Keeping track of the hundreds of passwords you use for every website, app, and online account is a nightmare. This problem leads many people to re-use the same passwords on multiple websites—which is a serious security risk, because anyone who gains access to just one of your passwords can access all your online accounts.
It’s even worse for businesses that need to manage an entire team’s passwords and ensure everyone is following the correct security protocols. What do you do when someone leaves the business? What if a password used by multiple people is leaked online? Without taking adequate precautions, these can end up being enormous problems.
Enter password managers—programs that store all your passwords in a secure format, and automatically fill in the right password when you visit websites. The best password managers can automatically generate a strong, complex password for all of the sites you visit, and all you need to do is remember a single “master” password.
We’ve tested the best password managers available today, from free managers to paid products designed for corporate use, and in this guide, we run through our top 10 picks for the best password managers.
What are the best password managers?
Having tested 10 series extensively, focusing specifically on ease-of-use, support, security, overall performance and pricing, we found that the best password manager currently is Dashlane due to its additional services, bulk change functionality and range of pricing plans, with its unlimited virtual private network (VPN) and dark web monitoring features pushing it ahead of the rest.
Second and third were LastPass and Keeper, with LastPass available across multiple operating systems with a solid user interface and a range of strong two-factor authentication (2FA) options, while its free version also supports unlimited passwords and also features a built-in strong password generator.
Keeper’s strong focus on industry-leading security makes it an excellent choice for businesses storing sensitive data, with a zero-knowledge encryption model and regular SOC 2 and ISO 27001 auditing. Password sharing, user permissions control and BreachWatch – which alerts managers when staff passwords are leaked – are also included.
The remainder – highly competitive with these top three – include Zoho Vault, Bitwarden, RoboForm, NordPass, 1Password, LogMeOnce and mSecure. Read on to see what we thought of each in depth, and why they’re all in our guide to the best password managers.
1. Dashlane: top password manager with outstanding features
Dashlane is a cross-platform password manager with neat desktop applications, and comes with the ability to change website passwords in bulk. Available in free, premium, and premium plus plan options, paid features include an unlimited VPN service, dark web monitoring, identity theft insurance, and credit monitoring.
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2. LastPass: a versatile manager with great options
Available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and Chrome OS, LastPass is a versatile password manager with free and paid options. A solid interface and range of 2FA options are strong features, while the free version supports unlimited passwords and has a built-in strong password generator.
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3. Keeper: comprehensive security and business elements
Keeper has a focus on industry-leading security, with a zero-knowledge encryption model and regular SOC 2 and ISO 27001 auditing—making it an excellent choice for a business storing sensitive data. It also supports password sharing, user permissions control and BreachWatch, to alert when staff passwords are leaked.
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Dashlane is a cross-platform password manager with neat desktop applications, though these will be retired this year, so you will instead need to use its browser extensions.
One of Dashlane’s most interesting features is the ability to change website passwords in bulk. While at the moment only a shortlist of websites is supported, and the system often fails if a website changes its design, Dashlane now has a beta version it says will work on all websites, so stay tuned.
Dashlane’s free plan is limited to just 50 passwords, and there’s no syncing across devices. The premium plan is pricey at $60 a year, but you get an unlimited VPN service and dark web monitoring thrown in.
There’s also a $120 a year Premium Plus plan that adds identity theft insurance and credit monitoring. Dashlane is, therefore, a top password manager with some outstanding features, though you should be prepared to pay a little more to get them.
To learn more about this password manager and why we’ve ranked it top, read our Dashlane review.
Available for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS, and Chrome OS, LastPass is a versatile password manager with free and paid options.
LastPass has a solid user interface and a wide range of 2FA options, from mobile app PIN unlock to biometric login. Recently, LastPass decided to more heavily restrict the features of its free version. In particular, it’s now not possible to use the free version of LastPass on both mobile and desktop—you can choose only one.
But the free version does support unlimited passwords and has a built-in strong password generator. LastPass has slowly been creeping up in price. In 2017, you could get a yearly premium subscription for $12. Now, that will set you back $36.
While this pricing is in line with other password managers, it takes a little bit of the shine off LastPass, which used to have the best pricing around. However, its versatility and strong free version help it rank highly.
Read our LastPass review for an in-depth analysis of the service and its features.
Keeper is another password manager that offers both free and premium tiers. It has a focus on industry-leading security, with a zero-knowledge encryption model and regular SOC 2 and ISO 27001 auditing—two of the most robust security standards a company can pass. Keeper meets both US and EU directives on data protection, making it an excellent choice for a business storing sensitive data.
If you’re tasked with managing the passwords of an entire team, consider getting a password manager like Keeper that supports password sharing. You can also set different user permissions on passwords and groups of passwords, so everyone in the business has access to only the passwords they need.
Keeper offers the usual password generator, identity management, and shared password functionality. But it goes further, with an interface that allows you to manage multiple users and divide them into teams and roles. This is perfect for a manager who needs to ensure employees are all using strong passwords.
Keeper also offers additional features like BreachWatch, which will alert you when an employee’s passwords have been leaked. Starting at $45 per user a year, Keeper is an excellent password manager for businesses.
To learn more about why we ranked Keeper in our top three, read our Keeper password manager review.
Zoho Vault is a password manager that’s available as part of the wider Zoho One subscription model, which includes over 40 apps for business. You don’t have to buy Zoho One to get Zoho Vault, however. There are standalone plans at very competitive pricing and a free plan, too.
The free plan allows you to store unlimited passwords and notes, use two-factor authentication, generate strong passwords, and access your passwords from computers, smartphones, and tablets.
For $9 per user a year, you can securely share passwords with team members, share passwords with third parties on a one-use basis, and make cloud backups. If you’re managing a team, you can set user roles and transfer password ownership.
There’s also a Professional plan that adds user groups, emergency access, and the ability to change passwords on websites, but it ramps the price up to $54 per user a year.
Zoho Vault has a lot of features businesses will like. It offers fine-grained control over user permissions, it’s easy to set password policies through the browser interface, and you can arrange passwords into folders and add custom tags.
Individuals and small teams won’t get much from these added features. But for a manager of a large team, or someone who is in charge of password policy for an entire organization, Zoho Vault could make life a lot easier.
Our Zoho Vault review takes a deep-dive into the password manager, if you’re keen to find out more.
Bitwarden is an open-source password management app, which means its code is available publicly for all to peruse. Though this can make some business owners wary, open-source software is typically more secure than proprietary software because more experts can pore over the code, looking for flaws.
Bitwarden is free for personal use, though two-step login is reserved for a Premium account at just $10 a year. Business plans are free for up to two users or $3 per user a month for a Teams plan.
Bitwarden has a secure password generator, two-step login, vault health reports, and encrypted file attachments. As one of the most demonstrably secure options on our list, it’s worth a look both for personal or business use.
You can read our full Bitwarden review to learn more.
RoboForm is a password manager best suited to businesses. Besides the usual password management features, you can use RoboForm to manage the passwords used by everyone in your organization. You can give each user access to specific sets of passwords, tightening the security of your business. And passwords can be stored in folders, making it easier to organize them.
RoboForm can be used to share passwords between users securely, and passwords are encrypted, so the risk of leaks is significantly reduced. RoboForm also has an emergency access feature. If one of your employees loses access to their account or passwords, you still have a secure method of recovering them.
A relatively unique feature is that RoboForm offers the automation of Windows application forms. If your business uses Windows applications with password fields, RoboForm could be a highly useful tool for automating them.
It’s not the most modern-looking app on our list, and at $39.95 a year per user, it’s not the cheapest either. But RoboForm has those few features that might make it the best option for your business.
To find out more, read our RoboForm review and see what we thought about the service.
NordPass is a password manager with apps for PC, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and plugins for all popular browsers. NordPass includes a strong password generator and supports 2FA.
Passwords can be imported from other applications like Chrome, and you can share passwords easily with other people. There’s a Data Breach Scanner that advises whenever one of your passwords has been leaked on the dark web, plus a Password Health feature that shows you which of your passwords are weak and should be changed.
Despite all these features, NordPass has a simple interface and generally stays out of the way until you need it. Its simplicity means it’s best suited for personal use, as there’s little in the way of team management features.
NordPass has a basic free plan that allows for unlimited passwords, but doesn’t include the syncing of passwords across devices. Premium plans start from $2.50 a month. It’s a polished, secure password manager that does exactly what it needs to do at a good price.
Our full NordPass review studies the platform in more detail, including looking at features, pricing, and security.
1Password is a password manager with apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, and mobile operating systems. It includes support for two-factor authentication using Microsoft Authenticator, and your passwords are AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) 256-bit encrypted—the most robust form of encryption currently available.
1Password has no free plan, but it has subscription plans for individuals, families, teams, and enterprises. The basic personal subscription costs $2.99 a month and includes 1GB of file storage. Team plans start at $3.99 a month and include team password administration features so you can ensure your employees are all following your password security policies.
The password manager includes a few interesting features, like protection against keylogging software and alerts for security breaches. Though you can use 1Password to manage the passwords of a team, custom security controls are reserved for the Business and Enterprise plans, which start at $7.99 per user a month.
Our full 1Password review provides more information on this platform and what we made of it.
LogMeOnce includes all the usual password management features, like the auto-filling of passwords and a password generator, but it goes much further than most password managers. For example, you can store credit card details, secure notes, and create secure backups of personal documents.
Moving from another password manager is easy, as login details can be imported from most existing password managers. You can use a master password, 2FA, and even photo login to access your passwords and documents. However, there’s no dedicated LogMeOnce desktop app. There are browser plugins for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, though.
LogMeOnce’s browser extension interface is easy to navigate and includes links to all your saved websites. You can click on these links to log into the respective sites automatically.
Business plans start at $3 a month per user for basic password management features. At $4 a month per user, you unlock encrypted file storage and a real-time administration password.
If you choose the full $7 a month per user plan, you get additional tools like device whitelisting, leaked password monitoring, and multi-factor authentication (MFA). But for larger teams, this could make LogMeOnce an expensive choice.
mSecure is a password manager that allows for unlimited entries and custom fields. This means you can use mSecure for other online forms, not just for passwords. There’s a password generator that works well, and your passwords can be synced across all of your devices.
You can import passwords to mSecure from a CSV file, but there’s no easy way to import them directly from another password manager. mSecure doesn’t support 2FA, though it’s on the development roadmap. This can make it inconvenient to use for some people. It’s also a product designed for individual use, so it lacks features like secure password sharing.
Unusually, mSecure includes a self-destruct setting, which destroys your password database if several failed login attempts are made. The program can also be set to auto-lock after a set amount of inactivity.
Still, mSecure could be the right choice for personal use because of its “buy it once, use it everywhere” pricing. The lifetime-use $19.99 fee quickly works out much cheaper than password managers that perpetually charge $3 a month, especially as you can use it on multiple devices.
Read our full mSecure review to see what we made of this password manager.
