Dashlane vs 1Password (2024): Which Password Manager Is Better? – Source: www.techrepublic.com

Using a password manager is a great way to protect your personal or business data and accounts. Password management software makes it easy to use complex and varied passwords for all of your accounts without having to remember them or store them in a vulnerable way.

Dashlane and 1Password are among the top password management tools on the market. While both password managers offer basic and advanced features that can help you generate, store, and monitor your passwords securely, Dashlane comes with a VPN for Wifi protection.

Learn what features each solution offers and how to decide between these two password managers in this in-depth comparison guide.

Dashlane vs. 1Password: Comparison table

The table below summarizes and compares the key features offered by both password managers.

Dashlane and 1Password pricing

Dashlane offers a variety of pricing options in its Personal and Business tiers. It also has a limited but fully-free, free version.

Dashlane Pricing

Personal plans

• Free: Free. Maximum of 25 stored passwords for 1 device.
• Premium: $4.99 per month billed annually. A free trial is available for this plan.
• Friends & Family: $7.49 per month, billed annually, for 10 users.

Business plans

• Standard: This is for small teams and costs $20 per month, for up to 10 seats.
• Business: $8 per seat per month, billed annually. A free trial is available for this plan.
• Business Plus: $5 per employee, per month, billed annually. Starts at 100 employees. A demo can be requested for this plan.

Enterprise

• This plan is suitable for large organizations and comes with everything in the business plan, plus dedicated customer service support for onboarding technical engineers and customer support specialists. Contact Dashlane for a quote.

To learn more, check our full Dashlane review.

1Password Pricing

In my view, pricing for 1Password is much more flexible than Dashlane. 1Password offers multiple pricing plans for individual, family, small team, business, and enterprise use cases. There’s now also monthly options for each 1Password plan.

These are the price points for their plans:

Personal

• Individual: Starts at $2.99 per month when billed annually. $3.99 per month for monthly option.
• Families: $4.99 per month for five family members, billed annually. $6.95 per month for monthly option.

Business

• Teams Starter Pack: $19.95 per month, a team of ten users, billed annually. Same price for monthly option.
• Business: $7.99 per user, per month, billed annually. Suitable for business users. $9.99 per month for monthly option.

Enterprise

• Quote available upon request. Includes everything from Business subscription plus enterprise features like dedicated account manager and tailored onboarding.

14-day free trials are available for all plan options except for the Enterprise plan.

To learn more, check our full 1Password review.

Feature comparison: Dashlane vs 1Password

From centralized password management to security, encryption, password health reporting, and 2FA, both tools offer similar features. But how do they compare? Let’s find out.

Password management and sharing

Winner: 1Password

In terms of password management and credential sharing, I give the advantage to 1Password.

1Password features password and username generators to create secure login credentials that aren’t re-used across websites. It uses a secure vault system for password sharing — which I see adds a big benefit to larger businesses. Vaults can be created to organize your passwords and securely share them with others within the organization.

In this system, I imagine enterprises easily creating specific vaults for each department or team within their organization.

On the other hand, Dashlane has a secure sharing feature that can be used to share one or more passwords and secure notes. Users can share a password with individual users or groups and adjust the sharing permissions to provide either full or limited access. Dashlane also offers a group sharing feature on the Starter, Team, and Business plans. This feature allows admins to categorize team members into groups and create and share passwords based on the specific needs of each group.

On Dashlane’s end, I appreciate how it provides administrators control how much access each user has to particular credentials. But if we’re strictly talking about which storage and password sharing features benefit teams and businesses more, I find 1Password to be the better choice due to its customizable vault system.

Security and monitoring

Winner: Tie

Both services employ 256-bit AES encryption and two-factor authentication to keep your login information secure. Dashlane uses PBKDF2 encryption to protect users’ passwords, while 1Password has its own Secret Key encryption system.

In terms of monitoring, 1Password includes their Watchtower monitoring feature, which integrates with Have I Been Pwned to provide alerts if any of your passwords have appeared in data breaches. To me, this is a great way to catch compromised passwords early. In addition, the Watchtower also checks and flags weak or duplicate passwords and recommends websites where you can turn on two-factor authentication.

I really like how Watchtower melds both Dark Web monitoring and password health data into a single menu pane.

Meanwhile, Dashlane offers Dark Web monitoring, so you can be alerted if any of your personal information or login credentials are compromised and shared on the Dark Web. This breach monitoring tool scans records attached to hacks and data breaches, with almost a million new records added and scanned every day.

In addition to monitoring user’s credentials on the Dark Web, I like that Dashlane offers real-time phishing alerts through web browser phishing alerts, making it easy for users to avoid suspicious websites.

Ease of use

Winner: Dashlane

When it comes to overall user experience, I slightly prefer Dashlane over 1Password. Per my time with it, I found Dashlane’s web app a bit easier to navigate. It implements an intuitive and user-friendly interface that I envision works well for small teams with limited IT manpower.

It also helps that I didn’t experience any bugs with Dashlane, at the time of testing. It’s also very easy to set up and have up and running.

If you want to learn more about the initial installation, check out our step-by-step guide on How to Use Dashlane.

In comparison, I thought 1Password was smooth but less consistent in performance. On the 1Password Chrome extension, I noticed I was logged out a couple of times, which affected my experience. Other than that, the app was able to generate strings of usernames and passwords and suggest stronger passwords for me.

For those interested, we also have a beginner’s guide on How to Use 1Password as well.

Reporting

Winner: 1Password

While both Dashlane and 1Password each offer reporting dashboards that allow IT personnel to access company-wide activity data, I found 1Password’s reporting capabilities to be more comprehensive.

1Password offers detailed reporting options. Administrators can run reports for individual employees, individual vaults, teams, and the whole business. Business plan subscribers can monitor who is accessing company resources, what devices they’re using to gain access, and what actions they take with those credentials.

SEE: How to Create an Effective Cybersecurity Awareness Program (TechRepublic Premium)

I particularly appreciate how 1Password users can also create rules to allow or deny sign-in attempts from specific locations. This is helpful in highly regulated industries where you may not want certain company programs or data to be accessed outside of company buildings or via public Wi-Fi.

To Dashlane’s credit, it provides an advanced reporting dashboard that provides an overview of your company’s password health, compromised passwords, and password quality. Administrators can also view user information and login activity logs from these dashboards.

Platforms and integrations

Winner: 1Password

In terms of platform support, both Dashlane and 1Password demonstrate impressive compatibility. They can operate across a range of devices and operating systems, including Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. Additionally, they offer browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge, ensuring seamless password management across various web browsing environments.

Both tools also share similar integration features as they can seamlessly integrate with a wide range of identity providers (IdPs), including Okta, Active Directory, Azure AD, G Suite, and Duo. This integration facilitates a smooth and secure single sign-on experience, eliminating the need for users to repeatedly enter their login credentials across different applications.

What I found separates the two password managers is that users can run 1Password locally on their desktop, while Dashlane doesn’t have a desktop application. It can be used, however, via a web app.

This gives 1Password the small edge over Dashlane, especially if you’re more comfortable running your password manager using a dedicated desktop application rather than through a web app.

Dashlane pros and cons

These are the most important pros and cons to consider when reviewing Dashlane:

Pros

• Simple interface.
• Dark Web monitoring.
• VPN for Wi-Fi security.
• Self-hosted authenticator solution.
• On-demand phone support for business and enterprise users.

Cons

• Browser add-on requires improvement.
• Can’t be run locally on the desktop.
• Less flexibility in security features and interface customization.
• Costlier by some margins for individual users.

1Password pros and cons

Below are some of the core pros and cons to consider when reviewing 1Password.

Pros

• Excellent security features, including a travel mode for cloud-free Wi-Fi sync.
• Guest accounts (with limited access).
• Support for Intune and GPO Deployment.
• Offers 14-day free trial across most of its pricing plans.
• Offers a desktop app.

Cons

• The interface may be complicated for new users.
• No online chat for customer service.
• No VPN support.
• Single Sign-On is only available on the Business and Enterprise tiers.

Should your organization use Dashlane or 1Password?

Dashlane and 1Password are both strong password management software options. But if I were to recommend one provider for businesses as a whole, I would choose 1Password.

1Password is a great choice for organizations that plan to heavily utilize password-sharing functions, as the platform’s vault system can be a good way to share passwords among employees. You can have a social media vault, travel booking vault, and other vaults designed to be shared by employees within a specific department or project team. It is a nice system for keeping things updated and organized if you will be sharing accounts with others.

1Password’s comprehensive security features and enterprise-friendly scalability make it a compelling choice for large enterprises with complex security requirements. Its extensive third-party integrations, support for desktop applications, Intune, and GPO deployment provide enterprises with better admin controls.

On the flipside, Dashlane is a bit more user-friendly than 1Password and, as such, more suitable for small businesses and teams with limited IT resources. Its intuitive interface and straightforward setup make it simple to implement and manage across a team of users. Additionally, Dashlane’s self-hosted SSO solution and VPN provide businesses with greater control over their password management infrastructure and an extra layer of network security.

Methodology

To compare Dashlane and 1Password, I carried out a comprehensive analysis, drawing upon various sources of information. I reviewed the official product sites of both solutions to gather detailed specifications and pricing plans. For hands-on experience, I ran the Chrome extension versions of both solutions, which enabled me to assess their usability, security features, and customer support.

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