The verdict
Password managers
We’ve chosen Bitwarden as the winning password manager. It stands out because it’s open source software and because the free and Personal plans are both excellent. Sometimes, we like things to be completely free, but freemium has its place, and even if you stick to the free plan, you still get the benefits of a popular service with an online server. The lowest priced package is inexpensive and adds, among other things, encrypted cloud storage of files such as scanned documents. The Linux desktop app does a good job, as does the mobile app.
Some will like the independence offered by KeePass 2, because it’s a standalone application that runs on most platforms. Despite being a traditional application, there are also mobile phone apps and web browser plugins available. The downside is that you may need to set up some of the facilities (such as hosting the database in the cloud) yourself, which means extra work. On the plus side,
KeePass is a popular program and there are dozens of forks, rewrites, plugins and other add-ons on the website, giving you even more control over how you want to use it.
With the other options, the free or paid package that you choose controls the features that are available, so we’re evaluating them on the merits of their lowest priced, entrylevel plans and the free plan.
NordPass is one of the services that limits use to a single device at a time on its free plan, even though you can have other devices registered but logged out. It has a decent Linux desktop app, and on the paid plan, the facilities are excellent, with an ability to attach files for secure storage.
Keeper’s free plan is so limited that we’d be reluctant to get tied down to it, and the single-user paid plan is a little more expensive than some of the competition. However, the system itself is very good, and we like the desktop app.
It’s a shame that RoboForm doesn’t have a Linux-native desktop app, even though the web app is perfectly usable and it has a mobile app. It lacks a facility to store files such as scanned documents, even on its paid plans. The free plan can evaluate the quality of your passwords.