1Password and Bitwarden are two of the most-recommended team password managers — and they could not feel more different. 1Password is the polished, vertically-integrated incumbent with a famously good UX and a premium price tag. Bitwarden is the open-source value pick, fully auditable, with a free tier that genuinely scales.
This comparison is written for the people actually making the call: founders, IT leads and ops people at startups, agencies and small teams. It's not a "best of" listicle, there are no affiliate rankings, and we won't pretend either tool is bad — both are solid. We're focused on the trade-offs that matter when more than one person touches the vault.
Quick verdict
Pick 1Password if your team values UX polish, you want the Teams Starter Pack flat fee for ≤10 users, and you'll grow into SSO/SCIM on the Business tier.
Pick Bitwarden if you want lower per-seat costs, open-source clients you can audit (or self-host), and you're comfortable with a less-glossy admin experience.
Both use industry-standard encryption and have a clean recent track record. The decision is almost never about cryptography — it's about UX, governance, and how much you want to pay per seat per month.
Team pricing at a glance
| Feature | 1Password | Bitwarden |
|---|---|---|
| Smallest team planAll prices USD, billed annually. Verify on vendor sites before buying. | Teams Starter Pack: $19.95/mo flat (up to 10 users) | Teams: $4/user/mo (billed annually) |
| Next tier for growing teams | Business: $7.99/user/mo | Enterprise: from $6/user/mo |
| Free tier for individuals | ||
| Free 14-day trial on paid plans | ||
| SSO (SAML / OIDC) | Business and above | Enterprise only |
| SCIM provisioning |
Collaboration model
| Feature | 1Password | Bitwarden |
|---|---|---|
| Shared vaults | Yes, via Collections | |
| Per-item granular permissions | ||
| One-time secure share (no account needed) | Yes — Psst! | Yes — Bitwarden Send |
| Guest access for clients/contractors | Limited | Limited |
| Activity / audit log | Teams and above |
Security & transparency
| Feature | 1Password | Bitwarden |
|---|---|---|
| Zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption | ||
| AES-256-GCM cipher | AES-256-CBC + HMAC | |
| Key derivation | PBKDF2-HMAC-SHA256 + 128-bit Secret Key | Argon2id (default) or PBKDF2 |
| Open-source clients | ||
| Published third-party audits | ||
| Self-hosting option | ||
| SOC 2 Type II |
Pricing for teams: where the real difference is
On paper, both vendors look cheap. The reality depends on how big your team is.
1Password's Teams Starter Pack is a flat $19.95/month for up to 10 users — which works out to about $2/user/month and is genuinely one of the cheapest team options on the market if you stay under 10 seats. Past 10, you move to Business at $7.99/user/month, a steep jump.
Bitwarden's Teams plan is $4/user/month from seat 1 to seat ∞, with Enterprise starting around $6/user/month adding SSO, policies and directory sync. Pricing is linear, predictable, and lower than 1Password Business at every scale we've tried to model.
If you're an 8-person startup with no plan to triple in size next quarter, 1Password's Starter Pack is hard to beat. If you're a 25 -person agency or expecting to grow, Bitwarden is almost always cheaper.
How teams actually share credentials
Both tools use a "shared container" model — 1Password calls them shared vaults, Bitwarden calls them organizations with collections. Functionally similar: create a container, assign people, drop items in.
1Password's UX is noticeably more refined here. Inviting users, moving items between vaults and recovering access through the admin console feel like a polished SaaS product. Bitwarden's web vault works fine but is plainer, and some admin flows (Collections vs Folders vs Organizations) take a minute to internalise.
For one-off shares with someone outside the team, both ship a dedicated feature: 1Password Psst! and Bitwarden Send. Both let you send a credential to someone with no account, with expiry and view limits.
Security architecture
Both are zero-knowledge — the vendor cannot read your data even if they wanted to — and both have published third-party audits. The differences are mostly in which primitives they chose.
1Password layers an additional Secret Key on top of the master password, meaning a stolen vault blob alone isn't enough to brute-force — the attacker also needs the Secret Key that lives on your devices. It's a real defence-in-depth win, at the cost of a clunky setup ritual ("write down this 34-character key, don't lose it").
Bitwarden's edge is that the clients are fully open source. You (or a security firm) can read exactly what happens between you and the server. They also default to Argon2id for key derivation, which is more memory-hard than 1Password's PBKDF2 and materially harder to attack on GPUs.
And of course, Bitwarden can be self-hosted — including in air-gapped environments. 1Password cannot.
Admin & governance
Both support role-based access, recovery for forgotten master passwords (via account recovery / admin reset), audit logs and SCIM provisioning on the higher tiers. 1Password's reporting and policy UI is more mature; Bitwarden has caught up significantly over the past two years.
SSO is the one to watch. 1Password offers SSO from the Business tier ($7.99/user). Bitwarden gates SSO behind Enterprise. If your org needs Okta/Entra/JumpCloud login on day one, factor that in.
1Password
Pros
- Cheapest possible option for ≤10-person teams (Starter Pack)
- Best-in-class UX for end users and admins
- Secret Key is a real defence-in-depth layer
- Mature reporting, policies and Watchtower breach alerts
Cons
- Per-seat price jumps sharply past 10 users
- No free tier — not even for individuals
- Closed-source clients; you have to trust the audits
- No self-hosting option
Bitwarden
Pros
- Linear $4/user/month pricing that scales predictably
- Open-source clients you can audit or self-host
- Argon2id by default — stronger KDF than the industry norm
- Genuinely usable free tier for individuals
Cons
- Admin UI is functional but less polished
- SSO is Enterprise-only
- Some power features hide in submenus
- Self-hosting is great in theory, real work in practice
A third option worth considering
If you've read this far and neither 1Password's price-cliff nor Bitwarden's admin UX feels right, Pwdly is worth a look. We're built specifically for the team-sharing case 1Password and Bitwarden both grew into.
A few things that are different by design:
- Per-project vaults. Most teams don't share "all credentials with everyone" — they share by client, repo or product. Pwdly makes that the primary unit.
- $2/user/month, flat. No seat-count cliff, no SSO upsell on the cheapest paid plan. See the full pricing.
- XChaCha20-Poly1305 + Argon2id under the hood. If you care about why those choices matter, our cipher explainer walks through them honestly.
- Trade-offs we own. No breach monitoring (we literally can't read your data), no self-hosting yet, no browser extension on day one. Read the security page for the honest list.
We won't pretend Pwdly is for everyone. If you need 1Password's polish or Bitwarden's self-hosting story, use them. If you want a simpler tool priced for actual teams, we'd love a shot.
Frequently asked questions
Is 1Password or Bitwarden better for a small team of 5?
If you're confident you'll stay under 10 users, 1Password's Teams Starter Pack ($19.95/month flat) is the cheapest option of the two and gives you the polished UX. If there's any chance you'll grow past 10, Bitwarden Teams at $4/user/month scales more predictably without a Business-tier price jump.
Is Bitwarden actually open source?
Yes. The Bitwarden clients (desktop, mobile, browser, CLI) and the server are open source under licenses including AGPL and BSL. You can read the source, run your own audits, or self-host. 1Password is closed source — you have to trust their published third-party audits instead.
Does either offer SSO on the cheapest team plan?
No. 1Password requires the Business tier ($7.99/user/month) for SSO. Bitwarden gates SSO behind Enterprise (~$6/user/month). If SSO from day one matters, price that in.
Which has had a breach?
Neither 1Password nor Bitwarden has had a publicly disclosed breach of customer vault data. 1Password did disclose an Okta-related incident in 2023 affecting their own corporate environment but did not expose customer data. LastPass is the cautionary tale here — and the reason a lot of teams migrated to one of these two.
Keep comparing
- LastPass vs BitwardenTeam-focused, vendor-neutral breakdown.
- 1Password vs DashlaneTeam-focused, vendor-neutral breakdown.
Also worth a read: The XChaCha20-Poly1305 explainer, our security model, and the free password generator.
Sources & further reading
- 1Password — Business pricing
- Bitwarden — Business pricing
- 1Password Security Design white paper (PDF)
- Bitwarden Security white paper
- Bitwarden — encryption (AES-CBC + HMAC, Argon2id)
- 1Password — KDF and Secret Key
- PasswordManager.com — 1Password vs Bitwarden
Worth fact-checking
- Bitwarden Enterprise pricing has shifted recently — we have $6/user/month; double-check on bitwarden.com/pricing/business as of your purchase date.
- 1Password Teams Starter Pack pricing of $19.95/month for up to 10 users is current as of May 2026 but has historically been adjusted.
- SCIM availability tiers can change. Confirm with vendor sales for your exact plan.
Last updated May 2026. Vendor pricing and features change frequently — always confirm on the official site before purchasing. Pwdly is not affiliated with 1Password, Bitwarden, LastPass, or Dashlane.