1Password vs Bitwarden: which should you buy in 2026?

Short answer

Choose Bitwarden unless the apps are the deciding factor. Bitwarden is cheaper at every tier, has a free plan with no device limit, publishes a dated audit list going back to 2018, lets you pick an EU hosting region at signup and offers an official self-hosted server. 1Password has no free plan and no self-hosting, costs EUR 3.67 against EUR 1.52 for one person, and still wins on two real points: two-secret key derivation, and apps that people keep using.

The numbers side by side

All USD prices converted at 1 USD = 0.92 EUR, read from each vendor's own pricing page on 11 November 2026. 1Password's figures are list prices: new customers see 25 percent off for the first twelve months, which is why year two surprises people.

Which one is more secure?

Different answers depending on the attack.

Against someone who steals the vendor's database, 1Password is stronger. Its two-secret key derivation combines your account password with a 128-bit Secret Key that only exists on your devices, so an attacker with a full server dump has nothing to brute-force against. Bitwarden protects the same scenario with PBKDF2-SHA256 at 600,000 iterations by default, or Argon2id at 32 MiB with 6 iterations and 4 threads, which raises the cost of an offline attack substantially but does not make it structurally impossible.

Against the risk that a vendor's claims are untested, Bitwarden is stronger. It publishes which firm audited which component in which year: Cure53 in 2018, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2025, IOActive on clients and SDKs in 2024, Mandiant and Unit 42 on mobile, Fracture Labs on web and network, and the Applied Cryptography Group at ETH Zurich on the cryptography itself. 1Password documents its security model carefully but does not publish an equivalent dated audit list.

Both have had an incident worth naming. In October 2023, 1Password disclosed that its Okta tenant was compromised through a stolen session cookie belonging to an IT employee, and concluded after investigation that no user data was accessed. Neither vendor has a publicly known vault breach.

Which one is cheaper for a family?

Bitwarden, and not narrowly. Bitwarden Families is EUR 3.67 a month for six people, which is EUR 0.61 per person. 1Password Families is EUR 5.51 at list price for five people, which is EUR 1.10 per person. Bitwarden covers one more person for a third less money.

Which one is cheaper for a team of five?

Bitwarden Teams at EUR 3.68 per user per month, with no seat minimum, so EUR 18.40 a month for five people. 1Password Business is EUR 8.27 per user, so EUR 41.35 a month. 1Password's Teams Starter Pack is the better deal at EUR 2.29 per user, but it requires ten seats minimum, so a five-person company cannot buy it.

Which one can you self-host?

Only Bitwarden, officially, on the Enterprise plan. Many people run Vaultwarden instead, a lightweight unofficial server that speaks the Bitwarden protocol, and it is worth being clear that it is third-party software Bitwarden does not support. 1Password has no self-hosted option at all.

For an EU company, the hosting question usually settles this comparison before price does. Bitwarden stores vault data in Microsoft Azure in the US or the EU and lets you choose at signup. 1Password publishes no equivalent region commitment.

What about passkeys, 2FA and losing access?

Both store passkeys and both let you unlock the account with one. Both include a TOTP authenticator, Bitwarden from Premium at EUR 1.52 and 1Password on every paid plan, which means neither forces you to keep a separate authenticator app.

Recovery is where they differ in character. Bitwarden offers emergency access on Premium, where a trusted contact can request access after a waiting period you set. 1Password gives you an Emergency Kit, a printable document holding your Secret Key, and in a Families plan a family organiser can recover another member's account. Neither vendor can recover your vault for you, and that is the correct behaviour for a zero-knowledge product. Print something, store it somewhere a fire would not reach, and do it before you need it.

So when should you buy 1Password anyway?

Three honest cases.

When the people using it are not technical and the interface decides adoption. A password manager that a household abandons in week two protects nothing, and 1Password is measurably nicer to live with.

When the stolen-database scenario is your top concern and you want the structural answer rather than a high iteration count. Two-secret key derivation is a genuinely better design against that specific attack.

When you have ten or more people and no EU hosting requirement. At EUR 2.29 per user, the Teams Starter Pack undercuts Bitwarden Teams, which is the one price comparison 1Password wins.

For everyone else, including every one-person and five-person case, Bitwarden is the better purchase.

We ranked the whole category in the best password managers in 2026, and the honest threat model, including what neither product protects you from, is in are password managers safe.

Vendors: these figures were read from your own pages on 11 November 2026. Send a correction through get listed and we will date it.