Zoho Vault vs. Bitwarden: Compare Password Managers

Zoho Vault and Bitwarden are two great password managers — latter is among the best cheap password managers and Zoho Vault is one of the best free password managers in our most recent testing. These services are comparable in price, features and compatibility — this is an extremely close competition.

While these password managers tied in terms of value and platform compatibility, Bitwarden surged ahead in the user experience (UX) category and never gave up the lead afterward. However, most categories were won by incredibly narrow margins. It’s easy to recommend either of these great options.

Which password manager should you get? Let this Zoho Vault vs. Bitwarden face-off help you decide.

Your value proposition for either depends greatly on your use case. Zoho Vault has slightly more options for the individual user in its free plan but lacks a family plan. This may not be a deal breaker as the per-user rate for Zoho Vault is still cheaper if you have three or fewer people in the home. If you have four to six family members, though, Bitwarden is the better value.

In the end, both services offer amazing value for the price, and we couldn’t justify giving the win to just one of them.

Bitwarden is also accessible in over 50 languages, further solidifying it as one of the most accessible password managers on the market.

The browser extension is also quite user-friendly, and you can add vault items from there, which isn’t a given among free password managers.

I preferred Bitwarden’s more minimalistic approach, though your preferences may vary. The nice thing about these pieces of software is that you can try both risk-free.

Overall, Bitwarden performs fine as a form filler. I’d like it to make these improvements to fully stand against the competition, though.

Where it falls short is more premium features some competitors offer at higher prices, including live dark web monitoring, biometric 2FA, and VPN. Bitwarden will give you reports of leaked usernames and passwords, though. Additionally, its source code is open source and can be inspected by anyone — if there’s a weakness in the code, someone on the internet will point it out.

I like that Bitwarden offers 2FA via YubiKey and FIDO, two highly secure forms of 2FA I’ve yet to see offered by a password manager. That said, the vast majority won’t use this.

While this was a close call, a big stumble in form filling on behalf of Zoho Vault lost the company its shot at the top spot. Bitwarden handles everything Zoho Vault does and more, earning it the win in this match-up.

This isn’t to say that Zoho Vault is bad — far from it. It has a lot to offer (a stellar security record, great UX, and one of the best free versions I’ve ever seen), and I’m curious to see how things will play out once form-filling has been implemented. It’s hard not to recommend either of these password managers.

While I may have preferred Bitwarden, you can give either service a test drive, as both offer wonderfully robust free versions with few limitations.

On the surface, all password managers essentially generate and store passwords. As I evaluated providers, I dug deeper, comparing software on what matters most, including price, platform compatibility, security, and other factors.

I signed up for a plan with each provider to test:

• Plan value: Most password managers offer various subscription plans from free to around $20 per month. While free plans may be sufficient for some, those that need more functionality may prefer paid plans. We included a wide array of free and paid password managers to find the one that works best for you.
• Platform compatibility: You likely access your online accounts from multiple devices, including desktops, laptops, tablets, phones, as well as through different web browsers. Your password manager should be compatible with various devices, operating systems and browsers, and sync seamlessly between them all.
• UX: This is how you interface with all the features and functions of your new password manager — if it’s bad, you’ll be less likely to use the service. While this is a highly subjective category and some will disagree, it’s important to provide an overview based on my experience.
• Form filling: A password manager doesn’t have to include form-filling, but it’s somewhat standard and the ease with which it performs that function can be the deciding factor in which password manager you ultimately choose.
• Security: Since a password manager is first and foremost a security tool, it should come with all of the most up-to-date standard security features. This includes the highest level of available encryption (256-bit AES with PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA512); 2FA, such as biometric logins or MFA, and a password generator.
• Two-factor authentication (2FA): Used all over the internet to protect your accounts, this is quickly becoming a standard security practice. 2FA is a great way to secure more sensitive accounts to ensure they’re not breached.

Learn more about our review methodology.