Keeper vs LastPass

With so many password managers on the market, it can be difficult to figure out which ones have the exact features you want and need — whether you’re seeking a strong password management solution for your personal, family, or business use. To save you from confusing, time-consuming research, we took these top two password management companies and compared their most important features.

Every password manager should offer five important features: security and encryption, app compatibility, usability and ease of use, password sharing, and price.

1. Security & Encryption

First and foremost, a password manager should securely store your passwords and other personal information using strong encryption algorithms (such as 256-bit keys) and the most up-to-date methods to stay ahead of potential cyber threats. Secure password managers should also offer multilayered approaches such as two-factor authentication to ensure only you and people you intend to share your passwords with can access them.

2. App Compatibility

For a password manager to truly work well for users who use more than one device (which is just about everyone with a computer and a cell phone), it should be compatible with most web browsers, devices and operating systems — especially the ones you and your family or business use. This includes Apple and Android mobile phones and tablets, and for browsers, this includes Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. For computer desktop and laptop use, password managers should accommodate operating systems such as Windows, macOS, Linux, and ChromeOS.

3. Usability and Ease of Use

If a password manager isn’t easy to use, and thus isn’t used consistently, a person may as well not have one. The best password managers are intuitive, use automatic or one-click password generation and are capable of auto-filling passwords and other information into online forms. They should be easy to set up and seamlessly sync your information between multiple devices and browsers. Password managers should also make it easy for you to find, change, organize, and share any of your stored passwords. Biometric logins using your fingerprint or facial identification can also free users from having to manually type in a password or PIN.

4. Password Sharing

Family and business users should especially be on the lookout for a password manager that has password sharing capabilities and makes secure password sharing easy. Individuals may also value this feature if they have friends, family members, or associates with whom they’d like to securely share personal information.

5. Price

For those looking to protect their wallet as well as their most valuable information, it’s important to ensure a password manager’s pricing fairly reflects the value it provides. To get the most bang for your buck, you’ll want to look for a password manager with unlimited password storage. This way, you can be more confident that the price you begin paying won’t be likely to increase over time as your needs evolve. Some password managers have decent free options for individual use, although individual plans can start as low as around $20-$30 per year, and it’s often not much more per month to add more users through a family or business plan.

To uncover how Keeper and LastPass fare in terms of the five most important password management features listed above, we spent over 10 hours researching their security methods and offerings. Below is a breakdown of how they compare.

For good reason, part of Keeper’s solid reputation as a password manager is thanks to its standout security and encryption methods. Keeper uses a zero-knowledge system that, by encrypting and decrypting information on users’ devices, means the company never has access to or knowledge of users’ passwords. The Keeper vault uses a multi-key system to encrypt each password with a strong, randomly generated 256-bit key, which is protected by two additional layers of encrypted keys.

Keeper users access their vaults and stored passwords through their unique master password, which only they know. Users can only retrieve their master password through two-factor authentication (using something they know and something they have, such as a mobile device) or a personal security question.

Like Keeper, LastPass also uses 256-bit encryption and never knows or has access to a user’s master password. To log in to LastPass, a user must enter their email address and master password, and then secure encryption keys are created on the user’s device. These keys locally encrypt and decrypt all of a user’s data so that only the user, and never LastPass, may access it. Additionally, LastPass also allows users to opt into two-factor authentication for added security when logging into their most important accounts or using a new device.

Keeper is compatible with all of the most popular browser extensions, mobile devices, and operating systems. The browser extension, also known as KeeperFill, fills a users’ login information (and other personal information such as credit card numbers) into websites automatically so that a user doesn’t have to remember passwords or even type them in. The app is available for download on mobile devices and tablets through the Microsoft Store, Apple App Store, and Google Play. The Keeper Desktop App is also available for download on Mac, Windows, and Linux operating systems and gives users secure access to their personal, private vault. With all Keeper account types except for the free one, a users’ passwords and other data can sync seamlessly between all of their different devices.

Users of LastPass can also take advantage of the password manager’s functionality on all major web browsers, devices and operating systems. Like Keeper, the company’s apps are available on the Apple App Store, Android’s Google Play store, and the Microsoft Store. LastPass users can download the browser extension to their favorite browser (such as Chrome, Firefox, Sara, Internet Explorer, and Microsoft Edge) to take advantage of automatic form filling and password generating. Again like with Keeper, LastPass users can access their passwords and other personal information on any device through automatic syncing.

Keeper makes securely storing passwords, sharing passwords, and logging into websites simple with its intuitive, easy-to-use vault and automatic KeeperFill function that allows users to login to sites with one click. Thanks to its syncing ability, users can quickly login to websites and auto-generate long, secure new passwords from any device. Additionally, Keeper makes setting up its vault easy by walking users through entering or importing passwords and other personal data securely into the vault.

LastPass has a multitude of ways for users to add passwords to their vault for an easy setup. For one, it can automatically add passwords as users login to sites online, requiring essentially no effort from the user. Additionally, LastPass can import logins from a user’s email accounts and import or upload logins from another password manager.

Like Keeper, LastPass seamlessly syncs between users’ devices. While both companies offer strong, automatic password generation, we feel LastPass makes it a little bit easier for users to specify if they want an auto-generated password to include numbers, be easy to read, a certain length or other qualifications.

LastPass and Keeper can also securely save personal information such as credit card and bank account numbers and each makes it easy to autofill web forms without having to dig for your wallet. Users with a compatible mobile device can login to both Keeper and LastPass using biometrics such as their fingerprint or facial identification.

Password sharing through Keeper is easy as well as secure. Anyone with a Keeper vault or mobile app can share passwords with other Keeper users by simply inputting another user’s email address. Keeper lets users decide the person they’re sharing information with can edit, own or only read the record at hand. Additionally, with the family plan, family members can easily share passwords and other types of files with each other. Business and Enterprise users have the additional option of sharing folders containing selected passwords and other information with other individual users or entire teams. This is made even easier through sub-folders that can automatically inherit the sharing settings of parent folders, and the ability for users added to a team to automatically have access to any passwords already shared with that team.

LastPass’ free and paid plans let users share passwords easily, but the paid plans let users manage shared folders as well as passwords. Users simply have to access their vault’s password sharing center, and LastPass makes it easy to see which passwords are shared with others and which passwords someone else has shared with the user. To share a password with someone else, users can simply click a “Share” icon next after searching for the password in the vault and type in the recipient’s email address. For its Team and Enterprise accounts, LastPass has a comprehensive, easy-to-read dashboard that shows how secure users’ passwords are and tracks usage along with making password and folder sharing easy.

Overall, we feel Keeper’s pricing for paid accounts to be affordable and in-line with the value it provides. While it does offer a free version, it’s so minimal and restricted to one mobile device without syncing that it likely isn’t worth it for many users. The premium individual account, however, includes unlimited syncing across devices, web vault access and password autofill, making it a useful plan that will do the trick for many. Keeper’s family plan offers the same perks as the basic individual plan but for up to five users plus 10GB of file storage. With the individual and family plans, users can add a bundled option that also includes a private messenger, file storage, and BreachWatch dark web monitoring.

LastPass has a much more robust Free account than Keeper that includes a secure, searchable password vault with offline access and automatic syncing to all devices, as well as the ability to share each password with one other person. The free account autofills passwords for easy logins, stores other important information such as bank account and credit card numbers, offers multifactor authentication and generates secure passwords. It also comes with a free 30-day trial of the Premium account, which includes additional features such as multiple-person sharing, more advanced multi-factor security options, emergency access and priority tech support and 1GB of secure file storage.

The LastPass Families account serves up to six users. LastPass also offers four tiers of business accounts for individual users up to an unlimited number of users. Each of these accounts cost a certain amount per month per user and range from $3 for the Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) plan to $8 for the comprehensive Identity plan that includes all Team and Enterprise perks.

Both Keeper and LastPass are solid password management choices, but to get the most out of either, you’ll need to understand how to use it. Below is a comparison table of a password manager’s main functions and how they work for each company.