Quick Links
For many years, I was a happy LastPass user, keeping my passwords safe across many websites without reusing them. When circumstances forced me to look for an alternative, I chose Bitwarden. Here are several reasons why.
Bitwarden Is Free (Including on Mobile)
The main reason that I switched toBitwardenfrom LastPass is that the latter had effectively imposed a fee for using it on mobile, which made it useless for me unless I paid up. Given that it had been free previously, I wasn’t happy, to say the least. There is a premium option with extra features, but it’s strictly optional.
Bitwarden had been on my radar for a while as a fan of open-source software, and I decided to take a look. The fact that it was free everywhere, no matter what device I was using, was what tipped the scales in Bitwarden’s favor whenchoosing a new password manager.
Bitwarden Works Everywhere
One thing that I also like about Bitwarden is that it’s cross-platform as well as free. The Chrome extension works seamlessly for most of my logins, and the mobile app is also very handy when I want to sign into an app, especially with how difficult it can be to type out a username or password with my fingers on a touchscreen.
I like how extensive Bitwarden’s support is. Bitwarden supports Windows, macOS, and Linux on the desktop. There’s even a command-line client if I really want to geek out. It also has Android and iOS clients.
It works almost exactly the same way LastPass does, letting me generate unique passwords for all my website logins.
I also appreciate how many browser extensions that Bitwarden offers. There are Chrome, Firefox, and Safari browser extensions, but it also supports Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Edge, the DuckDuckGo Mac browser, and even the Tor Browser.
Bitwarden has me covered if I switch platforms.
If I wanted to, I could even install the Bitwarden server software locally on a spare machine andself-host it. This would be a fun project for any home server enthusiasts.
Bitwarden Is Open-Source
As someone who cares about security, a big advantage of Bitwarden is that it’s open-source. Any programmer can examine Bitwarden’s source code and if they discover a problem, they can submit a patch and it can be fixed quickly.
With a proprietary program like LastPass, the source code is tightly controlled. You have to rely on the trust of LastPass itself. And given LastPass’ security breach, it seems that that trust has been ultimately misplaced.
One reason for trusting Bitwarden that I didn’t consider until I had to create screenshots for this article was that the developers seemed to think of everything. The Android app’s security policy actually disallowed taking screenshots.
That doesn’t mean that Bitwarden couldn’t have a breach in the future, but I hope that the staff would be transparent about any issues and fix them quickly. And if there was a serious problem with its development, developers could fork the code and create a new password manager app if they needed to.
It Was Easy to Switch from LastPass
One thing that helped me make the decision to switch to Bitwarden from LastPass was the ability to export my accounts from LastPass into Bitwarden.
The instructions are posted right onBitwarden’s website. you’re able to import using your LastPass login or export your account information from LastPass and then import it into Bitwarden.
It was so easy to follow the instructions and everything worked perfectly. I could switch to Bitwarden with no sweat. This moved saved me money on a paid subscription that I would have otherwise had to buy from LastPass. I would have just ended up paying for security breaches anyway.
The ultimate lesson of this was that even if you’re a happy user, you should always be open to alternatives in case your favorite app makes a sudden move you’re unhappy with. The lesson to software makers is also to make it easy to get new users to switch from something they’re entrenched in.
