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Comment by warpech | Hacker News Reader

Bitwarden IMO beats LastPass and 1Password. Very polished, hassle free experience

I switched to bitwarden from 1password when frustration with mac laptop hardware drove me to a thinkpad running fedora workstation as a daily driver and 1password's new stuff wouldn't run well in wine.

I run a self-hosted bitwarden server, which I love.

But the client is, in my opinion, not nearly as good as 1password. Its login detection is often disruptively wrong. The need to unlock the keychain each time you start a client is aggravating. The fact that the keychain doesn't lock itself when I lock the worstation is more aggravating. It's sensitive to server downtime when it should be able to work offline. The desktop app is either electron or something very similar and chews battery for me if I accidentally leave it running. 1password's secure notes are far richer. 1password's storage for software licenses is useful and bitwarden offers nothing similar that I've been able to find.

I'm not saying any of this to shit on bitwarden. I like it, and pay for it both in dollars to bitwarden and in time spent keeping the server running/patched. (Which I know is optional, but I really like having it self-hosted).

If 1password could offer me a decent linux desktop experience and a self hosted server, I'd switch back. I liked it that much better.

I have 1Password and Bitwarden on my screen right now. Bitwarden does not hold a candle to 1Password. There is no Watchtower or MFA availability notification. Yes, BW is a password manager, and that is about it.

Those aren't core to actual password management though. Bitwarden is a very good password manager, and that's what it needs to be to fulfil its raison d'être.

If 1Password's claim to fame is functionality beyond password management, so be it, but that doesn't define it as better but rather broader scoped.

We actually use all those features in addition to password management. Our old password management strategy was an encrypted Excel spreadsheet. This creates problems, obviously. Management, at least to me, mean ACLs, reporting, auditing, and alerting. And that is on top of basic password management.

Actually, Bitwarden does have its own Watchtower alternative; you'd access Data Breach Report in the menu, and it tells you which accounts need their passwords changed. I'm not sure if it sends a notification when a new breach comes in that includes your account.

Have I Been Pwned partnered directly with 1Password, which is probably why they're able to send out notifications directly; Bitwarden has to worry about being rate-limited.

I'm not too sure what's meant by MFA availability, but Bitwarden also lets you use it as a TOTP generator + use 2FA for logging into your vault, though those are premium features.

At least it has a Linux client. 1password cannot justify its price for Linux users when it only offers a browser extension…

I just switched from 1Password to Bitwarden and it is absolutely not polished compared to 1Password.

Bitwarden didn't allow Android fingerprinting when I used it a few months ago (limitation in one of their electron libraries) which pretty much ruined it for me unfortunately. Not sure if this works in IOS.

edit: I'm wrong, it didn't support touchID in OSX https://community.bitwarden.com/t/touch-id-support-for-macos...

the Mac client doesn’t support biometric login (TouchID), which we’ve only had on these computers for about four years...

Electron finally added support for TouchID a few months ago (version 6), so hopefully that's coming

And that's one of the major reasons for me to choose 1Password - native apps on macOS, iOS and Windows

Are you on an old version? I’ve been using TouchID with 1Password on Mac and FaceID on iPhone for as long as I can remember them being a thing

I think when they switched to subscription model they left people who didn’t switch on an old version

I believe they were referring to lack of TouchID support in Bitwarden, not in 1Password.

Bitwarden had a crappy (and slow) android app, a crappy (and slow, touch based interface, poor right click options, poor design, memory hungry, crippled) windows desktop app, and an OK (for a web app) desktop site.

It only beats 1Password on price.

If you don't want to pay for a fucking awesome app, good riddance to you.

Their Android app has never seemed slow or crappy to me.

It doesn't scale well though. I have my font size set to maximum, and the Bitwarden app is pretty much unusable. So I use 1Password.

I'm using the Birwarden Windows app (and Mac app) right now, and both seem great to me.

ditto, but on windows and Android

Then perhaps you never used a better app.

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