The best Password Managers
Every option ranked — open-source, self-hostable, and commercial — by our transparent Sovereignty Score, with honest trade-offs so you choose what fits you, not us.
Keep your secrets in a vault you control, not a vendor's cloud.
L5Applications — layer 5 of the AI stack- 1
Bitwarden
Top pickOpen sourceOpen-source and free forever — the easy pick for most people.
Generous free tier; paid from about $1/month; self-host free · in our 1Password comparison →
What is Bitwarden? →88sovereignty - 2
Vaultwarden
Open sourceA lightweight, self-hosted Bitwarden-compatible server.
Free / self-host · in our 1Password comparison →
What is Vaultwarden? →95sovereignty - 3
KeePassXC
Open sourceA fully local, offline password database.
Free / open-source · in our 1Password comparison →
What is KeePassXC? →92sovereignty - 4
Proton Pass
CommercialPartnerEnd-to-end encrypted password manager from the Proton privacy suite.
Free tier; paid from about $2/month (or bundled in Proton Unlimited) · in our 1Password comparison →
What is Proton Pass? →62sovereignty
Is it free?
The free tier, its real limits and where you start paying — read from each vendor's own pricing page and dated.
Run these yourself
What each one actually needs — real RAM, honest running cost, and the setup time nobody quotes.
- Self-hosting Bitwarden 4 GB for the official self-hosted stack
- Self-hosting Vaultwarden 512 MB
- Self-hosting KeePassXC 300 MB
Replacing a specific tool?
Head-to-head comparisons for each popular password managers product.
Straight head-to-heads
Two password managers tools, side by side — verified facts and a plain verdict.