If you have decided to use a password manager, you have already made the biggest decision. The three below are all safe, well-audited, and end-to-end encrypted. Choosing between them is not a security decision; it is a fit decision. This is how each of them thinks about what it is doing, and who each of them is for.
The three at a glance
Bitwarden. Free tier that is not a demo. Open source. Self-hostable. Functional but plain interface.
1Password. The most polished experience on every platform. Subscription-only, no free tier beyond a trial. The choice for people who care about the daily details.
Proton Pass. Newest of the three. Part of the wider Proton ecosystem (Proton Mail, Drive, VPN). Free tier exists but is more limited than Bitwarden’s.
Free tiers
Bitwarden Free: unlimited passwords, unlimited devices, cross-platform sync. This is the outlier — no other big-name manager comes close.
Proton Pass Free: unlimited passwords on one device, plus a modest number of email aliases, and 10 two-factor codes. Sync across devices requires the paid tier.
1Password: no true free tier. 14-day trial only. You pick a paid plan or you go elsewhere.
Winner (free): Bitwarden, by a distance.
Paid tiers
Bitwarden Premium: a low annual fee. Adds a built-in authenticator, encrypted attachments, health reports.
1Password: a mid-range monthly subscription. Family plan for a small extra covers up to five people. Everything is included on every tier — 1Password does not stratify features.
Proton Pass Plus: mid-range, cheaper than 1Password. Includes multi-device sync, unlimited aliases, unlimited two-factor codes. Bundles with Proton’s other services (Mail, Drive, VPN) if you go for Proton Unlimited.
Winner (paid, single user): 1Password on polish, Proton on price, Bitwarden on value.
Passkey support
All three now support passkeys, storing and autofilling them alongside passwords. This is where the future is headed and any manager without it is not a manager to consider. In practice all three implementations feel similar — where they differ is in browser-extension polish, and 1Password is clearly the smoothest here.
Two-factor codes
All three offer a built-in TOTP authenticator on paid tiers. The question is whether you should use it.
Bitwarden: good implementation, standard TOTP.
1Password: excellent implementation with QR-code scanning that works even from a screenshot.
Proton Pass: good implementation, includes on free tier for 10 codes.
Caveat we always give: putting your 2FA codes and your passwords in the same vault means a single breach of that vault compromises both factors. If you are protecting a bank or business account, keep 2FA in a separate app (see our Aegis review). If your accounts are lower-stakes and the convenience matters more than the theoretical extra safety, using the built-in 2FA is defensible.
Interface
1Password is the best-looking of the three by a wide margin. Colours, animations, layout — the app feels crafted. This actually matters over years of daily use.
Proton Pass is second. Clean, modern, follows the Proton design language.
Bitwarden is functional. It gets the job done. It will never win a design award. Once autofill is set up, you almost never open the app directly.
Ecosystem lock-in
Bitwarden: negligible. You can export your vault to a standard file and take it to any competitor.
1Password: negligible. Also exports to standard formats.
Proton Pass: negligible on the export side, but if you take the Proton Unlimited bundle you are getting Mail, Drive, VPN, and Pass all together — and moving away means moving four services. That is a “positive lock-in” if you like the Proton philosophy, and a warning sign if you do not.
Company and philosophy
Bitwarden: US-based. Open-source core. Self-hosting supported. If you want to run the server yourself, this is the only real option.
1Password: Canadian. Closed source. Extensively audited. If open source is a hard requirement, skip it.
Proton: Swiss. Its wider brand is built on privacy and Swiss data-protection law. If you value that positioning, this is the one that leans hardest into it.
Which should you actually use?
Pick Bitwarden if: you want a genuinely useful free tier; you value open source; you want maximum portability; or you are setting up password management for a family member who does not want a subscription.
Pick 1Password if: you use your password manager many times a day and want the interface to feel great; you can afford the subscription; UI polish matters to your patience for the app.
Pick Proton Pass if: you are already in the Proton ecosystem, want everything under one account, or specifically want unlimited email aliases (Proton’s alias story is the best of the three).
All three are correct answers. The wrong answer is “no password manager”.
See our full Bitwarden review for the detailed take on the one we recommend to most people.