6 Best Password Managers Of 2024

Features

NordPass functions as a browser-based app or as a desktop and mobile app for all major platforms. Along with the usual password storage and generator features, the app offers several different forms of multifactor authentication, a data breach scanner, a password health checker and an email masking tool. These features work more or less as intended, and I didn’t encounter any major issues during testing. However, readers interested in the email masking tool should be aware that email masking stops working if you stop using NordPass, meaning messages sent to the masked email won’t show up in your inbox anymore.

Howard Poston, a cybersecurity expert and our advisory board member, also likes the data breach scanner feature: “The integrated data breach scanner is a great feature. If a password is breached, change it immediately and enable MFA if you haven’t already.”

Pricing

NordPass has a free plan, but it’s very limited compared to its competitors. You can only have one user per account and can only perform the most basic of password manager tasks, like saving your passwords. For individual users and families, there are Premium and Family tiers starting at $1.99 per month and $3.69 per month for the first year, respectively. After that first year, the price bumps up to $2.99 per month and $5.99 per month, respectively. These are annual subscriptions, as NordPass does not offer monthly subscriptions at this time. I don’t generally recommend new customers start with an annual subscription for any product, though NordPass does offer a 30-day free trial.

For interested businesses, NordPass offers an array of plans to fit your needs as well. These plans charge per user per month and start at $1.99 per user per month for the lowest Teams plan and go up to $5.99 per user per month for the Enterprise plan. Again, these are the annual subscription numbers, as there is no monthly plan.

Per-user pricing is not uncommon for business software, but in some instances like this one, businesses looking to use NordPass might quickly find it very expensive. Worse, NordPass only offers a 14-day free trial for its Teams and Business tiers, which I don’t feel is enough time for anyone to decide if a plan is right for them.

Trustworthiness

As part of Nord Security’s product family alongside NordVPN and NordLayer, NordPass’s reputation is tied to Nord Security’s. While NordPass itself hasn’t been subject to any data breaches that I could find, NordVPN was hit by a data breach in early 2018 when it, along with other top VPNs like TorGuard VPN, was hacked by an 8chan user. Nord claimed it wasn’t notified of the incident until April 2019, a year after the breach reportedly happened, but it waited nearly six months to tell users.

While there definitely needs to be time to audit servers in the event of a breach, six months is a long time to leave users in the dark, and it makes me wary of how Nord Security might handle data breaches for its other products, like LastPass. The incident is nearly six years old now, and Nord Security has had plenty of time to potentially shore up its security infrastructure and update its policy about data breach disclosures. However, it’s hard to believe companies supposedly dedicated to preserving user privacy deserve second chances, and Nord Security needs to do a lot more to earn one in my eyes.

Learn more: Read our full NordPass review.

Features

Dashlane has many of the features I expect from a password manager, such as password sharing and the availability of more than one multifactor authentication option. Its browser extension even comes with a VPN, though I’d generally recommend purchasing a dedicated VPN provider like Mullvad VPN instead.

I also liked the password customization settings, which allow you to require your master password for selected websites, auto-logins and autofill disabling. Its password health checker works well enough, and I didn’t encounter any issues with any other aspects of the app.

My biggest concern with Dashlane is that it’s web-only, meaning that if you’re offline, you won’t have access to any of your credentials or any of Dashlane’s other features. I prefer locally hosted password managers so you can access that sensitive information even offline.

Howard Poston, our advisory board member, offered this tip: “If you use Dashlane, take advantage of its password customization settings. They let you balance usability and security for various sites.”

Pricing

Dashlane has four pricing tiers: Premium, Friends & Family, Business and Enterprise. Business and Enterprise are, as the names imply, meant for business customers, while Premium and Friends & Family are targeted more at individual consumers. The Premium tier costs $4.99 per month for one year, and the Friends & Family plan costs $7.49 per month for every 10 family members for one year.

This is on the higher end for a password manager, and unless you’ve got a large enough group to justify the Friends & Family plan, I’m not certain the Premium tier is worth the price for what you get. Thankfully, Dashlane does offer a 30-day free trial for its Premium plan to see if it’s right for you.

Meanwhile, the Business tier costs $8 per seat per month for one year. The pricing for its Enterprise plan isn’t listed, and you’ll need to contact Dashlane directly to get a price quote. Although a free trial is available for the Business plan, it only lasts for 14 days, which I feel isn’t really enough time to get a good feel for the software and how it fits your business’s needs. Eight dollars per user can add up really quickly, and even if Dashlane were the absolute best password manager on the market, it’s probably not worth the steep cost for most small businesses, especially when compared to the cheaper alternatives with near-equivalent product quality on the market.

Trustworthiness

Dashlane Inc. owns Dashlane, and while it hasn’t encountered any major data breaches like LastPass, for example, it’s not perfect. In late 2023, security researchers found a major vulnerability in Dashlane and five other major password managers that could be used to steal Android users’ credentials via the AutoFill function. As far as I can tell, no data has been breached yet, but it is something to keep in mind. Overall, Dashlane is far from the least trustworthy company in the password manager space.

Learn more:  Read our full Dashlane review.

Features

Bitwarden has all the features I could ask for from a password manager, including a password health tool and a data breach monitor. On top of that, it’s open-source, a feature I love to see from cybersecurity products. Too often, tech products, especially cybersecurity products, function more or less as black boxes, not letting customers get under the hood and really see what’s going on with their purchase. So, any solution that avoids this gets big points from me. It also has apps for all major operating systems, as well as browser extensions for Edge, Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Vivaldi, Brave and Tor.

Bitwarden’s actual features work well, and I would recommend this product for most individual users thanks to its relatively generous free tier. I encountered no issues during testing and was really impressed with the software overall. Bitwarden does have a bit of a learning curve, particularly when it comes to sharing passwords with other users, but the rest of the app’s positives outweigh this small flaw. It supports multiple different methods of MFA, including an authenticator app, email and YubiKey.

Howard Poston, our advisory board member, gives the free plan high marks: “Bitwarden’s free tier really is excellent. The main things it lacks (breach monitoring and an authenticator app) are available for free elsewhere.”

Pricing

Bitwarden has three pricing tiers for personal users and two for business users. Private customers can start with the Free tier, which gives them all of the basic features of a password manager across an unlimited number of devices, along with the ability to share passwords and vaults with one other user.

The Premium tier costs $10 per year, or about 83 cents per month, and unlocks the data breach monitor and the Bitwarden Authenticator app, among other features. You can still only share passwords with one other user, though. The Family tier is effectively the same as the Premium tier but offers you six accounts that can all share passwords with one another. It costs $40 per year or about $3.33 per month. The Family tier comes with a seven-day free trial, which is incredibly short. However, Bitwarden’s free tier is strong enough that this isn’t a major negative from my perspective.

For businesses, Bitwarden’s two tiers are Teams and Enterprise. Teams costs $4 per user per month and effectively functions like a bunch of Premium accounts stacked atop one another that can all share passwords with each other. Enterprise unlocks more features, like passwordless single-sign-on (SSO) and account recovery. It costs $6 per user per month. Businesses looking for a more bespoke experience can also contact Bitwarden directly for a quote.

The per-user pricing means Bitwarden can quickly become expensive for businesses, made all the worse by its small seven-day free trial for these Business plans. I’d prefer to see that expanded a bit so companies have more time to determine if Bitwarden is right for them.

Trustworthiness

Being free and open-source is enough for Bitwarden to earn a lot of points in the trust department. The app has had some security vulnerabilities noticed by security experts in the past few years, such as an autofill vulnerability similar to the one found for Dashlane. Despite this, I generally trust Bitwarden as a reliable password manager for most users.

Learn more: Read our full Bitwarden review.

Features

1Password does most everything I expect from a password manager. It’s easy to use and even automatically clears clipboards of copied passwords so you don’t have to manually remove sensitive information from your clipboard after use. If you’re a less tech-savvy person looking for an intuitive password management app, this is one of the better options.

Though I prefer lower-tiered plans with better customer support options, 1Password provides access to a knowledge base with some pretty in-depth how-to guides, a chatbot and email support. However, live phone or chat support with a human requires paying for a Business plan, which is a shame.

There also isn’t any password inheritance system in place in the event of the account holder’s death, which can make accessing a bank password, for example, difficult. With a Family plan, you can designate certain users as organizers who should be able to access the account. Still, I’d prefer a dedicated inheritance system where the account holder can name an heir who can access their 1Password account.

Our advisory board member, Howard Poston, shared his thoughts on this password manager: “1Password is really easy to use. Also, the clipboard clearing feature is great for ensuring that you don’t paste a password somewhere by accident (such as a shared doc).”

Pricing

Unlike many of its contemporaries, 1Password unfortunately lacks a free version of its service. On top of that, its free trial is pretty short, at only 14 days. I generally like to see companies offer a 30-day free trial if they don’t have a free version. If you decide to purchase 1Password, there are four tiers you can choose from: Individual, Families, Team Starter Pack and Business.

Individual costs $2.99 per month for one year or $3.99 per month for one month and gives you access to most every feature you could ask for as an individual user. The Families plan costs $5.99 per month for one year or $6.99 per month for one month and provides the same benefits as Individual but for up to five users. Team Starter Pack costs $19.95 per month for up to 10 users. The Business tier starts at $7.99 per user per month for one year, but if you want a more customizable experience, you can also contact 1Password directly to get a quote.

While 1Password makes its annual prices public on its websites, its monthly prices are obscured. In fact, when you sign up for a 1Password account, you are, by default, locked into the annual subscription for whatever plan you choose. You have to go into your Billing settings to switch to monthly or even see the monthly price. In general, I recommend users try a product’s monthly subscription before locking into a more expensive annual one, and the fact that 1Password makes it so difficult to do this is a negative in my eyes.

Trustworthiness

For the most part, 1Password is pretty clean. While I’d love for it and other password managers to be open source like Bitwarden or KeePass are, this isn’t going to be a dealbreaker for most people. The same AutoFill security vulnerability found in Dashlane’s Android app was also discovered within 1Password’s Android app in late 2023, but no major data breaches have been reported. Toronto-based company AgileBits, the developer of 1Password, hasn’t been subject to any major controversy either.

Learn more: Read our full 1Password review.

Features

KeePass is incredibly customizable and, thanks to plugins, packs many of the features we would want from a password manager. There’s a share password option, auto-typing, multiple MFA methods and the ability to import/export data to various file formats alongside a whole host of upgrades and add-ons to fit your needs.

While KeePass is user-friendly, it belongs to an older era of software development that assumed users possessed some basic computer knowledge. However, this expectation may not hold true in today’s era of software products that aim for effortless usability. The high customizability of the app comes with an attendant learning curve that some users might not want to engage with.

The interface might also be a pain point for some people. The app was initially developed in 2003, and the interface looks it. Not everyone will be accustomed to that sort of UI these days, but I found it refreshing.

In more ways than one, KeePass feels like it was ripped from a different time in the best way. The software is community-driven, meaning that even if the base software lacks some feature you want from a password manager, there’s probably a plugin someone’s developed that does the job. For example, want to enhance the auto-type feature? There’s a plugin for that. Want to add the TwoFish encryption algorithm to KeePass? There’s a plugin for that. Want to import passwords from 1Password to KeePass? There are at least two plugins for that.

This kind of free, open-source, community-maintained software just doesn’t normally get the sort of market penetration it used to. KeePass has managed to hold on to its place in the password manager game since 2003, and I think that’s kind of great. I wish the tech landscape had a lot more apps like KeePass taking up space.

Pricing

KeePass is the only 100% free password manager on our list. Other password managers have free versions, but these have more limited features than the paid plans. Not so with KeePass, which provides all of its features for free. For many products that I’ve covered, I generally caution users to stay away from 100% free software, but KeePass lacks many of the potential risks I would associate with free software, such as a developer harvesting and selling your data like AVG and Avast did with their free antivirus software.

Howard Poston, our advisory board member, also appreciates that KeePass is free: “If there’s a password manager feature that you want, KeePass probably has it. Even better, it’s free.”

Trustworthiness

I’ll begin by discussing the cons of KeePass. As with all software, KeePass is not immune to bugs and security weak points. The KeePass2Android app was discovered to have the same autofill security vulnerability as Dashlane and 1Password, but no data breaches exploiting that vulnerability have been discovered. Additionally, in May 2023, a proof-of-concept for an exploit on KeePass’s desktop app was released, where a hacker could steal a KeePass user’s master password via memory dump. However, this vulnerability relied on the victim’s computer already being compromised.

There’s also the fact that it’s a community-driven piece of software. While I love this about KeePass, it can lead to awkward situations where people might just stop updating it one day, and the app slowly loses compatibility with modern devices. There’s also the stranger aspect, where you might not want to trust a random person’s KeePass plugin because they don’t have to be compliant with any legal bodies to put out that plugin the way a company ostensibly has to be.

These are valid concerns, though I do think that any piece of software that’s been actively maintained since I was in elementary school is probably not in any danger of shutting down anytime soon, barring a sudden legal crackdown on password managers. And while there is a level of trust you have to place in the community members who develop plugins for KeePass, these plugins are generally regulated by the community itself.

All that said, KeePass is, in my eyes, one of the more trustworthy password managers, thanks to being both open-source and locally hosted. Unlike LastPass, for example, there are no external servers to hack. The data is saved on your device. While your device might not have the security infrastructure in place of a LastPass or a 1Password, you will likely be a much smaller target for a hacker than these providers. And any hackers that do come your way will probably be using social engineering schemes like phishing instead of the hacking style you see in Hollywood where the bespectacled computer guy types for a few seconds before declaring, “I’m in.”

Overall, KeePass is one of my most trustworthy password management solutions. While there are vulnerabilities that can be exploited, none of them are so glaring that I wouldn’t use the software myself.

Learn more: Read our full KeePass review.

Features

Keeper is a feature-rich, easy-to-use password manager with the features I expect from a usable password manager, and if that’s all the app was, it might even place higher on the list. However, Keeper is only easy to use if you ignore all the ads you’re confronted with while using the service.

After logging in for the first time, I was hit with a popup ad for upgrading my plan. After setting up a password in the Vault, I got another ad. Several of the interface’s menu tabs? Also turned out to be ads! This sort of behavior would be annoying but expected from a freemium password manager, but Keeper doesn’t even have that excuse, as I had paid for a plan.

Ultimately, while the features available are good, the actual user experience is not worth the hassle when so many other password managers have the same or even more features with a much better user experience.

Howard Poston, our advisory board member, agrees on Keeper’s ad problem: “Keeper’s ads are a major downside for the app. Many of the free/freemium options on this list are ad-free and often offer more features in their free versions.”

Pricing

Keeper has a total of five pricing plans, two for personal use and three for business use. Starting with personal use, the Personal tier costs $2.92 per month (billed annually) and functions as sort of the base tier. Meanwhile, the Family plan costs $6.25 per month (billed annually) and provides additional storage, more user accounts and file/password sharing.

On the business side, the Business Starter plan starts at $2 per user per month billed annually, while the Business tier costs $3.75 per user per month billed annually for extra organizational configurations. Finally, to learn the Enterprise plan’s pricing, you’ll need to contact Keeper directly to get a quote.

Keeper offers a free version and a 30-day free trial for its paid plan. This is exactly what I expect in terms of trial length.

Trustworthiness

Keeper was part of the same Android autofill discovery as 1Password, Dashlane and KeePass, though no data breaches were part of that discovery. That isn’t the only trust issue I have with trusting Keeper. There was also the 2017 incident where Keeper sued Ars Technica and journalist Dan Goodin for defamation over an article where Goodin reported a security vulnerability found on Keeper’s Windows app. The vulnerability was real and later fixed, but the company sued to have the article taken down anyway.

While Keeper has not been subject to any major data breaches or other controversies, the 2017 incident paints the picture of a company more concerned with the appearance of security than the reality of security in our eyes. This was seven years ago as of this writing, and it’s entirely possible Keeper’s view on these vulnerabilities being publicly disclosed has shifted. However, it’s difficult to give companies second chances with my trust or my data, especially cybersecurity companies for whom customer safety ought to be top priority.

This wasn’t even the first time Keeper had used legal action or the threat of legal action against someone reporting on or disclosing a security vulnerability with its software. In 2013, the company threatened to take legal action against Fox-IT if it publicly disclosed a security vulnerability it had found within Keeper’s password manager. For these reasons, I cannot give Keeper a passing grade in the trust department.

Learn more: Read our full Keeper review.