7 Best Password Managers (2025), Tested and Reviewed

Even the best password managers are the vegetables of the internet. We know they’re good for us, but most of us are happier snacking on the password equivalent of junk food. For nearly a decade, that’s been “123456” and “password”—the two most commonly used passwords on the web. The problem is, most of us don’t know what makes a good password and aren’t able to remember hundreds of them anyway. The safest (if craziest) way to store your passwords is to memorize them all. (Make sure they are long, strong, and secure!) Just kidding. That might work for Memory Grand Master Ed Cooke, but most of us are not capable of such fantastic feats. We need to offload that work to password managers, which offer secure vaults that can serve as a substitute for our memory. The best password manager offers convenience and, more importantly, helps you create better passwords, which makes your online existence less vulnerable to password-based attacks. Read our guide to VPN providers for more ideas on how you can upgrade your security, as well as our guide to backing up your data to make sure you don’t lose anything if the unexpected happens. Updated September 2025: We've updated our list to include Proton Pass and Zoho Vault. Why Not Use Your Browser? AccordionItemContainerButton LargeChevron Most web browsers offer at least a rudimentary password manager. (This is where your passwords are stored when Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox ask if you’d like to save a password.) This is better than reusing the same password everywhere, but browser-based password managers are limited. In recent years, Google has improved the password manager built into Chrome, and it's better than the rest, but it's still not as full-featured or widely supported as a dedicated password manager like those below. It's not as secure, either. Although your passwords are encrypted in your browser, they're trivially easy to decrypt if someone has access to your PC. Avoid using your browser's password manager if someone else can potentially access your PC. WIRED readers have also asked about Apple’s password manager, which syncs through iCloud and has some nice integrations with the Safari web browser—even a dedicated app. There’s nothing wrong with Apple’s system. It doesn’t have some of the nice extras you get with dedicated services, but it handles securing your passwords and syncing them between Apple devices. The main problem is that if you have any non-Apple devices, you won’t be able to sync your passwords to them. All in on Apple? Then this is a viable, free, built-in option worth considering. What Are Passkeys? AccordionItemContainerButton LargeChevron A concerted effort to get rid of passwords began roughly two days after the password was invented. Passwords are a pain—you’ll get no argument here—but we don’t see them going away in the foreseeable future. The latest effort to eliminate the password comes from the FIDO Alliance, an industry group aimed at standardizing authentication methods online. Does this sound a little bit like the infamous xkcd 927? Yes, yes it does. But thanks to the monopolistic nature of devices, it might work this time. Apple supports the FIDO specs and coined the term passkeys, which has caught on. Passkeys are generated cryptographic keys managed by your device (usually your phone). They’re easy to create—you don’t need to do anything, your device handles the details. Your passkeys are stored on your device and protected by either biometrics or PINs. Since passkeys are generated key pairs instead of passwords, there's nothing to remember. If you are familiar with GPG keys, they're somewhat similar in that there's a public and private key; the website you want to log in to has a public key and sends it to your device. Your device compares that to the private key it has and you're signed in (or not if the keys don't match). While passkeys aren't a radical departure, they're still an improvement by virtue of being a preinstalled tool for people who aren't going to read this article and immediately sign up to use one of the services below. If millions of people suddenly stop using 12345678 as a password, that's a win for security. Almost all of the apps we've suggested here can store passkeys, which means you can store your passkeys right alongside your passwords. Our two favorites, Bitwarden and 1Password, can generate, save, store, and sync passkeys. You can even log in to Bitwarden using a passkey, which pretty much eliminates the need for a password at all. Once you have a passkey stored, it will automatically sync to all your devices the same way Bitwarden and 1Password sync your passwords. When you return to that site, your password manager will log you in using the passkey you generated. Think of passkeys as credit cards next to the cash (passwords) in your wallet. One day passkeys may work everywhere and there will be no passwords, no password managers. In the mean time we think it's better to stick with a password manager, even if all you're doing with that manager is storing passkeys. How a Password Manager Works AccordionItemContainerButton LargeChevron Password managers are simple at the most rudimentary level. Instead of remembering your passwords, you store and encrypt them behind a master password. It could be as simple as an encrypted spreadsheet. A password manager makes logging in easier since you don't need to remember your password, and more secure, as you're able to use long, random, and unique passwords across all your accounts. The best password managers throw more than a little encryption at the problem, though. Ideally, they're built on a zero-knowledge or zero-access security architecture. This security model means your passwords are inaccessible while stored and synced across the provider's servers. In other words, the service has zero knowledge of your passwords and no possible way to decrypt them. Some services, such as 1Password, take this idea further with a device-bound key that you need to register each time you set up a new device. All of this extra security is in place for convenience. In addition to storing your encrypted passwords, a password manager can also sync your logins across devices, and ideally offer autofill and credential capture as you're creating new accounts. If you don't want to use remote servers, you can host your own password vault, as well. Bitwarden offers self-hosting, while Enpass allows you to sync with cloud storage providers like Google Drive or iCloud. Self-hosting provides the best security, assuming you have good network security, but I'd avoid syncing with a cloud storage provider. Best Password Manager for Most People Bitwarden (9/10, WIRED Recommends) is secure, open source, and free with no limits. The applications are polished and user-friendly, making the service the best choice for most users. Did I mention it’s open source? That means the code that powers Bitwarden is freely available for anyone to inspect, seek out flaws, and fix. In theory, the more eyes on the code, the more airtight it becomes. Bitwarden was also audited in 2023 and 2024 to ensure it’s secure. You can install it on a local server for easy self-hosting if you prefer to run your own cloud. There are apps for Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Linux, as well as extensions for all major web browsers. Bitwarden also supports Windows Hello and Touch ID on its desktop apps for Windows and macOS, giving users the added security of those biometric authentication systems. The web interface (which I frequently use) recently underwent a redesign, which makes it much cleaner and easier to use. Bitwarden supports passwordless authentication, meaning you can log in with a one-time code, biometric authentication, or a security key. Bitwarden also has excellent support for passkeys, including the ability to log into Bitwarden with a passkey, which means you don't need to use your username or password even to open your vault. There’s also some extras, like a feature to securely share files (called Bitwarden Send), a built-in 2FA authenticator app (paid only), and an extremely active and helpful community. I like Bitwarden’s semi-automated password fill-in tool. If you visit a site you’ve saved credentials for, Bitwarden’s browser icon shows the number of saved credentials from that site. Click the icon, and it will ask which account you want to use and then automatically fill in the login form. This makes it easy to switch between usernames and avoid the pitfalls of autofill. If you simply must have your fully automated form-filling feature, Bitwarden supports that as well.