Bitwarden and Proton Pass both show up on every "best password manager for teams" list, and they sit in genuinely different parts of the market. Bitwarden is the open-source value pick — fully auditable, self-hostable, with a free tier that actually scales. Proton Pass, by contrast, is proton AG's password manager — Swiss-jurisdiction, open-source clients, full enterprise identity at a low per-seat price, with the rest of the Proton suite available as a bundle.
This comparison is written for the people actually making the call: founders, IT leads and ops folk at startups, agencies and small teams. No affiliate rankings, no "best of" filler — just the trade-offs that matter once more than one person touches the vault.
Quick verdict
Pick Bitwarden if teams who want linear pricing, open source, or self-hosting. Predictable per-seat cost and an auditable client. Admin UI is plainer.
Pick Proton Pass if privacy-conscious teams or anyone already on the proton ecosystem. Open-source clients, Swiss jurisdiction, SSO + SCIM at $4.49/user. Server stays closed.
Both are zero-knowledge and both have a defensible recent security story. The choice is almost never about cryptography — it's about collaboration model, governance, and how much per seat per month you want to spend.
Team pricing at a glance
| Feature | Bitwarden | Proton Pass |
|---|---|---|
| Smallest team planAll prices USD, billed annually unless noted. Verify on vendor sites before buying. | Teams: $4/user/mo | Pass Essentials: $1.99/user/mo (min 3 users) |
| Next tier for growing teams | Enterprise: from $6/user/mo | Pass Professional: $4.49/user/mo · Workspace Standard $12.99/user/mo (full Proton suite) |
| Free tier available | ||
| SSO (SAML / OIDC) | Enterprise only | Pass Professional (SAML) |
| SCIM provisioning | Enterprise only | Pass Professional (Okta, Entra ID) |
Collaboration model
| Feature | Bitwarden | Proton Pass |
|---|---|---|
| Shared vaults / collections | Yes — Collections | |
| Per-item permissions | Vault-level roles; per-item sharing | |
| External / one-time secure share | Yes — Bitwarden Send | Yes — secure links (paid) |
| Group-based sharing | Pass Professional and above | |
| Activity / audit log | Teams and above | Pass Professional and above |
Security & transparency
| Feature | Bitwarden | Proton Pass |
|---|---|---|
| Zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption | ||
| Cipher | AES-256-CBC + HMAC | AES-256-GCM (per-item keys) |
| Key derivation | Argon2id (default) or PBKDF2 | bcrypt + SRP (Argon2 for local cache) |
| Open-source clients | Clients only (GPL-3.0) | |
| Self-hosting option | ||
| Published independent audit | Cure53 (2023), Recurity Labs (2026) | |
| Publicly disclosed vault breach | No customer vault breach | No customer vault breach |
Pricing for teams: where the real difference is
Bitwarden's Teams plan is a flat $4/user/month from seat 1 to seat ∞, with Enterprise around $6/user/month adding SSO, policies and directory sync. Linear and predictable, with no seat-count cliff.
Pass Essentials is $1.99/user/month (min 3 users), Professional adds SSO/SCIM/audit logs at $4.49/user. Workspace Standard at $12.99/user bundles Mail, Drive, Calendar, VPN and Pass Professional — competitive if you'd buy any of those anyway.
For a fast-growing team, the slope matters as much as the starting price. Model it at the size you actually expect to be in 12 months — not the size you are today.
How teams actually share credentials
Bitwarden. Organisations with Collections give per-item RBAC, Bitwarden Send handles one-time external sharing with no recipient account, and audit logs are available from the Teams tier upward.
Proton Pass. Vault sharing (with any Proton account), per-item sharing via individual item keys, secure links and group sharing on Professional. No anonymous external sharing — recipients must have a Proton account.
The everyday question is: when a contractor joins on Monday and leaves on Friday, how much work is it to give them access to exactly the credentials they need, watch what they touched, and revoke cleanly? That's where the daylight between these two shows up.
Security architecture
Bitwarden. Bitwarden's clients and server are fully open source under AGPL/BSL — you (or any security firm) can read exactly what runs. Argon2id is the default KDF, which is materially harder to attack on GPUs than PBKDF2.
Proton Pass. All client code is open source under GPL-3.0 with per-item AES-256-GCM keys and bcrypt + SRP for user authentication. Two published audits (Cure53 2023, Recurity Labs 2026) and Swiss-jurisdiction hosting underpin the trust story; the server stays closed source.
If you're forced to choose on cryptography alone, modern AEAD ciphers (AES-GCM, XChaCha20-Poly1305) paired with a memory-hard KDF (Argon2id) are the bar. Both vendors are inside that range; the harder differences are open-source posture, audit history, and whether you can self-host.
Admin & governance for teams
Both products support some flavour of role-based access, forgotten-password recovery, and audit logging on the right tier. Where they diverge is on the boring-but-critical stuff: SSO, SCIM provisioning, and whether group policies can keep up with how your team actually grows.
SSO tier: Bitwarden — Enterprise only; Proton Pass — Pass Professional (SAML). SCIM tier: Bitwarden — Enterprise only; Proton Pass — Pass Professional (Okta, Entra ID).
If Okta, Entra ID or Google Workspace SSO is non-negotiable from day one, factor the tier price into the per-seat number — it's often the thing that flips the cheaper-on-paper option into the more expensive real-world bill.
Bitwarden
Pros
- Linear $4/user/month pricing that scales predictably
- Open-source clients and server 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 gated behind Enterprise
- Some power features hide in submenus
- Self-hosting is great in theory, real work in practice
Proton Pass
Pros
- All client code open source under GPL-3.0
- Encrypts metadata (URLs, usernames, notes) — not just passwords
- SSO + SCIM at $4.49/user, well below Bitwarden Enterprise
- Swiss jurisdiction and strong privacy posture; bundled with Mail/VPN on Workspace plans
Cons
- Server is closed source — no self-hosting
- Vault-level permission model is less granular than 1Password
- External sharing requires recipient to have a Proton account
- Newer product (launched 2023) — smaller enterprise case-study base
A third option worth considering
Bitwarden and Proton Pass both have strong technical foundations, but both also fragment their team features across three or four tiers — so the "real" plan is rarely the entry one. Pwdly has one paid plan at $2/user/month, with per-project vaults included from day one rather than tucked behind a Business tier.
- Per-project vaults. Most teams don't share "everything with everyone" — they share by client, repo or product. Pwdly makes that the primary unit, not an afterthought folder.
- $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. The cipher explainer walks through why those defaults matter.
- Trade-offs we own. No breach monitoring (we literally can't read your data), no self-hosting yet, no browser extension on day one. The security page has the honest list.
If you've spent an afternoon decoding which tier actually unlocks what you need, Pwdly is the "one plan, done" alternative.
Frequently asked questions
Is Bitwarden or Proton Pass better for a small team?
Bitwarden fits best when teams who want linear pricing, open source, or self-hosting, while Proton Pass is the stronger choice when privacy-conscious teams or anyone already on the proton ecosystem. Model both at the seat count you expect in 12 months — the cheaper option at 5 seats isn't always the cheaper option at 25.
Which has stronger encryption — Bitwarden or Proton Pass?
Bitwarden uses AES-256-CBC + HMAC with Argon2id (default) or PBKDF2. Proton Pass uses AES-256-GCM (per-item keys) with bcrypt + SRP (Argon2 for local cache). Both are zero-knowledge. In practice the cipher choice is rarely the differentiator — KDF (Argon2id vs PBKDF2), open-source clients, and audit history matter more.
Does either support SSO and SCIM on the cheapest team plan?
Bitwarden: SSO Enterprise only, SCIM Enterprise only. Proton Pass: SSO Pass Professional (SAML), SCIM Pass Professional (Okta, Entra ID). If SSO is non-negotiable, price it on the tier that includes it, not the entry tier.
Has either vendor had a vault breach?
Bitwarden: No customer vault breach. Proton Pass: No customer vault breach. A clean record isn't a guarantee, but a known prior incident materially raises the cost of trust.
Keep comparing
- 1Password vs BitwardenTeam-focused, vendor-neutral breakdown.
- LastPass vs BitwardenTeam-focused, vendor-neutral breakdown.
- 1Password vs DashlaneTeam-focused, vendor-neutral breakdown.
- 1Password vs LastPassTeam-focused, vendor-neutral breakdown.
- Bitwarden vs DashlaneTeam-focused, vendor-neutral breakdown.
- Dashlane vs LastPassTeam-focused, vendor-neutral breakdown.
Also worth a read: The XChaCha20-Poly1305 explainer, our security model, and the free password generator.
Sources & further reading
- Bitwarden — Business pricing
- Bitwarden Security white paper
- Bitwarden — Encryption (AES-CBC + HMAC, Argon2id)
- Proton Pass — Business pricing
- Proton Pass — Security model
- Proton Pass — Cure53 audit (2023, PDF)
- Proton Pass — Recurity Labs audit (2026)
- Proton Pass — GitHub
Worth fact-checking
- Vendor pricing for both Bitwarden and Proton Pass has changed more than once in the past 24 months — verify on the official site before purchasing.
- SSO / SCIM tier inclusion can change between plans; confirm with vendor sales for your exact seat count.
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.