1Password vs Bitwarden: Price, Passkeys, and Security Compared

1Password and Bitwarden both now manage passkeys alongside passwords, so the real differences in 2026 come down to price, how much you get for free, and how each company handles encryption and audits. Bitwarden is the better default for most people on cost alone, with a genuinely usable free tier and a $1.65-a-month Premium plan; 1Password wins on polish, family-plan extras like Travel Mode, and enterprise integrations, but nothing in its lineup is free beyond a 14-day trial.

Pricing and plans compared

The starkest difference between the two services is what you get without paying. Bitwarden's free plan covers unlimited passwords and an unlimited number of devices, which is enough for most individuals to never upgrade. 1Password has no equivalent free plan at all — only a 14-day free trial of Individual or Family before you're billed, according to its pricing page.

For paid tiers, Bitwarden undercuts 1Password at every level, per Bitwarden's own pricing page. Bitwarden Premium adds an integrated TOTP authenticator, 1GB of encrypted file attachments, emergency access, and security reports for $1.65/month billed annually ($19.80/year). 1Password Individual, at $3.99/month billed yearly (or a promotional $2.99/month for new customers on direct annual billing), includes 1GB of storage, Watchtower breach alerts, and Travel Mode, which hides selected vaults when crossing a border.

Family and business pricing follows the same pattern. Bitwarden Families covers up to six accounts for $3.99/month ($47.88/year); 1Password Families covers up to five members for $5.99/month regular price (around $4.49/month on promo). On the business side, 1Password's Teams Starter Pack starts at $2.49 per user/month for a 10-seat minimum, scaling to Business at $8.99 per user/month with Okta and Entra ID integration. Bitwarden's Teams plan runs $4 per user/month billed annually, and Enterprise is $6 per user/month, which also includes passwordless SSO, self-hosting, and a free Families plan for every employee.

Passkey support in 2026

Both vaults can now create, store, autofill, and sync passkeys — the single biggest feature convergence between them since Bitwarden shipped browser-extension passkey support in 2023 and mobile passkeys on iOS and Android in 2024. Neither company treats passkeys as a bolt-on anymore; both show them in search right alongside saved logins.

1Password's passkeys product page describes saving and signing in with passkeys from the desktop browser extension and on iOS 17+/iPadOS 17+ devices, with viewing and management also available on Mac, Windows, and Android, syncing across all of them. Passkeys can be shared the same way logins are, through shared vaults or one-off item sharing. 1Password has also joined the FIDO Alliance and is piloting passkey-based account unlock — letting you create or unlock a new Individual account using a passkey instead of a master password and Secret Key — though that feature is in public beta for new accounts and listed as "coming soon" for existing accounts on other platforms.

Bitwarden's passkey rollout followed a similar path but leans on its open-source client code. Per Bitwarden's official mobile passkeys announcement, passkeys created or used on the iOS or Android app sync into the same end-to-end encrypted, zero-knowledge vault as everything else, and the reverse is true for passkeys saved from the browser extension. Android support requires Android 14 and Google Play Services; browser-extension autofill for passkeys currently depends on Chromium-based browsers supporting the WebAuthn PRF extension, with Safari support still catching up.

Bitwarden has also pushed further than 1Password on using a passkey to log into the password manager itself, not just to fill passkeys for other sites. According to a November 18, 2025 update to Bitwarden's own passkey-login blog post, passkey login now works in Chromium-based browser extensions (Chrome, Edge, and Brave), not just the web vault. If the passkey supports the WebAuthn PRF extension, it can log you in, skip two-factor authentication, and decrypt your vault in a single step; passkeys without PRF support still skip email and 2FA but require your master password to finish decrypting. Bitwarden says vault unlock after a session timeout via passkey is planned for a future release. 1Password's equivalent — creating or unlocking an account with a passkey instead of a master password and Secret Key — remains in public beta for new accounts only, per its passkeys page.

Security model: encryption and audits

Both products use end-to-end encryption and claim their own servers never see your unencrypted vault data, but they verify that claim differently. 1Password's security page describes a "dual-key" model: your master password is combined with a locally stored 128-bit Secret Key, so even someone who guesses your password cannot decrypt your vault without also having the key. Logins are authenticated with Secure Remote Password (SRP), which avoids sending credentials over the network at all. 1Password is SOC 2 Type 2 certified, publishes third-party audit results, and runs what it calls the industry's largest bug bounty program.

Bitwarden relies on AES-256 end-to-end encryption and a zero-knowledge architecture as well, but backs it with fully open-source client and server code rather than closed audits alone — its GitHub organization publishes the server, web vault, browser extension, desktop, mobile, and CLI source so any security researcher can inspect it directly, alongside a published security whitepaper. That transparency is the core of Bitwarden's pitch: you don't have to take the company's word for how encryption is implemented, because the implementation itself is public.

Neither approach is inherently stronger — proprietary software with formal certifications and open-source software with public code review are different trust models, not a strict hierarchy. Security-conscious shoppers comparing the two should weigh whether they trust a certified black box or an auditable codebase more, the same tradeoff that comes up in broader software-supply-chain questions covered in our explainer on CVEs and vulnerability scoring.

Open source vs. closed source

This is the one structural difference that won't change with a pricing update. 1Password's apps and backend are proprietary; what you get instead is formal certification (SOC 2 Type 2) and a company-run bug bounty. Bitwarden's apps, browser extensions, and server are released under open-source licenses on GitHub, and the company says it welcomes outside security audits and vulnerability reports. For IT teams and security-minded individuals who want to verify encryption claims themselves rather than trust a vendor's audit summary, that's a meaningful differentiator — it's the same reason open-source tooling comes up repeatedly in enterprise credential-security conversations, including the kind of third-party app risks discussed in our coverage of the Microsoft Authenticator token-theft flaw.

Features and platform support

Platform coverage is close to a wash. Both ship native apps for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, and Android, plus browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, and Brave. 1Password adds a watchOS app and a dedicated Linux desktop client with biometric unlock; Bitwarden adds a free, fully-featured command-line interface and a self-hostable server option (free for individuals, and included in Bitwarden Enterprise for organizations) that 1Password does not offer at any tier.

1Password's standout extras are Travel Mode (temporarily removing sensitive vaults from your devices) and Watchtower, which flags weak, reused, or breached passwords and — per its passkeys page — now also flags accounts that could be upgraded from a password to a passkey. Bitwarden's standout extras are the built-in TOTP authenticator on Premium (so you don't need a separate 2FA app for most accounts), unlimited free device syncing even on the free tier, and Bitwarden Send, a way to share an encrypted note or file outside your vault with an expiration date.

Account recovery if you lose access

Both companies run on zero-knowledge principles, which cuts both ways: neither can reset your master password for you, so recovery depends on what you set up in advance. 1Password's dual-key model means losing both your master password and your Secret Key — normally stored in a downloadable Emergency Kit — can mean permanent loss of an Individual vault; Family and Business plans mitigate this with organization-level recovery, where an admin can help a locked-out member regain access. Bitwarden's Premium and Families plans include a built-in Emergency Access feature, where a trusted contact you designate can request access to your vault after a waiting period you control, even on an Individual-style account, which is a lighter-weight safety net than 1Password's admin-recovery model for solo users.

Switching between 1Password and Bitwarden

Neither vendor locks you in completely. Both support exporting your vault to a CSV or JSON file and importing it into the other service, and both can import directly from most competing password managers during setup. The practical friction is usually passkeys and TOTP secrets rather than passwords: passkeys are generally bound to the device and authenticator that created them, so moving providers can require re-registering passkeys with each site individually rather than a clean bulk export, and you should treat any password-manager migration as a good moment to also rotate your most sensitive credentials, the same hygiene habit that matters after any credential-exposure event like the kind covered in our report on the Oracle E-Business Suite vulnerability.

Who should choose 1Password

1Password makes the most sense if you want a family plan with granular admin controls, travel-specific privacy features, or you're buying for a business that already standardizes on Okta or Microsoft Entra ID for single sign-on. The $8.99/user/month Business tier is built around that kind of identity-provider integration, and the interface is generally considered more polished for non-technical family members who need a short learning curve.

Who should choose Bitwarden

Bitwarden is the clear pick if budget matters, if you want to try a password manager without a trial countdown, or if you specifically want to audit — or have someone else audit — the code protecting your credentials. The free plan alone covers what most people need: unlimited passwords, unlimited devices, and now passkey storage. Premium adds the built-in authenticator and file attachments for under $2 a month, and the open-source codebase is a genuine differentiator for security teams and self-hosters.

Bottom line

Passkey support no longer separates these two; both can generate, store, autofill, and sync passkeys across desktop and mobile, with 1Password slightly ahead on polish and Bitwarden catching up fast on browser-extension autofill. The decision now comes down to what you're optimizing for: Bitwarden if you want the cheapest (or free) option with open-source transparency, 1Password if you want a more guided experience, deeper family admin tools, and enterprise SSO integrations and are willing to pay roughly double for it. Check each company's own pricing page before buying, since both run promotional annual rates that change periodically.

Written bySana Qureshi

Sana Qureshi runs the security and privacy desk. She reports on actively exploited vulnerabilities, vendor patches and data breaches, and covers the password managers, VPNs and authentication tools readers use to protect themselves. Her alerts cite vendor advisories, CISA and the CVE record directly.

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