Dashlane Versus 1Password, LastPass, Keeper, Bitwarden, Zoho Vault, and RoboForm
Password managers have some similar features, but they don’t all work the same way. When you evaluate your options, it’s a good idea to look not only at functionality but also at other aspects, such as vendor support.
To see how popular solutions on the market stack up, we evaluated the seven most common business password managers on their ease of adoption and real-world security. Each criterion was scored on a scale of 1–5. We then averaged the scores against each axis to establish our grid.
We evaluated each password manager according to its ease of adoption and real-world security, scored them on a scale of 1 to 5, and averaged the scores against each axis.
1PASSWORD
Ease of adoption
Pros
- Integrations
- For administrators, 1Password offers useful integrations to simplify a company-wide rollout. The majority of these integrations, such as provisioning with Active Directory, Okta, and OneLogin, are only available on the more expensive Business or Enterprise tiers.
- Support
- 1Password has 24/7 email support for all business customers, though the majority of the company’s live support is restricted to customers in higher-paying tiers. The Business plan offers VIP support, and Enterprise customers receive a dedicated account manager, tailored set-up training, and access to an onboarding engineer.
- Import
- For employees, 1Password offers an intuitive, guided early experience, and makes it easy to import passwords from spreadsheets or other password managers.
Cons
- No SSO
- 1Password does not have an SSO integration available. If you use SSO, that means you’ll be providing two products to your employees that claim to be the only password they need to remember.
- Complicated business-personal separation
- 1Password’s business-personal separation is smooth if you are an existing customer whose company purchases the product—but quite confusing if you have never used the product before. To achieve business-personal separation, individuals have to create a separate vault with a different email address and link that to their work vault. There is also no feature to automatically route and separate business and personal passwords, which is a headache for offboarding.
Real-world security
Pros
- Robust reporting
- Business and Enterprise tiers offer admins a reporting console with company-level data and the ability to monitor events in the activity log. Admins can also create custom groups and custom roles for different employees.
- Authentication abilities
- 1Password has a Duo integration for business-wide multi-factor authentication (MFA), and it can be used as an authenticator app for other accounts.
- Password monitoring
- The Watchtower feature monitors for breached passwords, flags weak or duplicate passwords, and notifies you where you can turn on two-factor authentication (2FA).
Cons
- Security risk
- Authenticating 1Password on a new device requires a long, unique security key that needs to be written down to be referenced later—a major security risk.
83% of consumers prefer to do business with companies that prioritize their data protection.
LASTPASS
Ease of adoption
Pros
- Enterprise features
- For very large businesses, LastPass offers the most in the way of enterprise features and integrations, including its own Identity Provider service and automated account provisioning and deprovisioning.
- SSO and MFA
- LastPass integrates with SSO applications that support SAML or LDAP protocols. The company also offers its own SSO and MFA products, which come as add-ons that can increase the cost by as much as 50% per employee. Neither SSO nor add-ons are available on the less expensive Teams plan.
Cons
- Limited support
- While LastPass does have on-demand and self-help education materials, the human support is limited and is reserved for customers paying for its most expensive plan.
Real-world security
Pros
- Robust reporting
- When it comes to reporting and the ability to set company-wide policies, LastPass is the most enterprise-compatible offering.
- Free Families accounts
- LastPass offers free LastPass Families accounts as a perk for employees on the Business and Enterprise tiers.
- Password monitoring
- LastPass offers dark web monitoring and a security dashboard, which shows weak, reused, and breached passwords.
Cons
- Blemished security record
- Though LastPass has responded quickly to incidents in the past, it has the worst track record of the most popular business password managers when it comes to security incidents and widespread outages. You can read more about these outages on the company’s Wikipedia page.
KEEPER
Ease of adoption
Pros
- Simple setup
- Keeper has a smooth setup process and a well-organized documentation library with written content and videos on the ins and outs of its product.
- Policy controls
- Keeper’s Enterprise plan helps admins automate granting and revoking licenses to employees with its directory sync and provisioning feature. In the lower-cost Business tier, admins must manually manage users, groups, and folders.
- Employee-friendly features
- Keeper includes key functionalities such as easy password import and account recovery.
Cons
- Costly add-ons
- Keeper requires signing up for an assortment of add-on services outside of its core product offering. The true, total cost of the product is much higher than the subscription price since admins must set up and deploy the password manager completely on their own.
- Limited support
- Keeper’s support capabilities are largely price-fenced as well. For example, getting 1-day responses from the Keeper support team requires an additional $750/year.
Real-world security
Pros
- Free Families accounts
- Keeper offers free family plans as a perk for employees on its Business and Enterprise tiers.
- Password monitoring
- Keeper offers a security audit tool that shows weak and reused passwords.
Cons
- Costly add-ons
- To see breached passwords or get dark web monitoring, you have to sign up for BreachWatch, a key feature for both individual and company-wide security. BreachWatch is only available as an add-on feature for an additional cost.
The average cost of a breach in the United States is $9.44 million, the highest of any country.
BITWARDEN
Ease of adoption
Pros
- Extensive support
- Bitwarden’s support resources, both live and on-demand, are extensive. The company also has a large, engaged community that helps answer customer questions.
- Employee-friendly features
- Bitwarden checks many boxes: the ability to keep business and personal passwords separate, a smooth employee offboarding experience, the ability to import passwords when getting started, and the ability to log in with biometrics such as TouchID and Windows Hello.
Cons
- Difficult for beginners
- Bitwarden has been described by top review sites such as Wirecutter as "harder for beginners to get the hang of," which may get in the way of getting all your colleagues on board.
- Limited account recovery
- Bitwarden’s password reset feature is only available to Enterprise customers.
Real-world security
Pros
- Open source
- Bitwarden is the only password manager reviewed here that is open source, which can be important for customers in specific industries or employees who are highly technical.
- Secure file sharing
- Bitwarden Send is a feature that enables individuals to send secure, time-restricted links and files with anyone, including non-Bitwarden customers. Some customers may find this useful for secure file sharing.
- 2FA and authentication abilities
- Bitwarden offers 2FA for logging into the product, and it can be used as an alternative to authenticator apps such as Duo, Authy, and Google Authenticator.
- Password monitoring
- Bitwarden has a tool that monitors for breached passwords as well as flagging weak and reused passwords.
Cons
- Limited 2FA options
- Bitwarden doesn’t have its own authenticator feature or built-in 2FA. If you want to enforce 2FA for all employees, Bitwarden requires you to use Duo across the entire organization.
83% of organizations studied said they’ve suffered more than one data breach.
ZOHO VAULT
Ease of adoption
Pros
- SSO
- Zoho Vault’s Enterprise plan offers integrations with Okta and OneLogin, and it gives you the ability to use Zoho Vault as an SSO tool for other cloud applications.
- Employee-friendly features
- Zoho Vault covers the basics such as password storage, password generation, autofill, and password sharing.
Cons
- No account recovery
- Zoho Vault does not offer any account recovery capabilities, so if employees forget their main password, they are locked out with no recourse.
- No mass deployment
- For admins, Zoho Vault has limited resources to mass deploy their product onto employees’ devices.
- Limited admin capabilities
- Zoho Vault’s Professional plan is fairly limited in terms of capabilities for admins. All integrations and automations, including for user provisioning, are exclusive to its Enterprise plan.
Real-world security
Pros
- Robust reporting
- Zoho Vault scores well for its robust user- and admin-level reporting in straightforward dashboards. It also has activity logs for more thorough auditing when needed and the ability to restrict access to the vault based on IP addresses.
Cons
- Lack of zero knowledge for SSO integration
- Without zero-knowledge architecture for SSO, employee credentials are less secure. Lack of zero knowledge means people other than the user—both Zoho employees and malicious actors—could access the stored credentials.
63% of employees admit to using the same passwords for multiple work accounts.
ROBOFORM
Ease of adoption
Pros
- Employee-friendly features
- RoboForm has employee-friendly features, scoring well for its consistent and unobtrusive autofill. It also offers core password import capabilities from spreadsheets, browsers, and other password managers.
Cons
- Costly onboarding support
- RoboForm has a professional service for expert onboarding help, but it’s costly.
Real-world security
Pros
- Robust reporting
- RoboForm’s dashboards, reporting capabilities, and options for company-wide password policies are robust and tailored to enterprises.
- 2FA
- RoboForm allows users to set up 2FA as an extra layer of security for accessing their vault.
Cons
- No account recovery
- Admins can initiate an employee’s master password reset; however, all the data in the password manager is erased in the process. There is no account recovery mechanism, so if employees forget their main password, their data will be permanently inaccessible.
Increased password manager usage was the top change that organizations made as a result of remote work, with 38% of employees and leaders identifying this shift.
DASHLANE
Ease of adoption
Simple for admins
Deploying Dashlane to your entire company and integrating it with your existing set of IT tools is simple with functionality such as:
- The ability to integrate with any SAML 2.0 single sign-on provider, such as Okta, Active Directory, Azure AD, G Suite, and Duo
- The ability to sync individuals and groups with your company directory so you never have to manually manage groups or grant and revoke employee licenses
- Group password sharing so new hires can start their first day with access to everything they need
- Account Recovery, so employees who forget their Master Password don’t end up permanently locked out of their accounts
Perks for employees
After adopting Dashlane, employees get Smart Spaces functionality that keeps business and personal items separate. Team and Business plan users also get access to a VPN for work or personal devices, and Business plan users get a free Friends & Family plan, so they can give up to nine others free Dashlane Premium accounts.
Robust support
For help with adoption, Dashlane offers extensive live and on-demand resources, including free live product information sessions for employees and admins, a Resource Library, and a Help Center for both employees and admins.
Additionally, all Dashlane customers have access to 24/7 email support and live chat support, and Business plan users have access to phone support every weekday. Businesses with more than 50 seats on their plan can access technical onboarding support and a dedicated customer success representative.
Real-world security
Comprehensive insights
Dashlane has patented security architecture, and the Admin Console provides actionable insights and useful company-level controls. Admins can view their company’s Password Health score and at-risk passwords from their dashboard view, and they can gather granular, employee-level insights from their Activity Log and Users tabs. Admins can also set policies around 2FA, employee offboarding, Smart Spaces, autofill, Account Recovery, and more.
Dark web monitoring
Dashlane’s Dark Web Monitoring tool monitors the dark web for up to five email addresses and sends notifications if those email addresses are associated with any known data breach. Unlike other Dark Web Monitoring tools offered, Dashlane searches for email addresses, not hashed passwords already stored in a user’s vault.
The first step to selecting the right password manager is understanding what criteria to use for evaluating your options. The best solution should offer more than the ability to manage passwords securely—it should offer a robust set of features that can help you improve your overall company security.
