Bitwarden Overview: The Greatest Password Supervisor

A password supervisor makes creating robust passwords—and remembering them!—simple. Good password managers will generate robust passwords for you, retailer them in a safe vault and log you into web sites, all with out you doing something. There are dozens of cloud-based password managers available on the market, however in my testing one constantly rises to the highest—Bitwarden.

Bitwarden is open supply, safe, works throughout platforms, and affords an intuitive workflow that makes it simple to handle your passwords throughout all of your units. The free plan makes a superb, primary, however safe password supervisor, and Bitwarden’s premium options value lower than the competitors.

The Open Supply Benefit

The code that runs Bitwarden is open supply. Which means it is freely out there for anybody to examine, assault, search out flaws, and report them. In idea, the extra eyes on the code, the extra hermetic it turns into. Not one of the different main cloud-based password managers on the market are open supply. Whereas this does not make Bitwarden invulnerable, the corporate has by no means had a breach.

Like most password managers, Bitwarden makes use of AES-256 encryption to guard your knowledge. Your passwords are solely ever unencrypted by yourself units. Bitwarden maintains a zero-knowledge system. All of your usernames, passwords, URLs, notes, and different vault knowledge are end-to-end encrypted, which signifies that Bitwarden can not see or entry any of your knowledge.

To additional improve its safety standing, Bitwarden is frequently audited by third-parties to make sure it is safe. The latest total check is from 2023, when the Cure53 safety agency did a supply code audit and penetration check of the core utility and library. Particular person platform apps and the net interface have additionally been audited, all of which leaves me feeling fairly good concerning the safety behind Bitwarden. It is also price noting that, if you realize what you are doing, you may set up Bitwarden’s backend code by yourself server for self-hosting should you choose to run your personal cloud.

Utilizing Bitwarden

All the safety on the planet is kinda ineffective, although, if truly utilizing the apps and providers is not a superb expertise. Luckily, Bitwarden has a principally easy workflow that integrates properly with totally different platforms and takes benefit of standardized security measures like passkeys. You’ll be able to even log into Bitwarden with a passkey, which implies you do not even want to make use of your username or password to open your vault.

There are apps for Android, iOS, Home windows, macOS, and Linux, in addition to extensions for all main internet browsers. I’ve used Bitwarden on each platform and in each browser. Sure, even Opera. At first of 2025, Bitwarden switched to native apps for Android and iOS. I by no means minded the outdated app, however that is decidedly sooner in my testing (not less than on Android. The ultimate iOS model shouldn’t be out of beta but).

Bitwarden additionally lately revamped its browser extension, giving it a cleaner look with extra customization choices to tailor the person expertise to suit your workflow. There is a new compact mode that saves a little bit of area, and lightweight and darkish themes to suit along with your PC’s theme.

{Photograph}: Bitwarden