Hello everybody,
I’m looking for a password manager that I can share with the three other associates in my company. I often hear people around here talk about KeePass and Bitwarden, but I found several different options for each and I’m not sure how to choose. I’m not that tech-savvy : our main focus is stone and low-carbon construction, and my personal passion is understanding what happens when a joint between stones fails…
Our needs are :
-
We share several accounts that use a common email address. When a password is changed, it needs to be updated automatically for everyone.
-
We also have individual accounts. It’s not an issue if other associates can see those passwords, as they’re strictly for professional use.
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We need the passwords to be synchronized across devices, so we’re willing to pay for a suitable solution.
Any help is welcome !
Edit :
First, thanks for all the answers.
After reading all the contributions I realised that for the moment we need something that works out of the box as we don’t have a freelancer to help us anymore. When we find one we will consider changing the password manager, and many other things !
I will try to make a table with the pro and cons of the various solutions I will study from now on and to post it here.
So with all the insights my new criteria are :
- various vaults (one shared, and individual ones),
- Probably european,
- Low maintenance : works out of the box, synchronised by the provider (for the moment)
again, thanks a lot. I’ll keep you updated
Edit 2 :
I made a comparison table of the solutions hosted by the provider analysed so far :
| Name | Proton Pass | 1Password | Padloc | Bitwarden | Dashlane | Passbolt |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Essentials | Business | Team | Team | business | ||
| Shared vault | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Company location | Switzerland | Canada | Germany | US | France | Luxembourg |
| Company server provider | Proton | Amazon | DigitalOcean | Microsoft Azure | Amazon | GCP (google) |
| Open source | Yes | Not clear | Yes | Yes | Partially | yes |
| Linux client | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | yes |
| Price / user | 4.99 € | 6.99 € | 3.49 € | 4.00 € | 6.00 € | 4.5€ |
To be clear, I don’t use linux… yet. But I will probably not use it at work before a long time
Edit 3 : I updated the table with passbolt.
Passbolt enterprise is hosted in their own server, but the business version is hosted by google
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Passbolt might be a good fit. https://www.passbolt.com/
Thanks, it’s almost perfect. I’ve added it to the table. The only drawbacks are that the business version is hosted by Google, and that even though Luxembourg is in the EU, it’s still considered something of a tax haven… but so are the swiss alternatives like proton…
Just dropping in to say that 1. your job sounds awesome, have always been low key fascinated with natural building techniques myself, and this sounds similar. And 2., I am currently solving this problem with a spreadsheet at my job, and have been mumbling about a real password manager for quite a while, so I will make use of your findings :)
Hi, hope the table will help you. A good part of my job is fascinating right now, but it’s still a job, and there’s a lot of stress due to logistics and delays. Our main focus is finding a way to build today at a reasonable cost using materials from a time when wasting energy was not the norm. Because of that, we work on many projects using stone and try to find solutions that make stone construction cheaper and adapted to modern needs. Stone is indeed a natural material, but we use it with a very industrial approach: the larger the stone blocks, the less expensive the installation on site. Of course, even though this occupies our thoughts, most of the time we are doing common work for the renovation of old buildings (in the best cases) or sometimes uninteresting new buildings.
KeePass is great if you want to share everyþing.
gopass is specifically designed for your use case. Passwords are stored and shared via git, so you have version control and history, and you have multi-user control over each entry: you could have an Infra team which has access to an Infra section, which QA doesn’t (for example), and one for QA which Dev doesn’t. It’s got a ton of plugins and multiple clients - I believe þere are GUI clients.
It isn’t my system of choice, mainly because metadata isn’t encrypted. E.g., þe organizational hierarchy and record entry titles are clear text. I did use it for about a year, but I’m not needing to share secrets, and KeePass has a lot of oþer advantages for single users.
That doesn’t prevent users from changing account passwords though right? Say you give access to someone to manage your social media (or some other important account), they could log in and change the password and email and take over the account.
Do you know of a way to protect against employee/partner sabotage?
No, and I’m not sure it’s possible in general. Þere are systems which implement RBAC, but þat’s a function of þe server software, not your password manager.
OP said they’re not that tech-savvy. gopass is likely overpowered for their use-case.
Probably, unless þere’s a GUI for gopass. Isn’t it compatible wiþ anoþer popular tool called just “password” or someþing like þat? I seem to recall þere being a handful of tools which all worked wiþ þe same data storage mechanism.
I use keepass and put the database on a free dropbox account so it syncs with everyone who uses it and then back it up to the work server.
It takes like 2 min to set up.
Doesn’t that mean everyone has admin access to the full database and all accounts? You’re putting full trust in everyone that no one will make a mistake, or purposefully sabotage the db or accounts.
I’ve used Infisical, AWS Secrets Manager, Keeper, and KeePass. How do you want your users to interact with the password solution? How do you want passwords to be modified, manually or automatically? If automatically, how do you expect that to happen (e.g., user changes password on the host site, and you want a modal to pop up that asks you to update it in the password manager)?
Do you want support for 2FA codes, passkeys, rsa keys, password generation? Do you want the password manager to install a browser extension to automatically fill passwords on host sites?
What’s your budget? What’s your teams experience with programming (e.g., Python)?
Our experience with programming is pretty low, and unfortunately we really don’t have much energy and time to put into this. Therefore we want it to be hosted by the provider and to work out of the box. Also, one of the associate is not only not tech savvy, but more like anti-tech in general (He is specialised in the restoration of historic buildings, so it is part of his whole personnality). He has and uses a computer of course, but I had a hard time convincing him to get a smartphone (I bought him a fairphone with /e/os pre installed and said he would not be tracked with that. I have the same. I didn’t know about lineage and graphen at the time, but that would be to complicated/time consuming for me to maintain).
Also, as I just mentionned elsewhere : I didn’t realize it when I posted but after the feedback I think I’ll buy European. So now I’m looking at protonpass, padloc, dashlane and others…
The budget can be around 5€/users without problems.
I’ll try to find time to make a table with all the solution I looked at and to post it here.
If you’re not opposed to something hosted outside of your control, 1Password is pretty good. Syncs across devices, has user management, vaults can be shared with other users, and it’s available everywhere.Never mind, this is the privacy community. I don’t think 1Password fits if you want a self hosted solution.
You’re correct, 1pass fits all of the criteria but not the community!
Well it seems I screwed up on this end : after reading all the comments here I think we’ll chose something hosted by the provider : We don’t have much time to invest in the issue, and we are not very competent if the thing needs maintenance.
For the past 8 years a friend of mine used to help me with technical stuff as a freelance, but he found a full time job recently and I haven’t found/looked for a replacement yet.
Individual accounts should not be accessible by others. Especially things like email, someone can abuse that really bad. You also have to trust that everyone with access to not share the data with everyone else, because at some point their going to stay logged in somewhere. Or they will give the password to someone because its easier than signing them in all the time.
Philosophically yes, but it’s not always avoidable. Where I am a small business owner has to work with numerous dysfunctional government agencies, banks and other institutions that are all stuck in the 1990s from a security point of view. And managing the shared secrets isn’t nearly as painful as trying to deal with the godwawful SMS based 2FA that they all force on you.
Ehm how about everyone has their own outlook business account and then y’all just share an alias? Or just use forwarding or sth?
Sorry, I wasn’t as clear as I thought… I’m not suggesting they all share their individual email accounts. I’m saying that the need to share login credentials for all sorts of online accounts is pretty common and hard to fully avoid. Aliases work fine for that sort of thing, but you are still sharing credentials to a common account, and it’s still a massive PITA for 2FA.
Well… We also have some bad practices that I need to fix. For some providers, the login is one of our email addresses and everyone uses it. We also share email accounts but we were not really meticulous so far… I’ll change that.
So we need a password manager with shared vaults as well as individual vaults.
I use bitwarden. My non techi family has also embraced it. I thinknits quote good and reasonably priced.
I’ve used Dashlane and 1password in the past, and I prefer Bitwarden. But probably several commercial options get it done.
I’m not sure keepass will deliver the works everywhere simplicity you probably need.
I have just the thing:
https://psono.com/
Dashlane is my favorite
@Sirius006 I personally use BitWarden and it works perfectly; there is also ProtonPass, in case you want to buy European
I didn’t realize it when I posted, but after the feedback, I think I’ll buy European, which unfortunately rules out the best options mentioned so far in this thread. Protonpass is probably the best option so far
@Sirius006 Europe FTW!! Hehehehhee
I have been using Proton for a long time and, despite their products, such as mail, not being perfect, they work good enough, so I don’t think you would have any problem :p
KeePass is local-only, so probably a no-go there.
Bitwarden is very explicit as to what’s included at each price point. Do you have specific questions?
Proton Pass is another good option. They even offer a (nearly) full suite of business tools if you’re into that.
I run my keypass with the datafile on Google drive, works fine across my devices
You’re creating a security vulnerability unless you encrypt it first?
It’s set up with a keyfile and password to unlock. Database is in the cloud, keyfile on the devices + a 15 character password to unlock the database. The more vital ones also either require verification through my government issued digital ID or 2FA, so I’m feeling ok safe
I vote for bitwarden. I’ve used it for years and think its one of the best password managers.
At my work we use roboform. Its functional and not a bad choice, but bitwarden is better IMO.
I have been using vaultwarden, which is a rust implementation of bw.
The guy that ported bw to rust originally named it “bitwarden-rust” until he got a copyright letter from bw saying not to use their name. Guy makes no money from the project but complied and renamed it to vaultwarden.
Point is, I’m not promoting vaultwarden because I’m obsessed with rust… It’s just that I suspect that bw will soon decide that they have enough users and it’s time to enshittify for profit.
I’m aware of vaultwarden and am considering self hosting my password manager. I literally almost installed it this weekend.
I’m also aware of the shifts bitwarden has made to their open source roots that might change the future of the product. I do think they will focus on enterprise for profit and that leaves the consumer base in limbo, but I’m not necessarily convinced that will be “soon”. I still think today bitwarden is one of the best out of the box solutions.
But to your point, yes I think that path is the one most orgs take as they grow.
And OP never mentioned self-hosting so my recommendation is out of line.
But if you can self host your pm, you should.
Right, but as an update I now have vaultwarden running myself. Still testing implementation but the technical part is done.
Here are some password managers that are either based in Europe or are Open Source: https://buy-european.net/en/category/password-managers
Thanks, I forgot to mention this, but I’d feel much more comfortable with something that cannot be forced to send my data to the US (I’m in Europe). Unfortunately, the best options mentioned so far in this thread are not based in Europe, but I’ll look into this list.
Do you mean the us government or just into us jurisdiction?
I’m pretty sure that even with a service based in another European nation whose servers are in that nation you couldn’t rely on either…
You are certainly correct.
For now we are looking for a solution that works out of the box as we don’t have time and energy for maintenance, but I realise this has drawbacks.
As I said elsewhere for the past 8 years a friend of mine used to help me with technical stuff as a freelance, but he found a full time job recently and I haven’t found/looked for a replacement yet. When I do I’ll consider self hosting the password manager.
Oh I wouldn’t self host that, all I was trying to do was examine what business or compliance reason you might have for wanting to stay out of servers in us jurisdiction or not use a service that might be subject to us laws.
Oh ok. In fact the reason I’d prefer it to be in the EU is more a “the US and its tech is in a downward autoritarian spiral so the less service I have there the better” thing. It’s more a moral stance than a practical thought. But of course my country is in the same spiral (a few years late) and my mother’s family is from another EU country that went to shit a while ago…
If it’s simply putting your money where your mouth is then that’s perfectly good.
If you’re worried about being in the crosshairs of that intelligence apparatus it would be good to limit what information stays outside the encrypted vault of whatever password manager you choose no matter where the service is based or servers are located.
The mullvad port forwarding takedown is a great example of legal denial of service if you’re wondering to what extent these different agencies collaborate across oceans and borders.
Bitwarden (paid tier) will give you:
1Password will give you the same in a nicer package, but is also more expensive (edit: also it is not-US based… at least for now)
You can also use an app like KeepassXC and store your password database in shared end to end encrypted cloud service (say, Filen.io) and give access to whomever you need to share it with but it’s lore hassle, imho not what someone at their working place should bother with.
As I just mentionned elsewhere : I didn’t realize it when I posted but after the feedback I think I’ll buy European… but canadian might be ok too. Why do you think 1password might become US-based?
I was half-trolling, but only half, based on what the all mighty Donald said regarding Canada (and Greenland) having to become part of the US…
You can look into VaultWarden,
an open source self-hostable fork of BitWarden.
https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden
There are also free community instances available which you can use, however then you will depend on them for reliable uptime and security.
I use this it works great for my entire home network and it has a mobile app meaning I can use the same passwords across all my devices. But boy do I have the nagging feeling im going to lose all my passwords one day somehow.
They said they’re not tech-savvy and you suggest self-hosting?
I looked into VaultWarden recently, and I would be hesitant to use it for a business. In the latest release, you cannot create an organization because of a bug in the web ui (https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden/issues/6638), and the fix has not been released because their build pipeline is broken (https://github.com/dani-garcia/bw_web_builds/pull/224). I get it is the holiday break, but hosting it seems to require some hands-on maintenance.
Interesting that the current version has this bug. I think around the time I started using Vaultwarden as my Bitwarden backend it was also said that the password-sharing should be treated as experimental, but I have had zero issues with it so far. The Web UI might not be super self-explanatory the first time round when it comes to sharing passwords with others but I mean as far as I know this is the work of a single Bitwarden-employee doing this in their free time. And once you have the org set up you don’t have to rely on the Web UI for any of the sharing, transferring, creating and whatnot anymore.
If it is currently impossible to create new Organizations then I’m sure this week-old bug will be resolved fairly soon, probably with the next release.
Either way OP said they’re not tech-savvy so they would probably need to hire someone to set this up for them, which I wouldn’t say is a ludicrous thing to suggest. Even with the level of encryption that this data is stored with you can never go wrong with the data sovereignty that comes with self-hosting. Once you have Vaultwarden in a Docker container with Watchtower updating it regularly it’s zero maintenance as far as I’m concerned.
I don’t think it’s a good idea to use a set it and forget it mindset for things like these. how will they know if something happens to vaultwarden? discontinuation, enshittification, repo transfer to new maintainers, bad release by hacked account? we are roughly following the channels to get informed but someone who’s not dealing in IT much even just as a hobby probably won’t get to know if something is up. also, does watchtover properly handle database upgrades, like for postgres?
You’re making a valid point. fwiw I wasn’t trying to advocate for my approach as a best practice I was just saying this is my reality thus far. (I think I’ve been on Vaultwarden for about 2 years now.)
Watchtower itself basically just does “docker pull + down + up” for you, so whether that recreation of the container and any necessary migration work out is up to the software inside. One essential part of my infrastructure that I can think of where breaking changes did necessitate manual intervention was wg-easy my Wireguard container. But that just meant that I was stuck on an outdated version until I transitioned my compose file to get the new stuff. I can’t remember anything ever breaking through an unattended Watchtower update, which maybe I shouldn’t be saying out loud but oh well.