Bitwarden and RoboForm 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. RoboForm, by contrast, is old-school form-filler turned cost-effective business password manager, with SSO/SCIM in the base plan and a long-standing closed-source codebase.
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 RoboForm if teams that fill a lot of complex web forms and want sso/scim cheap. Cheap Business plan with SSO + SCIM included. Dated UI, closed source, mobile CVEs to track.
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 | RoboForm |
|---|---|---|
| Smallest team planAll prices USD, billed annually unless noted. Verify on vendor sites before buying. | Teams: $4/user/mo | Business: $3.33/user/mo |
| Next tier for growing teams | Enterprise: from $6/user/mo | Enterprise: custom (self-host 1,000+ users) |
| Free tier available | Yes (1 device) | |
| SSO (SAML / OIDC) | Enterprise only | Business (OIDC) |
| SCIM provisioning | Enterprise only | Business |
Collaboration model
| Feature | Bitwarden | RoboForm |
|---|---|---|
| Shared vaults / collections | Yes — Collections | Yes — Shared folders |
| Per-item permissions | Full / Login-only / Read-only | |
| External / one-time secure share | Yes — Bitwarden Send | Item Send (recipient needs RoboForm account) |
| Group-based sharing | Business | |
| Activity / audit log | Teams and above |
Security & transparency
| Feature | Bitwarden | RoboForm |
|---|---|---|
| Zero-knowledge end-to-end encryption | ||
| Cipher | AES-256-CBC + HMAC | AES-256-CBC |
| Key derivation | Argon2id (default) or PBKDF2 | PBKDF2-SHA256 (1,000,000 iterations) |
| Open-source clients | ||
| Self-hosting option | Enterprise (1,000+ users) | |
| Published independent audit | Secfault Security (2023, 2025) | |
| Publicly disclosed vault breach | No customer vault breach | No vault breach; pre-2015 PRNG flaw in generator; Android CVEs in 2025–26 |
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.
RoboForm Business is $3.33/user/month with no published minimum, and SSO + SCIM are included rather than add-ons. Enterprise is custom-priced and unlocks the self-hosting option (gated to 1,000+ users).
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.
RoboForm. Shared folders with three permission tiers (Full / Login-only / Read-only) plus group sharing on Business. The Login-only role is genuinely useful for contractor access; external sharing still requires the recipient to be a RoboForm user.
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.
RoboForm. AES-256 with PBKDF2-SHA256 at 1,000,000 iterations and a documented zero-knowledge architecture. Two recent Secfault Security pentests (2023, 2025). The pre-2015 generator PRNG flaw and the 2025–26 Android CVEs are worth knowing about even though no vault has been breached.
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; RoboForm — Business (OIDC). SCIM tier: Bitwarden — Enterprise only; RoboForm — Business.
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
RoboForm
Pros
- Industry-leading form-filling (the original differentiator since 1999)
- SSO + SCIM included in the base Business plan
- "Login-only" permission lets contractors auth without seeing the password
- Self-hosting option exists (Enterprise, 1,000+ users)
Cons
- Closed source; no public SOC 2 report
- UI feels legacy compared to Bitwarden or 1Password
- Pre-2015 PRNG flaw in the password generator (long fixed but reputationally notable)
- Two Android-specific CVEs in 2025–26 hint at mobile-hardening lag
A third option worth considering
Bitwarden and RoboForm have very different stories, but they share a UX vintage that shows. Pwdly is a recent build from a small team, so the interface, the sharing flows, and the admin views all assume a 2026 user — not a 2014 one — without giving up on the security fundamentals either product was originally praised for.
- 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 the choice between Bitwarden and RoboForm comes down to "which one will my team actually complain less about", Pwdly is the third sample worth taking.
Frequently asked questions
Is Bitwarden or RoboForm better for a small team?
Bitwarden fits best when teams who want linear pricing, open source, or self-hosting, while RoboForm is the stronger choice when teams that fill a lot of complex web forms and want sso/scim cheap. 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 RoboForm?
Bitwarden uses AES-256-CBC + HMAC with Argon2id (default) or PBKDF2. RoboForm uses AES-256-CBC with PBKDF2-SHA256 (1,000,000 iterations). 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. RoboForm: SSO Business (OIDC), SCIM Business. 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. RoboForm: No vault breach; pre-2015 PRNG flaw in generator; Android CVEs in 2025–26. 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)
- RoboForm — Business pricing
- RoboForm Security Whitepaper (PDF)
- RoboForm — Secfault Security pentest summary (2025, PDF)
- CVE-2025-26700 (Android lockscreen bypass)
Worth fact-checking
- Vendor pricing for both Bitwarden and RoboForm 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.