Ok… . where are we on 1password vs (apple) Passwords? I haven’t seen anything in the last year. I have 755 entries in 1 password and 1618 in Passwords. The latter seems to generate duplicates and the thought of curating it is quite tedious.
The yearly fee isn’t too much for 1P but I’m recently retired and trying to trim things down.
Gail
You might want to catch up on this thread:
Very kindly put. Thanks.
(I truly did look but perhaps used the wrong prompt).
1Password is great, but if you’re duplicating most of your logins in Passwords (by the looks of it), you could remove 1Password and just fix duplicates as you go.
I think the 1Password vs. Passwords debates have mostly been played out which is why you don’t see many threads that are for discussing both. Some people like one a lot more than the other (or dislike one a lot more than the other) and it’s not worth trying to convince otherwise. The fact that Passwords is free is obviously appealing.
I’ve been using both for awhile and they each have their problems. I’ve got some time before renewal so I will take this all into consideration.
Let me summarize it for you.
1Password is still light years ahead of password. Apple isn’t even close, it’s comical.
Thanks for your input.
Bitwarden is reasonably priced and a free version also available.
I need to investigate how to disable Passwords (Plan on keeping 1P for a bit longer) because having two is driving me slightly crazy. (exaggeration)
Settings & search for autofill & passwords , disable Passwords app.
Passwords is simpler, but the fact it records all websites where you’ve used your AppleID to login is pretty damn nice. I don’t think a third party app could ever have access to that information.
I was a long time 1Password customer and supporter. My first version was 2 or 3, I cannot recall but it was early 2011, when Agilebits was a small company that listened to their customers, to feedback and everything.
Everything started to change with version 7, when they started to push subscriptions. I switched to the subscription model because privacy/security focused software that need to stay at the top of the development chain is one of the reasons that really justify subs for me.
Then they ditched local vaults telling us that it is safer which is bs. Having the key to my house in my pocket is always safer than having it in the pocket of a company I pay for keeping it safe.
Then they abandonned their decade long tradition of making native Mac apps for the infamously bad Electron wrapper.
In reality all their decisions pointed to one reason: Shareholders, big investments, shift towards big tech and companies instead of private customers.
And all their standard public relation answers to criticism just show that it really is the reason behind it.
Local vaults: Agilebits says that having vaults on their servers is more secure. There are a ton of data breaches from other password companies that show that this isn’t the case. And also Agilebits have been hacked already, but without any data stolen as much as I know. So no, they aren’t saver. In reality it is easier to manage because having a company with 1000 computers and local vaults is a horror to admin.
Electron: Electron is literally a Google Chrome window without browser buttons. Ditching a 70mb RAM native app for this is like saying that a pickup truck is as great for saving gas as a Hybrid or EV. It is utter garbage and the only thing where Electron really shines is making apps cross platform very “cheap”. “Cheap” because you pay with your battery life and system resources for it.
Subscription is better: Yes it would be but their customer service got worse, it would be better when they would use their money to build better apps but in reality they chose one of the cheapest cross platform option there are.
Apple Passwords is pretty bare bones but it just works. Almost anywhere. It is part of the OS and it is deeply integrated. And it doesn’t use a ton of system resources. And it is IMHO way safer than 1Password.
Anyways, what features does a password manager need to have, besides managing passwords? Secure notes? Saving software keys? There are apps that do it much better. A password manager should manage passwords. And that’s it.
I switched to Apple Passwords about a year ago, and overall the experience has been very good. Still, there are two limitations—each of which I’ve worked around:
1. It only stores passwords, passkeys, and Wi-Fi credentials.
You can’t save documents, credit cards, IDs, secure notes, or anything beyond basic information. My solution has been the Uplock app. Its interface looks almost identical to Apple Passwords, but it supports everything Apple doesn’t—credit cards, driver’s licenses, passports, other ID cards, secure notes, and more. It works well across Mac, iPadOS, and iOS, and costs about $15/year.
2. Apple’s password generator is limited:
The strongest password it can create is a 20-character string in this fixed format: six characters-six characters-six characters (e.g., 8eufje-eufwu-czplno). It’s probably sufficient, but when I want stronger or more customizable passwords, I use 1Password’s online generator instead. It’s free, and as far as I can tell, the password is generated locally in the browser.
Except for these two issues, the software’s performance has been very good. It loads passwords in the browser (I use Safari) more consistently than 1Password did. I can’t comment on how it works with other browsers.
Very helpful. Thank you.
Still on 1Password and not planning to move. Passwords covers the basics well, but no TOTP storage, no secure sharing with my non-Apple-using family, and no Watchtower alerts make it a non-starter for me. 1Password just gives me the exact features I rely on every day.
Plus 1Password lets you store critical documents, API keys, passkeys to be used on non-Apple devices, and more. I can store bank account information and any other critical financial/personal information.
Bottom line - if my wife or other next of kin has my “1pass emergency recovery kit” it gives her everything she needs to access our key documents/accounts/assets when I die or become criticaly ill. Passwords cannot do that nearly as well.
Apple Passwords does have TOTP support. I don’t think it did when it launched though
Apple Passwords is part of iCloud Keychain. And Macs have use versions of Keychain to store passwords and system certificates, etc. for something like 20 years.
1Password can store many types of sensitive information and includes features like Watchtower that can alert you to things like weak passwords and security problems with websites you use. And there are versions for families and businesses.
I’ve been using 1PW for 18 years and like @rkaplan expect it to be an important tool to leave for my family.
All excellent points. Thanks!
As for trimming…if you use eero, for $99 a year you get 1P & Malwarebytes scroll down to the bottom of this link for info on eero-plus
Barb