Comparison
Bitwarden vs 1Password: one has a free tier, the other just got 33% more expensive
In March 2026 1Password raised individual and family pricing by up to a third, and it has never had a free plan. Bitwarden does, and it covers unlimited passwords on unlimited devices — but it is narrower than most comparisons admit, and the features people assume are free are not. Here are the real numbers, taken from both companies' own pricing pages rather than from each other's marketing.
Short answer
Bitwarden, for almost everyone. The free tier genuinely covers unlimited passwords on unlimited devices, and Premium at $19.80/year is less than half 1Password's $47.88. Pick 1Password only if its polish is worth the difference to you — it is real, it is just expensive.
Pick this if you want a real free tier
Bitwarden
Genuinely free for unlimited passwords across unlimited devices, with the same zero-knowledge encryption as the paid tiers. Open source and independently audited, so the security claims are checkable rather than promised. Premium is $19.80 a year if you want the built-in authenticator and file attachments — still less than half of 1Password.
Download BitwardenPick this if polish is worth $47.88 a year
1Password
Better designed, and it is not close. Sharing, travel mode, the desktop apps and the onboarding are all more considered. You pay for that: no free tier, a 14-day trial, and an advertised $2.99/month that is a first-year promotion — it renews at $3.99/month, or $47.88 a year.
Download 1PasswordThe price comparison everyone gets slightly wrong
Nearly every comparison of these two quotes 1Password at $2.99 a month. That number is real and it is also a first-year promotional rate for new customers. 1Password's own pricing page says so: the regular rate is $3.99 a month, so year two onwards is $47.88. Families works the same way — $4.49 promotional, $5.99 regular, $71.88 a year.
That matters more than usual this year, because in March 2026 1Password raised individual and family pricing by up to a third. A product that cost $35.88 a year now costs $47.88. Nothing about that is illegitimate — but it is the reason a lot of people are suddenly searching for this comparison, and quoting the promo rate hides it.
The other half of the honesty, pointing the other way: Bitwarden's free tier is narrower than its reputation. It covers unlimited passwords on unlimited devices with full zero-knowledge encryption, which is the important part and is genuinely free. But the built-in authenticator for 2FA codes, file attachments and emergency access are Premium features, not free ones. Plenty of "Bitwarden is free!" articles imply otherwise.
So the real comparison is $0 or $19.80 against $47.88. Even Bitwarden's paid tier, with every feature switched on, costs well under half of 1Password's ongoing price.
What you actually get at each price
Three columns because Bitwarden has two tiers and the difference between them is exactly where most comparisons go vague. Prices are annual, in USD.
| Bitwarden Free | Bitwarden Premium | 1Password | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unlimited passwords | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Sync across unlimited devices | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Zero-knowledge encryption | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Built-in authenticator (2FA codes) | NoPremium feature | Yes | Yes |
| File attachments | NoPremium feature | Yes5 GB | Yes1 GB |
| Emergency access | NoPremium feature | Yes | Yes |
| Open source & independently auditable | Yes | Yes | NoClosed source |
| Can be self-hosted | Yes | Yes | No |
| Price per year | Yes$0 | Yes$19.80 | No$47.88 regular |
The third option neither side mentions: KeePassXC
Both of these store your vault on somebody else's servers. Encrypted, zero-knowledge, and in Bitwarden's case auditable — but still a company, still a target, still a service that can change its pricing or its terms. If that is the part you actually object to, neither product is the answer.
KeePassXC is a password manager that is just a file on your computer. No account, no server, no subscription, nothing to breach centrally because there is no centre. It is GPL-licensed, version 2.7.12, and it has browser integration and mobile-compatible database formats. You handle syncing yourself — put the database file in whatever cloud drive you already use, or don't sync it at all.
The trade is convenience. There is no seamless multi-device magic, no shared family vault without effort, and if you lose the file and have no backup, the passwords are gone. For people who want their credentials to exist in exactly one place they control, that is the correct trade, and it is the only option here that is free forever with no tier above it.
Worth knowing about Bitwarden's open-source claim: in late 2024 a proprietary
sdk-internal dependency appeared in the clients that would have made building them
from purely free-licensed source impossible. The community noticed, and Bitwarden relicensed the
SDK to GPL-3.0 in November 2024 and restructured the packaging. The outcome was good and the
response was fast — but it is the sort of thing worth knowing about a product whose main
selling point is that you can verify it.
When 1Password is genuinely the right call
We take no affiliate money from either company, which is the only reason this section can exist. Four cases where paying the extra is the correct decision:
- You are setting this up for people who are not technical. 1Password's onboarding, recovery flow and family sharing are meaningfully better designed. If you are the person who will get the phone call when it breaks, the price difference may buy you fewer phone calls.
- You cross borders with your devices. 1Password's Travel Mode removes selected vaults from a device entirely until you re-enable them. Bitwarden has no direct equivalent, and for some people this is the whole reason they pay.
- Your workplace already uses it. Fighting an existing deployment to save $28 a year is not a good use of anyone's afternoon.
- You want a company accountable to you rather than a community. Both have been audited and both have good security records. But a paid vendor with a support contract is a different relationship from an open-source project, and for some people and most businesses that difference is worth paying for.
If none of those apply, Bitwarden does the same core job for $0 or $19.80 a year, and you can read its source.
Questions people actually ask
Is Bitwarden really free, or is it a trial?
Genuinely free, permanently, with no trial period and no card required.
The free plan covers unlimited passwords synced across unlimited devices with the same zero-knowledge encryption as the paid tiers. That is the core of a password manager and it costs nothing.
What is not free: the built-in authenticator for 2FA codes, file attachments, and emergency access. Those need Premium at $19.80 a year. Articles that say Bitwarden is free without mentioning this are overselling it.
Did 1Password put its prices up?
Yes. In March 2026 1Password raised individual and family subscription pricing by up to 33%.
There is also a second thing to watch: the $2.99/month you see advertised is a first-year promotional rate for new customers, stated as such on 1Password's own pricing page. The regular rate is $3.99/month, so from year two you are paying $47.88 annually. Families follows the same pattern at $71.88.
Is Bitwarden actually open source?
Yes, and it is worth understanding the one time that was in doubt.
In late 2024 a dependency called sdk-internal appeared in the clients under a licence that would have prevented building them from purely free-licensed source. It was spotted quickly, and Bitwarden relicensed the SDK to GPL-3.0 in November 2024 and reorganised the packaging so the clients build from GPL/OSI code.
The outcome was correct and the response was fast. It is still a useful reminder that “open source” is a claim worth periodically rechecking rather than assuming.
Can I move my passwords from 1Password to Bitwarden?
Yes, and it is one of the less painful migrations in software.
1Password exports your data, and Bitwarden's web vault has an import tool with a dedicated 1Password format option. Logins, notes and most custom fields come across.
Two things to watch: the export file is unencrypted plain text while it sits on your disk, so delete it properly once the import is done; and check your two-factor entries afterwards, because TOTP secrets are the most common thing to survive an export badly.
Is it safe to keep all my passwords in one place?
Safer than the realistic alternative, which is reusing a handful of passwords across dozens of sites.
Both products use zero-knowledge encryption: your vault is encrypted and decrypted on your device, and the company cannot read it even if compelled to. A breach of their servers yields encrypted blobs, not passwords.
The genuine risks are your master password and your backups. Make the master password long, never reuse it anywhere, and turn on two-factor authentication for the vault itself. If you would rather nothing at all was stored remotely, use KeePassXC.
Can I self-host Bitwarden?
Yes, officially, which is unusual for a product with a commercial tier. Bitwarden publishes its server and supports self-hosting.
Be realistic about what that means, though: you become responsible for uptime, backups, TLS certificates and updates for the thing holding every password you own. That is a genuine commitment, not a weekend win.
For most people who want local control, KeePassXC — a single encrypted file, no server at all — is the better version of that instinct.