The Best Password Managers

Password Managers Compared

Using any password manager is a far smarter choice than trying to remember all your own passwords (or worse still, remembering just one and re-using it over and over).

However, there are some differences between the main password manager apps. In our testing, we take into account features, ease of use and effectiveness. Of the brands we tested, NordPass came out on top, closely followed by LastPass and Dashlane. Check out the rest of our password managers below:

1. NordPass – A super secure choice with attractive pricing and an easy-to-understand design. It lacks some features but will certainly protect you online better than free options.
2. 1Password – 1Password is a fantastic choice for anyone wanting to make easy work of juggling passwords. Easy to use and gives you plenty of control.
3. LastPass – LastPass is a powerful app and has a great browser plugin, too. It's also one of the cheapest available, which makes it a compelling choice for those after a good deal.
4. Dashlane – A great interface and handy extra features, such as automatically saving receipts. Once set up, you'll find that you'll be logged seamlessly into websites automatically. You can even share your login details with nominated friends.
5. Sticky Password – Nice automatic log-in feature and offers great value compared to rivals. The design isn't going to win any awards, but overall it's a good password app that works as intended.

1Password

A simple and inexpensive password manager

1Password is very easy to use and is available for most mainstream devices. It has a very useful password generator, plus its auto-login feature gives you a degree of control over the settings. It also has a large variety of specialized templates for saving information such as driver’s license details, passports, and software licenses, as well as document storage.

The price is great, at about $36 per year for an individual. 1Password is also a solid choice for businesses, too, thanks to its robust features and dedicated customer support.

Read Our Full 1Password Review

LastPass

One of the most widely-used password managers available

LastPass is another great choice for your password manager, and it’s one of the best-known names in the industry. LastPass has a lot of robust features, including support for file attachments to password entries, autofill and auto-login, password generation, and secure notes.

Unfortunately, LastPass recently suffered a “security incident” which has damaged the provider's reputation. The company claims that a threat actor broke into their systems and subsequently accessed data relating to websites that LastPass users had previously visited. This information was unencrypted and accessible, and could be used to orchestrate phishing attacks, among other malicious behavior.

Although sensitive data – including passwords users had stored in LastPass – remained hidden, and master passwords were not accessed either, security experts have warned all LastPass users to consider their stored passwords compromised.

Whether this affects the provider's popularity remains to be seen – LastPass is likely to remain a go-to choice for password manager novices. The price is right at $36 per year for individuals and as low as $48 per year for businesses, and the fact that it’s browser-only (there’s no need to install a client/program on your desktop) means it’s one of the easiest tools to manage and maintain. There's a separate, and easy-to-use, app that you can use for smartphones and tablets.

Read our in-depth LastPass Review

Dashlane

A brilliant password manager to choose

Dashlane is a well-designed tool that’s all about simple automation. Once you’re set-up, you’ll find Dashlane makes it effortless to log into your websites and online services.

It requires almost no interaction on your part once the passwords are saved in your Dashlane vault. Dashlane will also automatically save information from online receipts and has a sharing feature to let you share specific logins with other people.

Dashlane’s hybrid mix of browser extension and desktop program means the former isn’t as robust as it could be. Still, it’s a great program and ideal for anyone wanting a highly automated service.

Read our Full Dashlane Review 

Sticky Password

A genuine competitor to NordPass

Sticky Password is another good choice for a password manager. It makes it easy to store your passwords and log in automatically to sites and services. It also has a helpful security dashboard that analyzes your database for weak and reused passwords.

Its design leaves a bit to be desired, especially compared to the likes of Dashlane. The text for password entries is small, and it has a rather pointlessly designed feature for saving web bookmarks.

Nevertheless, Sticky Password is good value at $30 per year for an individual user, and has all the basic features you need including multi-device sync and an outstanding automatic login feature

Read our Full Sticky Password Review

What Do Password Manager Apps Do?

Let's be honest: passwords are the bane of online life. Sure, they're necessary, but passwords are still an exhausting, inefficient security mechanism. They require you to be creative when coming up with them, and to always think securely (no, using “psswd1” isn’t good enough).

Security experts tell us we need a unique password for every account, and that they should be sufficiently hard to guess. If you have dozens or hundreds of online accounts, it's impossible to remember all those secret codes.

The longer and more complex your passwords, the more tedious it becomes to have to type them in, especially when using the smaller keypad on a phone’s touchscreen. This leads to bad habits, like re-using short, unsafe passwords over and over again.

With a password manager, the hard work is done for you – these tools generate complex passwords that you'll never have to remember yourself. The password manager automatically enters them whenever you need to log into a site. It's all perfectly secure.

How Password Storage Works

You won’t need to come up with complex, unique passwords for every site – password managers do it for you. You won’t need to type in your login manually – password managers will autofill them in an instant.

All of your passwords are stored in a secure digital vault by the password manager. This is only accessible by a single ‘master password'. This becomes the one and only password that you need to remember.

With a premium password manager (for a very low monthly fee or annual license cost), you can access this vault from across multiple devices. So, you can use a password manager on your phone, on your laptop or on your iPad. In each case, a single click or tap of the screen, and you're logged in safely.

One day, perhaps it will be common to sign-in with your fingerprint or eye scan. Until then, don’t leave your online security to chance. Setting up an account with a password manager may be the smartest decision you’ll make.

Best Free Password Managers vs Paid-For

You'll have to decide whether you want to go with a free password manager, or pay a monthly or annual fee for a premium version. Free usually restricts you to a single device and only local storage, as opposed to having your passwords backed up in the cloud and synced across multiple devices. Depending on the service, there could be other restrictions for free users, such as no option for sharing passwords with trusted, nominated people.

Devices It’ll Work On

Make sure your password manager is available on the devices you use. Windows, macOS, Android and iOS are usually all supported by the major paid-for password manager brands. If you run Linux or use a Chromebook, you may find there isn’t a desktop client available – however, you should still be able to use a password manager browser extension.

Frequently Asked Questions