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Zen Passwords · reviewed

Zen Passwords vs Bitwarden

Bitwarden is the better default and we are not going to pretend otherwise. It is open source, publicly audited, runs on everything, and its free tier is unusually generous. Choose Zen Passwords only if you are Apple only and you want a native app with no account behind it.

Most comparison pages written by a vendor conclude that the vendor wins. This one does not, because on the widest reading Bitwarden is the stronger recommendation and saying otherwise would be the fastest way to lose your trust. Here is the narrower case where we are the better fit.

Download on the App Store Already decided to switch
the short answer

Choose Zen Passwords if

  • Every device you own runs iOS, iPadOS or macOS
  • You want an app that feels built for the platform rather than shared across six of them
  • You want no account and no server anywhere, including one you would have to run yourself
  • You keep cards, bank details, licences and notes alongside logins

Choose Bitwarden if

  • You use Windows, Android, Linux or work mostly in a browser
  • Reading the source and the audits is how you decide what to trust
  • You want the option of hosting it yourself
  • You share with a family or an organisation
  • You want a capable password manager for nothing, which Bitwarden genuinely offers
find yourself here

6 situations, one answer each

Read the one that sounds like you and stop. Where Bitwarden is the better answer, it says so.

Bitwarden

You want a good password manager and would rather not pay

Bitwarden free is a real product rather than a teaser, and it covers most people fully. Our free tier stops at five active items, which is enough to try the app and not enough to live in.

Zen Passwords

You are on Apple devices only and want something that feels native

This is the trade. Bitwarden covers everything by building once for everywhere. We cover less by building only for these three.

Bitwarden

You want to read the code before trusting it with your passwords

Bitwarden publishes its source and commissions public audits. We do not publish ours, so you would be trusting a claim rather than checking it. That is a fair reason to choose them.

Either one

You want your vault on hardware you control

Two different answers to the same instinct. Bitwarden lets you run the server. We have no server at all, and sync uses your own iCloud. Either satisfies it, by opposite routes.

Bitwarden

You are on a Mac, but you live in Chrome or Firefox

Bitwarden ships an extension for those browsers. Zen Passwords does fill on the Mac, but it fills through the system, which covers Safari and other apps rather than every browser you might install. If your day happens in Chrome, that is a daily difference rather than an occasional one.

Bitwarden

You share a vault with an organisation or a team

Organisations and collections are a category Zen Passwords does not enter. There is no shared vault of any kind.

what decides it

Three differences that actually decide it

Both are competent. These are the three where they are genuinely not the same product.

Everywhere, or one place properly

Bitwarden reaches every platform and every browser, which is its central strength. Zen Passwords reaches three Apple platforms and nothing else. Neither approach is wrong, but only one of them fits an estate that includes a Windows laptop.

Open source against a closed app

Bitwarden publishes its source and its audits, so you can check the claim. We do not, so you are trusting it. We would rather write that plainly than bury it, and if it decides the matter for you then Bitwarden is your answer.

An account, a server you run, or neither

Bitwarden gives you a hosted account or the option to host it yourself. Zen Passwords gives you neither, because there is nothing to host: sync, when you enable it, is your own private iCloud under your Apple ID.

honest limits

What neither of them fixes

Open source or not, audited or not, these three sit outside what any password manager can do for you.

  • A backup you have never opened. Both products can export your vault, and almost nobody checks that the file they saved actually restores until the day it matters.
  • A single point of failure you chose yourself. One master password, remembered by one person, is the design in both cases, and it fails the same way in both.
  • What happens to the vault after you die or lose capacity. Bitwarden has emergency access for this; Zen Passwords has nothing, and a vault nobody can open is a vault nobody can inherit.
questions

Choosing between the two

Bitwarden is free. Why would I pay for Zen Passwords?

For a lot of people you would not, and Bitwarden is the better answer. The case for paying is that you are on Apple devices only and want a native app holding cards, bank details and notes as well as logins, with no account behind it.

Is Zen Passwords open source?

No, and Bitwarden is. If reading the source and the audits is how you decide what to trust with your passwords, that is a real argument and it points at them.

Can I self-host Zen Passwords like a Bitwarden server?

There is nothing to host. Zen Passwords has no server component at all. Optional sync uses your own private iCloud under your Apple ID, which reaches a similar end by a different route.

I have decided to move across. What is involved?

The export, the import and the parts that need re-checking afterwards are written up separately on our Bitwarden alternative page.

the handover

Moving from Bitwarden

The export, the import and the parts that never carry across cleanly are written up separately, so this page can stay about the decision.

Read the handover
keep comparing

The other two decisions

comparison

Zen Passwords vs Apple Passwords

Free and built in against a fuller vault. Most readers should keep what Apple gave them.

Read the verdict
comparison

Zen Passwords vs 1Password

Breadth and sharing against no account at all. Six situations, one winner each.

Read the verdict
product

Zen Passwords in full

Every feature, the screenshots on all three devices, the privacy detail and the questions people ask most often.

Open the product page
how this page is written

Everything claimed about Zen Passwords here is what the app does today. Everything claimed about Bitwarden is limited to things that have been true of it for years, checked on against their own site. There are no prices on this page, because a price nobody re-checks goes wrong in public. If something here is out of date, tell us and we will fix it.