Bitwarden review: This ultra-affordable password manager has few restrictions

Bitwarden is the uncommon free password supervisor that doesn’t impose heavy restrictions on customers. Most free password managers restrict the variety of passwords that may be saved or units that may be synced at no cost customers. Bitwarden bucks that pattern, letting you save limitless vault gadgets and sync your vault throughout all of your units with out spending a penny. There’s additionally a paid model that features beneficial safety features and prices solely $10 a yr. There are some tradeoffs for that affordability—Bitwarden isn’t as polished or turnkey as a few of its extra well-known opponents, and we bumped into some points utilizing its browser extension. But, general, it’s a stable choice for customers on a funds, and the best option among free password managers.

Note: Learn extra about all of the password managers we’ve examined, together with the most well-liked paid choices, in our best password managers roundup. This explicit service was first reviewed in July 2021, and was most not too long ago re-reviewed in August 2022.

Setting up Bitwarden

To begin utilizing Bitwarden, you first must register an account. You’ll be requested to enter your e mail and create a grasp password. This password needs to be sturdy sufficient to safeguard all of your different passwords however easy sufficient to recollect so that you don’t get locked out of your vault. Bitwarden helps with the primary half by ranking your grasp password as weak, good, or sturdy as you create it. It not solely seems to be for password size and mixture of letters, numbers, and characters, it should additionally ding you for passwords utilizing simply crackable phrases like “ABC123” even when they meet all of the size and character-mix necessities.

No matter what you select in your grasp password, make sure you’ll be able to bear in mind it. Unlike many different password managers, Bitwarden does not offer password recovery or resets. The closest safeguard is having an emergency contact (which you must arrange prematurely) entry your vault for you, which is an choice solely out there to paid customers.

After your account is ready up, Bitwarden means that you can import passwords from greater than 50 different password managers and net browsers together with LastPass, Keeper, 1Password, Dashlane, Firefox, and Chrome. All the out there import choices are offered in a drop-down menu within the Tools part of your vault, and every helpfully lists the kind of file (json, csv, xml, and so on.) it’s essential export from that instrument to import into Bitwarden.

You can create and edit password entries utilizing Bitwarden’s net interface, desktop and cellular apps, or browser extension. The net and desktop layouts are almost similar, along with your vault entries listed within the middle and a menu operating down the left sidebar. From the menu, you’ll be able to kind entries by kind—password, card, identification, or safe be aware—or by favorites. You may also seek for entries. However, lacking throughout all platforms is the flexibility to kind by not too long ago created or not too long ago modified, which will be useful for rapidly re-accessing a just-used password or in the event you typo’d when creating an entry.

At the underside of the menu is an choice to prepare your entries into folders. Unfortunately, the folder must be created forward of time and every entry added manually for optimum group. Otherwise, you’ll must open and edit every entry to alter the folder it lives in.

The browser extension simplifies the structure whereas offering a lot of the similar instruments and options. It means that you can filter, kind, and share entries; generate passwords; import gadgets from different instruments; and extra.

Learning the ins and outs of all these interfaces is all on you. Bitwarden doesn’t supply an preliminary walkthrough once you first use the service. Most paid password managers stroll you thru the method of putting in the browser extension, creating your first vault entry, including your private data for auto form-filling, and different duties to get the instrument prepared to make use of. Ultimately, this self-driven studying course of doesn’t have an effect on the utility of the instrument, but it surely’s just a little disorienting in the event you’re new to password managers or accustomed to the pleasant onboarding of managers like Keeper and LastPass.

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Capturing and replaying passwords

One of the perks of password managers is their potential to mechanically seize your credentials the primary time you log in to a website and replay them every time you come back. Bitwarden isn’t 100 p.c constant about this, however typically dependable and far improved in comparison with after we final examined the service.

A message field will slide down from the highest of the browser window and ask if you wish to save the web site credentials simply entered. You simply must click on a button to substantiate. Afterward, it may mechanically fill them within the subsequent time you come back to the positioning. The mechanics are very like every other password supervisor. When Bitwarden acknowledges the positioning, it surfaces the related credentials within the browser extension and login fields, and also you simply click on to enter them. Alternately, you’ll be able to launch an internet site from the browser extension by looking for the suitable entry in your vault and clicking it.

Security options

Saving your login credentials and different necessary data in a single place is simply a part of a password supervisor’s job. It additionally must safe them. Bitwarden does this in a couple of methods.

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The first is thru two-factor authentication (2FA). By requiring a second type of identification when logging into Bitwarden, you dramatically scale back the chance somebody can entry your vault even when they get ahold of your grasp password. Users of Bitwarden’s free model can use 2FA codes from authenticator apps corresponding to Google Authenticator and Authy or obtain them through e mail. The premium model of Bitwarden helps further 2FA strategies together with YubiKey, FIDO2 WebAuthn-enabled safety keys, and the Duo safety platform.

You even have the flexibility to create safer logins when signing up for accounts. In addition to random password technology, Bitwarden now can generate random usernames and has full integration with masked email companies. This characteristic makes utilizing a random username or random e mail tackle for logging in quite simple. Premium customers can also select to arrange 2FA for different web sites (e.g., Amazon, Microsoft, and so on.) as a part of a vault entry—a comfort that gives a midway compromise between fortified login information and finest safety practices.

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Sharing passwords and different data securely will be executed by way of a Bitwarden characteristic known as Send. It forwards an encrypted hyperlink to the recipient, who can entry its content material whether or not or not they’re a Bitwarden consumer. Free customers can solely share textual content notes however premium customers can share any kind of file. (Premium customers additionally rise up to 1GB of encrypted cupboard space for recordsdata.) When you put together to ship a be aware or file, you’ll be able to set expiration and deletion dates, restrict how many individuals can entry it, and require a password. Premium Bitwarden customers may also invite emergency contacts to entry their vault beneath particular circumstances.

Finally, Bitwarden helps guarantee the power of the passwords themselves by way of evaluation and reporting. These instruments search for weak and reused passwords in addition to these uncovered in a breach. They additionally uncover any URLs in your vault that don’t use TLS/SSL encryption, any passwords that assist 2FA however aren’t at the moment utilizing it, and any private information that’s turned up in an information breach. To see what Bitwarden has turned up in your vault, you simply go to the Tools menu and choose one of many six reviews: Exposed Passwords, Reused Passwords, Weak Passwords, Unsecured Websites, Inactive 2FA, and Data Breach. All of those, apart from the final, are reserved for paid customers and all can solely be accessed from the online interface.

Verdict

Bitwarden’s interface could really feel no-frills in comparison with its paid rivals, however this service presents all the important thing options you want from a password supervisor. Its free plan is beneficiant, and upgrading for paid options is extremely inexpensive. You can get a friendlier consumer interface and some extra options in a competitor like LastPass, Dashlane, or Keeper, however you’ll additionally spend extra, too.

Editor’s be aware: Because on-line companies are sometimes iterative, gaining new options and efficiency enhancements over time, this evaluation is topic to alter to be able to precisely replicate the present state of the service. Any modifications to textual content or our closing evaluation verdict will likely be famous on the prime of this text.