Best password manager of 2023

We tested close to 30 of the best password managers around, trying them out on all their compatible platforms to make sure we left no stone unturned. This means that, where available, we used their desktop clients on Windows, Mac and Linux, their mobile apps on iOS and Android devices, their extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Edge and other browsers, and of course the hosted platform on their own websites. 

During our testing, we live with the password managers for a minimum amount of time, and stress test them in all kinds of scenarios, to try and expose any failings or weaknesses they may have that the average user might miss. 

Afterall, once you’ve been using a password manager for a while and built up a sizable vault, the last thing you want to do is switch again. So we aim to make sure that you make the right choice first time round by doing our best to inform you of all the features and shortcomings associated with each individual manager.

Any app that included less run-of-the-mill features, like biometric authentication were also considered. We’ve also come up with a list of the best free password managers. These may have a few limitations when compared to the paid software listed below, but they still hold up as very capable password managers.

As mentioned, we choose our password managers based on the most important qualities we believe every password manager should have and excel in. These include how secure they are, how well they protect user privacy, their storage capacity, their compatibility with various platforms and devices and how well they synchronize your passwords across them. Lastly - but just as importantly - we also consider their value for money.

When it comes to security, this is arguably the most important factor for a password manager. The best of them will encrypt your valuable data using industry standard methods, so we make sure the password managers featured here at least achieve this.

Going hand-in-hand with security is user privacy. We only select password managers that respect this to the maximum degree, and don’t share your data or personal information with third parties. They will also be transparent in what information they do have about you, and how exactly they maintain and use it.

Storage capacity may not be something you think about when considering a password manager, but we do, because not all managers offer an unlimited amount. We look for ones that let you store as many passwords as you like, ideally for free, though some on this list do restrict the privilege to paying subscribers only. Even where they are limited, they will still offer a reasonable amount of storage. 

Compatibility is another key feature of password managers, especially since many of us will likely have multiple devices that we use on a daily basis. So we look for managers that work on both desktop - Windows, Mac and even Linux - and mobile platforms - such as iOS and Android - to let you save and access your passwords in the browsers and apps you use on your devices. 

Some will have a desktop app, but all will have a website where you can access your vault securely. Many will also have a browser extension, making them integrate better with your workflow if you use popular options such as Google Chrome, Apple’s Safari or Microsoft Edge to explore the web, allowing you to autofill the login pages of your accounts with ease. 

If you do use your password manager across multiple devices, then synchronization will be vital. Again, some managers may lock this feature behind the paywall of their premium tiers, whilst others will offer it for free. Regardless, it is an important factor for many users so we will make sure our entries have this feature somewhere in their offerings. 

And when it comes to the big one - price - we are always mindful to account not just for the absolute cost - or lack thereof - of password managers, but also their value for money. We always point out whether or not there are free versions of each password manager we discuss, and what options and features you get for each tier. 

Although password managers will typically show their prices as a monthly bill, quite often you will pay for the whole year in one go. The premium plans for most password managers can range anywhere from $10 to $60 a year, with only a few dollars more for family plans that extend to four or five users. 

Other prominent features that we would expect a password manager to have include the ability to access your vault using your biometric data, such as your fingerprint or face, in addition to a master password, as this greatly increases convenience and security too. Password sharing with other members in your family or organization should also be available, although this will often be excluded from free versions. 

Another useful security feature that our password managers will include is the ability to recognize any weak or reused passwords across your accounts, and recommend strong passwords to use in their place. This is the best way to keep your accounts safe. They will also scour the dark web to see if any of your passwords have appeared in any data breaches as a result of companies being hacked. Unfortunately, this is a worryingly frequent occurrence that can affect even the biggest companies, and what's more, there may be many more that aren't even publicly disclosed. 

Ease of use and setup will also be considered, as many may be coming across a password manager from another one or the one integrated with their browser already. The best password managers will make this transition easy, allowing you to import your passwords from your existing manager quickly and without fuss, allowing you to get up and running instantly with all your apps and websites.  

Surprisingly, a lot of people do ask this simple question. A TechRadar Pro survey carried out in April 2022 found out that more than a quarter of the 1,000 respondents didn't see the point of a password manager with a further 26% preferring to store their passwords elsewhere. That's a lot.

And yet, the humble password manager is the best tool to manage our ever increasing number of passwords. 

Every computer or phone user has hundreds of login and password combinations and attempting to remember all of them is near impossible, especially when for services you registered for a while back and hardly used ever since.

Password managers also remove the mental challenge usually associated with creating near-uncrackable passwords by generating and storing them for you. They then simply store these passwords in a "vault" for access using a "master password" - so basically one password to rule them all.

A Password manager is a very simple and easy to use utility that requires minimal user interaction, since most of its actions are automated. They will work across numerous platforms, and they should feature a browser extension for use on desktop computers, as well as an app for smart devices such as your mobile phone. The passwords you use on each platform will synchronize across all the devices you use the password manager with. 

Once you set up your password manager, you can go ahead and create whatever digital accounts you want. They will usually throw up a prompt to create a strong password for you when doing so - this is the password generation feature of the manager. Once you accept, it will then store the password and username for you in its vault, so when you next go to log in, you should find your credentials already filled out for you. 

If you ever want to change or update your password for an existing account, you can do this too. Again, a prompt will usually appear from the password manager, confirming whether you want to overwrite the existing password with the new one you have created, ensuring your password manager remains up to date. Some password managers even have a version history, so you can see the previous passwords you have used. 

As for importing your existing passwords stored on another manager, this should be a fairly straightforward process. Many managers will give you the option to import and export your passwords as a csv file, or any one that can be opened with spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets. This allows you to export them out from your old manager and import them into your new one. 

If you have your passwords stored manually in a spreadsheet, you can also import that into your new manager too, providing you follow the correct formatting for the manager in question.

Understandably, this is one of the most important questions to ask of a password manager. You would expect any password manager worth its salt would be secure as a given, but no one is perfect and some have had issues. LastPass, for instance, although a very reputable and popular choice, did suffer a security breach, and although the company reassured users that no passwords were accessible, it is still a cause for concern. 

The managers offered by big tech companies, mainly Google and Apple, are generally very secure, as you might expect. Not only do they have the pockets deep enough to maintain the best protection possible, it would also be a huge PR disaster should they incur any major breaches, and companies of that size have an awful lot to lose.

All the best password managers are very safe, using the best encryption methods to store your passwords securely. 

Zero-knowledge architecture is one of the core principles for managers to keep your passwords as safe as possible. This means that no one but the user has access to the passwords contained in the encrypted vault. Even the vendor and providers of the cloud backup service for your passwords are unable to see what your passwords actually are - only you have the power to decrypt your stored passwords, using your master password, or biometric data if you have this set up on supported password managers. 

Complex algorithms are used to encrypt passwords, and there are different methods. Some managers, such as NordPass, use something called XChaCha20, which is military grade and considered to be at the cutting edge of current encryption technology. It is also favored by big tech companies like Google, and is faster than more traditional methods such as AES-256. 

Also, NordPass claims that such methods may be crackable with new technologies - for instance, quantum computing could put traditional methods of encryption at risk - but it believes XChaCha20 is resistant to these dangers. 

All good password managers will also allow for biometric login and feature multi-factor authentication, two aspects which most people will be familiar with by now. The former involves technologies that recognize the physical aspects of the user, such as fingerprint scanners and facial recognition cameras, to authenticate them as the legitimate user.  

Multi-factor authentication is an added layer of security on top of your password to make sure that it’s actually you who has entered your password on a given site or service, usually by sending a text message code on your phone that you have to input to make sure it is you. There are also separate authenticator apps you can have on your phone that give you a code to authenticate your login instead, if you’d rather not receive an SMS code. 

And as with any piece of digital tech, how it is used by an individual or business goes a long way in determining how secure it remains. At the very least, make sure you are accessing your manager on a secure and protected network - always be cautious when using them in spaces with public wifi - and make sure you're using the best malware removal tools and the best antivirus software for your system. 

Smartphones are generally very secure in this regard, although you should always be careful when downloading apps to make sure they are trustworthy - the Google Play store, for instance, has had its fair share of malicious apps doing the rounds recently. 

Also, if you are using a master password to secure your password vault, then make sure it is a strong one. This will be one that you will have to remember yourself, so a long and complex string of various random characters will probably be out of the question.

Current expert advice suggests that for passwords you choose yourself, a string of three random words together is quite strong, as it will be hard to guess and easy to remember for yourself. Whatever you use, just make sure to avoid ones that are easy to crack, like your mother’s maiden name, your birthday, or ‘password1234’.

In a word: yes - in the sense that virtually any computer system can be hacked in theory. But the password managers in our list have a great safety record and utilize industry-standard encryption methods to protect your most valuable of assets. If we ever catch wind of any compromises to their security posture, we’ll be sure to let you know straight away. 

Of course, many of you will probably be aware by now of the breach suffered by LastPass, one of the most popular password managers around, where users’ password vaults were stolen. The company did assure them that they remained encrypted, so unless the hackers also guessed their master passwords too, they should remain safe. However, other personal data that were stolen, including names, payment information and the addresses of their IP, email and physical location, were not encrypted. For these reasons, LastPass no longer makes it onto our list of the best password managers. 

Speaking of encryption, all good managers will use the strongest methods available when storing user passwords in their databases, which are extremely difficult to crack without the digital keys needed to unlock them. So the question then becomes can a hacker obtain these keys? In the case of LastPass, its subsidiary, GoTo, recently announced the encryption keys for its users’ accounts were stolen in the same attack that affected the password manager, but it is yet to confirm whether the same is true for its service.   

LastPass isn’t the only password manager to succumb to a breach, however. Many Norton LifeLock users recently had their accounts hacked via a credential stuffing attack, with the company warning them that unwarranted access to their suite’s password manager may be possible.

Passwordstate also saw its users fall victim to a devious fake software update that stole their stored passwords. Unsurprisingly, none of these password managers made it onto our list.  

It of course makes sense from a convenience perspective to use your browser’s integrated password manager, such as that in Google Chrome. And although it is a perfectly solid choice, there are various reasons why you may want a dedicated password manager instead or in addition to your browser’s.

Firstly, your browser’s password manager will likely not work with other devices quite so easily. 

If you use Google Chrome on a desktop and have an iPhone, then passwords associated with apps will not be saved to the manager in Chrome - by default they will be saved to Apple’s own password manager, Keychain. Keychain and Chrome password managers will not sync together, and there is no browser extension for Keychain that will work on Chrome. Therefore, you will be running two managers concurrently, one used for mobile app passwords, and the other for website passwords. If you have an account for a service that has both a website and an app, then they will be saved to both managers separately. 

As you can imagine, things can start to get messy and disorganized fast. The solution would be to have a dedicated, third-party manager like those on this list, so they can centralize and sync all your passwords for both websites and apps across all your devices. They will usually have an app for mobile and for desktop, as well as an integrated extension compatible with most common web browsers, so no matter what platform you’re on, you’ll always have access to your passwords. 

Secondly, dedicated password managers often come with a lot more useful extras. For instance, a small but useful feature of many password managers is the ability to give a nickname to your account passwords, so you can locate them easily. Sometimes, you will find that searching for your account credentials by username or by the URL that the account is stored on may not yield the results you're looking for. 

Google Chrome is the most popular web browser in the world right now, so there’s a good chance you're using its integrated password manager already. 

On desktop platforms, you’ll find it under settings - autofill - password manager. You can see all your passwords here, and search for them via their username or the web page they are used on. It will also show you any passwords that have been compromised, based on known data breaches and leaks. 

There is also the Google Password manager, which is the official password manager for Android, and has now taken over the integrated manager in Chrome as well. This means it now stores passwords you use on Android apps as well, not just website passwords.  

All the best password managers will have an app associated with them, and will work on both Android and Apple iOS devices. This means that passwords you use for other apps will be able to be stored in your password manager and easily accessible on your device, allowing for instant login. 

They will be cross-platform, so can be used across all your different devices, as well as having an extension you can download to allow them to work in popular browsers, such as Google Chrome and Apple's Safari.

However, as many smart devices now have biometric login capabilities, such as using fingerprint scanners and facial recognition, a lot of apps will simply require this to log in instead, without the need to input a password every time. This biometric data is stored on the device itself, such as your iPhone or Android phone, so a password manager isn’t used in these cases. 

However, many password managers now support biometric data too, so you can save it to the manager as well.