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 persistently rises to the highest—Bitwarden.
Bitwarden is open supply, safe, works throughout platforms, and presents an intuitive workflow that makes it simple to handle your passwords throughout all of your units. The free plan makes a very good, primary, however safe password supervisor, and Bitwarden’s premium options value lower than the competitors.
The Open Supply Benefit
The code that runs Bitwarden is open supply. Meaning it is freely out there for anybody to examine, assault, search out flaws, and report them. In concept, 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 knowledge. Your passwords are solely ever unencrypted by yourself units. Bitwarden maintains a zero-knowledge system. All of your usernames, passwords, URLs, notes, and different vault knowledge are end-to-end encrypted, which signifies that Bitwarden can not see or entry any of your knowledge.
To additional improve its safety standing, Bitwarden is regularly audited by third-parties to make sure it is safe. The latest general check is from 2023, when the Cure53 safety agency did a source 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 already know what you are doing, you may 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 planet is kinda ineffective, although, if truly utilizing the apps and companies is not a very good expertise. Luckily, Bitwarden has a principally easy workflow that integrates effectively with completely different platforms and takes benefit of standardized safety features like passkeys. You possibly can even log into Bitwarden with a passkey, which implies 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. Firstly 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 shouldn’t be out of beta but).
Bitwarden additionally not too long ago 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 light-weight and darkish themes to suit together with your PC’s theme.
{Photograph}: Bitwarden
