Paid
1Password
Best overall. Its vault key needs a Secret Key as well as your password, and that key never reaches its servers, so a leaked backup has nothing to guess at.
★★★★★4.82,130 signals
Picked by scenario
Best Password Managers in 2026
Ask the right question and this gets easy. Not "has it ever been breached", because every provider eventually has an incident, but "when a copy of the encrypted vault leaks, what can an attacker do with it". That single question separates these seven, and it is why 1Password wins despite having no free plan at all.
Top picks
Updated June 20267 tools we recommend.
Freemium
NordPass
Best value, and the only genuinely useful free tier here: unlimited passwords, though one active session, so signing in on your laptop signs out your phone.
★★★★★4.5980 signals
Freemium
Enpass
Best if you want to hold your own vault. It syncs through your own iCloud, Dropbox or OneDrive and never stores it on Enpass servers, and a lifetime licence is $99.99.
★★★★★4.4610 signals
Paid
Dashlane
Pick it for the bundle, not the price. The VPN is Hotspot Shield rather than Dashlane’s own, and the permanent free plan ended in September 2025.
★★★★★4.61,420 signals
Freemium
RoboForm
Still the best at filling long, awkward web forms, which is a narrow strength but a real one if you do that work daily.
★★★★★4.4720 signals
Freemium
Sticky Password
The one that will sync over your local Wi-Fi instead of a cloud, and sells a lifetime licence if subscriptions annoy you.
★★★★★4.2340 signals
Freemium
LastPass
Only with your eyes open. In 2022 an attacker copied a backup of customer vaults, and your master password strength was the only thing standing in the way.
★★★★★3.91,760 signals
Explore by workflow
Related categories.
FAQ
Common questions.
What is the best password manager in 2026?+
1Password, for a structural reason rather than a feature list. Every manager here encrypts on your device and none can read your vault, but most derive the vault key from your master password alone, so a leaked backup can be attacked offline by guessing it. 1Password additionally requires a 34-character Secret Key that is generated on your device and never sent to its servers, which removes your password as the single point of failure. Individual is $2.99 a month billed yearly, with a 14-day trial and no card.
Is LastPass safe to use after the 2022 breach?+
It is usable, and it is the one here we would not choose. Its own notice confirms that "the threat actor was also able to copy a backup of customer vault data from the encrypted storage container", with website URLs left unencrypted and usernames, passwords and notes encrypted behind keys derived from each user’s master password. That design means a short or reused master password was the whole defence. If you still have a LastPass vault from that period, treat its contents as exposed and rotate the important logins, starting with email and banking, whether or not you move.
What is the best free password manager?+
NordPass, and it is not close among these seven. Its free tier keeps unlimited passwords but allows one active session, so a second sign-in logs out the first, and it withholds the breach scanner, secure sharing and emergency access. LastPass free is limited to one device type, desktop or mobile but not both, and sharing one password with one person. Enpass free stops at 25 items. Dashlane has no free plan at all any more, only a 14-day trial.
What is the best password manager for families?+
1Password Families, at $4.49 a month for five people. The reason is recovery rather than price: the Secret Key design that makes it the safest also makes a forgotten password unrecoverable, and the family plan is what fixes that, because an organizer can help a member recover their account while still being unable to see inside that member’s private vault. If cost decides instead, NordPass Family covers six for about $2.79 a month and Enpass Family six for $3.99.
Can I use a password manager without trusting a company’s cloud?+
Yes, and Enpass is the pick. Its pricing page states that every plan keeps your vault in your own iCloud, Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox or Box, "never on Enpass’s servers", and it works offline. Sticky Password will sync over your local Wi-Fi instead of a cloud. The trade-off is real and worth saying plainly: you now own sync, backups and recovery, so if you lose the vault file and have no backup, nobody can help you.