and measure the starting price of its paid plans versus the price of its competitors.

General Features

General features are the collection of functions a password manager needs to have to meet our bare minimum for consideration on one of our Best lists, the ground floor. This includes features such as multifactor authentication, the ability to auto-fill web forms and the ability to import data from browsers. These are all basic quality-of-life or security features every password manager should either have or consider having.

Reviews and Ratings

While our expert’s take is an important part of the scoring process, theirs is not the only experience with a product. So, we also take a look at reviews from review aggregator websites such as G2, Trustpilot and that’s it. We’re hoping to add reviews from other popular sites such as the Google Play Store or Apple App Store in the future.

Expert Analysis

While we did include first-person testing experience in our articles, our expert analysis scores were not influenced by this experience. Instead, our team of experts sift through the previously mentioned customer reviews and ratings and graded providers on the following four factors: ease of use, popularity, value for money and standout features. In the future, however, this will be updated to add the testers’ experience to the grading process.

In other categories, we have customized our scoring methodology to better reflect the specific needs of individual niches, such as the Best Android Password Manager or Best iPhone Password Manager. However, for password managers in specific, we’ve not yet been able to add that level of customization to our process. So, articles such as Best Windows Password Manager and Best Password Manager for Mac all use the same formula as our baseline Best Password Managers list for now. We hope to add more customization to provide you with a more complete picture of the password manager space soon though!

Best Password Managers

• General Features: 35%
• Pricing: 25%
• Expert Score: 25%
• Ratings and Reviews: 15%

Our Cybersecurity Advisory Board consists of experts whose skills, knowledge and qualifications help ensure our content is up to date and accurate. They review our content and offer input for our editorial teams, as well as actionable tips and recommendations for readers.

Alan Brill, MBA, CISSP, CFE, CIPP/US, FAAFS

With 50 years in the field now known as cybersecurity, Alan Brill has served as a consultant globally for large and small businesses and governments. His work has been featured in many articles and TV programs. He is the author, co-author and editor of more than a dozen books. In addition to his work as vice chair of Kroll’s Cyber Risk Practice, he is an adjunct professor at Texas A&M University School of Law. He oversaw the protection of a presidential campaign that was attacked by foreign government agents and was the FTC’s lead cyber expert in one of its most complex cybersecurity litigation cases.

Matt Hoeper

Matt Hoeper is a proven leader in IT, combining a master’s degree in Management Information Systems and solid experience with a proven track record in IT. He has led the security practices at two different MSPs, and has been a Health IT Director, a project manager, business analyst, system administrator and systems architect. He helped author the Cybersecurity Maturity Model Certification (CMMC) Certified Professional and CMMC Certified Assessor field guides and has spoken at conferences nationwide regarding CMMC, IT security and risk. Matt has worked with Fortune 500 companies and small businesses in areas including engineering, marketing, supply chain and healthcare.

Howard Poston

Howard Poston is a freelance cybersecurity consultant and content developer. Along with numerous articles, he’s authored two books on cybersecurity and developed over 20 online courses. He has a M.S. in cybersecurity and has spoken at several cybersecurity and blockchain security conferences.