1Password vs Bitwarden (2026)

Pick 1Password if you want Travel Mode for trips abroad, the option to pay month to month, guest accounts for people outside your family, or phone support for your company on the Business plan. Pick Bitwarden if you want a free password manager on every device, the lowest prices for one person or a family, or a server you host yourself. On November 4, 2026, Bitwarden Premium cost $19.80 a year and Families $47.88 a year for six people, while 1Password Individual was $3.99 a month and Families $5.99 a month for five people on yearly billing, with 25% off the first year for new customers ($2.99 and $4.49). Both store passkeys and run on Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone and Android, so for most households the deciding question is how much you want to pay.

Pricing compared

Bitwarden costs less for one person, a family and a company that needs single sign-on, while 1Password's Teams Starter Pack is cheaper for a team of seven to 20. These are the US prices both companies showed on November 4, 2026.

Plan	1Password	Bitwarden
Free	None	$0 for one user
One person	$3.99 a month billed yearly, $4.99 monthly	$19.80 a year (Premium)
Family	$5.99 a month billed yearly for 5 people, $7.99 monthly	$47.88 a year for 6 people
Small team	$24.95 a month billed yearly for up to 10 people (Teams Starter Pack)	$4 a user a month billed yearly (Teams)
Business with SSO	$8.99 a user a month billed yearly, $10.99 monthly	$6 a user a month billed yearly (Enterprise)

1Password takes 25% off Individual and Families for the first 12 months, bringing them to $2.99 and $4.49 a month, but only for new customers who pay yearly on 1Password.com. The discount does not apply in the App Store or Google Play. After that year you pay the full price.

Bitwarden's free plan is the main reason people compare these two. It stores unlimited logins, cards, notes and identities, syncs them to every device you sign in on, and lets you share with one other person. Premium adds the built-in authenticator for two-step codes, vault health reports, emergency access, 5 GB of encrypted attachments and file Sends. For many people that $19.80 a year is the whole bill.

The trade is billing choice. Bitwarden bills Premium and Families yearly only, while 1Password offers a monthly option on every personal and business plan. Bitwarden's Teams and Enterprise plans can be billed monthly too, but it does not publish the monthly rate. 1Password's terms say payments are non-refundable and refund requests are considered case by case, and we found no refund policy on Bitwarden's pricing or billing help pages.

Security and sign-in

Both encrypt your vault on your device before it syncs, with 256-bit AES, so neither company can read your passwords. Both hire outside firms to audit their security.

1Password adds a second secret to your account password. When you sign up, it generates a 128-bit Secret Key that stays on your devices and in an Emergency Kit you save, and your data is encrypted with both. A stolen account password alone will not open your vault, though you need the Secret Key to sign in on a new device. Sign-in uses the Secure Remote Password protocol, so your password never travels over the internet. 1Password is SOC 2 Type 2 certified.

Bitwarden relies on your master password and two-step login. The free plan supports a security key, an authenticator app or email codes; Premium adds Duo and YubiKey one-time codes. Its source code is on GitHub for anyone to read, and it names Cure53 among the firms that audit it. You can also sign in to Bitwarden with a passkey, and open your vault with one that supports the PRF extension.

Neither company can reset a lost password for you. 1Password users can make a recovery code, and on Families an organizer can recover a member. Bitwarden Premium users can name emergency contacts who get view-only access or full takeover after a wait time you set, and Enterprise admins get an account recovery workflow.

Everyday features head to head

Day to day, the two do the same core job. Both save logins as you sign up, fill passwords, cards and addresses, store passkeys and sign you in with them, and run on Windows, macOS, Linux, iPhone and Android. Bitwarden covers more browsers, with extensions for Opera, Vivaldi, DuckDuckGo and Tor on top of the five 1Password supports. 1Password has an Apple Watch app.

Two-step codes are included with every 1Password plan. Save the code for a site and 1Password fills it after your password. On Bitwarden the built-in authenticator needs Premium, though its separate Bitwarden Authenticator app is free.

Password checkups differ in the same way. 1Password's Watchtower, on every plan, lists breached sites, weak and reused passwords, sites where you could add two-factor sign-in or a passkey, expiring items and duplicates. Bitwarden's vault health reports cover weak, reused and exposed passwords, and they come with Premium.

For sharing with people who do not use the app, 1Password sends a copy of an item as a link. You choose when it expires and whether anyone with the link can open it or only named email addresses, and recipients confirm their address first. Bitwarden Send shares text up to 1,000 characters on any plan, or files up to 500 MB on paid plans, through a link that deletes itself within 31 days, with an optional password and access limit.

Travel Mode is the feature Bitwarden has no match for. Before a trip you mark which vaults are safe to carry, switch Travel Mode on, and the rest disappear from your apps and browser extension until you switch it off. Business admins can turn it on for staff.

Developers get SSH keys and Git commit signing in both: 1Password includes its SSH agent and command-line tool on every plan, and Bitwarden's desktop app can act as an SSH agent. Bitwarden sells a separate Secrets Manager for API keys and CI/CD pipelines at $6 a user a month on Teams or $12 on Enterprise.

Families and teams

Bitwarden Families covers six people for $47.88 a year, with unlimited shared collections, Premium features for everyone, 5 GB of storage for each person and another 5 GB for shared items. 1Password Families covers five people for $5.99 a month billed yearly, with unlimited shared vaults, 1 GB of storage each and five guest accounts, so you can share one vault with a babysitter or a relative without paying for a full seat. An organizer can add, remove and recover members.

For a small company, 1Password's Teams Starter Pack is a flat $24.95 a month billed yearly for up to 10 people, with up to 10 more seats at $4.99 each, which caps it at 20. Bitwarden Teams is $4 a user a month and has no seat cap, with event logs, user groups, an API, Directory Connector and SCIM provisioning. For seven to 20 people, 1Password's flat price is the cheaper of the two: 10 people pay $24.95 a month on 1Password and $40 a month on Bitwarden Teams, both billed yearly. For six or fewer, Bitwarden costs the same or less.

Single sign-on is where the price gap widens. 1Password Business at $8.99 a user a month adds SSO with Okta, Entra ID, OneLogin or Duo, user provisioning, custom policies, event streaming to Splunk or Elastic, 20 guest accounts and phone support. Bitwarden Enterprise at $6 a user a month adds SSO, enterprise policies, custom roles, account recovery and self-hosting. Both give each user a free Families plan for home.

Self-hosting matters to some IT teams and privacy-minded households. Bitwarden's server runs with Docker on Linux or Windows, and you point every app at it. 1Password runs every account on its own service and lists no self-hosted option on its plans.

Setup and support

Both import from the other. 1Password reads Bitwarden exports and CSV files from most browsers and password managers, and on iOS 26 or Android 14 and later it can import directly from apps that support the Credential Exchange standard, Bitwarden among them. Bitwarden imports from 1Password, LastPass, Chrome, Firefox and any manager that exports a file, through its web app, browser extension, desktop app or command-line tool.

Setting up 1Password takes one extra step: you save the Emergency Kit with your Secret Key, and you enter that key the first time you sign in on each new device. It is worth printing. Bitwarden asks only for your master password and any two-step method you add.

1Password offers 24/7 support by email, its community forum and social media, plus a chatbot and a support library, and Business adds phone support from 9 AM to 5 PM Eastern on weekdays. Organizations with 101 or more users on Business also get training and a customer success manager. Bitwarden offers 24/7 email support to everyone, with priority handling on paid plans, and a help center. Enterprise customers who qualify get dedicated onboarding. We did not test either support team in November 2026.

Who each one suits

1Password suits people who will pay for extras around the password vault: Travel Mode, the Secret Key, two-step codes and Watchtower on the cheapest plan, guest accounts for the family, monthly billing and phone support for the office. It also suits companies already paying for Okta or Entra ID that want 1Password's event streaming and a phone number to call.

Bitwarden suits nearly everyone else. A single person can use it free on every device, a family of six pays less than $4 a month, and a company can add single sign-on for $6 a user or run the whole thing on its own server. If you are moving from LastPass or Dashlane and price is the reason, start with Bitwarden's free plan, and try 1Password's 14-day trial if you miss the features above.