Bitwarden Review: The Best Password Manager Leave a comment

A password supervisor makes creating robust passwords—and remembering them!—simple. Good password managers will generate robust passwords for you, retailer them in a safe vault and log you into web sites, all with out you doing something. There are dozens of cloud-based password managers available on the market, however in my testing one constantly rises to the highest—Bitwarden.

Bitwarden is open supply, safe, works throughout platforms, and provides an intuitive workflow that makes it simple to handle your passwords throughout all of your gadgets. The free plan makes , fundamental, however safe password supervisor, and Bitwarden’s premium options price lower than the competitors.

The Open Supply Benefit

The code that runs Bitwarden is open supply. Meaning it is freely obtainable for anybody to examine, assault, search out flaws, and report them. In principle, the extra eyes on the code, the extra hermetic it turns into. Not one of the different main cloud-based password managers on the market are open supply. Whereas this does not make Bitwarden invulnerable, the corporate has by no means had a breach.

Like most password managers, Bitwarden makes use of AES-256 encryption to guard your information. Your passwords are solely ever unencrypted by yourself gadgets. Bitwarden maintains a zero-knowledge system. All of your usernames, passwords, URLs, notes, and different vault information are end-to-end encrypted, which implies that Bitwarden can not see or entry any of your information.

To additional improve its safety standing, Bitwarden is frequently audited by third-parties to make sure it is safe. The latest general check is from 2023, when the Cure53 safety agency did a supply code audit and penetration check of the core utility and library. Particular person platform apps and the net interface have additionally been audited, all of which leaves me feeling fairly good in regards to the safety behind Bitwarden. It is also value noting that, if you understand what you are doing, you’ll be able to set up Bitwarden’s backend code by yourself server for self-hosting when you desire to run your personal cloud.

Utilizing Bitwarden

All the safety on the earth is kinda ineffective, although, if really utilizing the apps and companies is not expertise. Thankfully, Bitwarden has a largely clean workflow that integrates properly with totally different platforms and takes benefit of standardized safety features like passkeys. You possibly can even log into Bitwarden with a passkey, which suggests you do not even want to make use of your username or password to open your vault.

There are apps for Android, iOS, Home windows, macOS, and Linux, in addition to extensions for all main net browsers. I’ve used Bitwarden on each platform and in each browser. Sure, even Opera. In the beginning of 2025, Bitwarden switched to native apps for Android and iOS. I by no means minded the outdated app, however that is decidedly sooner in my testing (a minimum of on Android. The ultimate iOS model isn’t out of beta but).

Bitwarden additionally lately revamped its browser extension, giving it a cleaner look with extra customization choices to tailor the consumer expertise to suit your workflow. There is a new compact mode that saves a little bit of area, and lightweight and darkish themes to suit along with your PC’s theme.