As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates Bitwarden 3.5/5 and Proton Pass 3/5 in Password Management. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 6 of the 6 judges pick Bitwarden and 0 pick Proton Pass. Bitwarden scores higher on 5 of 7 criteria (Hosting choice, offline access & export, Audit logs, policies & reporting, Pricing transparency, plus 2 more). Proton Pass scores higher on 1 of 7 criteria (European sovereignty). Provenance — Bitwarden: Rest of world, United States; Proton Pass: UK / wider Europe. Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made.
Five of the seven criteria lean Bitwarden: audit and policy (6 judges to 0, means 7.7 vs 6.0), deployment and portability (6–0, 7.0 vs 4.0), pricing transparency, identity integration (4–0 with two ties) and sharing and access control (3–0 with three ties). Proton Pass is ahead on sovereignty — means 4.3 vs 3.7, three judges leaning its way, three tying, 0 leaning Bitwarden — with its attributes listing a CH legal entity and US CLOUD Act subprocessor exposure against Bitwarden's US legal entity and US default for data residency. Security architecture splits the bench: means tie at 6.8, one judge leaning each way, four ties. The five weighted totals the table lists put Bitwarden ahead (CISO 6.6 vs 6.2; skeptic 6.2 vs 5.6). Because the lean differs by criterion and judge, no overall winner is declared here.
Choose Bitwarden if
You need to self-host your password manager — deployment and portability leans Bitwarden 6 judges to 0 (means 7.0 vs 4.0); the verdict documents self-hosting for Windows, Linux, Docker and Kubernetes, while we found no public information on Proton Pass self-hosting.
Your audit program depends on named SIEM integrations and long log retention — audit and policy leans Bitwarden 6–0 (means 7.7 vs 6.0), citing over 60 event types, indefinite retention and a 367-day viewable window.
You rely on SSO over SAML 2.0 and OIDC where the identity provider never holds the decryption key — identity integration leans Bitwarden 4–0 with two ties (means 7.3 vs 6.3).
You must budget from published per-user prices — pricing transparency leans Bitwarden 5–1, with Teams at "$4 per month / per user billed annually" and Enterprise at "$6 per month / per user billed annually" (seat minimums, add-on prices and self-hosted licensing are not shown).
Shared-vault governance drives your rollout — sharing and access control leans Bitwarden 3–0 with three ties (means 6.7 vs 6.2).
Choose Proton Pass if
You require a legal entity outside the United States — Proton Pass's sovereignty attribute records CH against Bitwarden's US, and sovereignty leans Proton Pass 3 judges to 0 with three ties (means 4.3 vs 3.7).
Your data-residency standard rules out a US default — Bitwarden's sovereignty attribute records a US default for data residency, and the sovereignty means favor Proton Pass (4.3 vs 3.7).
Your contracting chain cannot sit under Delaware incorporation and California governing law — Bitwarden's verdict describes 8bit Solutions LLC under Delaware-incorporated Bitwarden Inc. with California law; sovereignty is the one criterion leaning Proton Pass (3 judges, 0 for Bitwarden).
You can trade self-hosting for a CH-based vendor — sovereignty leans Proton Pass (3–0 with three ties) even as deployment and portability leans Bitwarden 6–0.
Read this comparison as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.
The SME Owner
Runs a forty-person company where the shared passwords currently live in an Excel file. Wants shared vaults the team actually uses, a way back in when someone forgets the master password, credentials handed over when someone leaves, and a per-user price with SSO not hidden two tiers up.
Bitwarden
This judge's pick
Proton Pass
Criterion by criterion
Encryption model & independent audits
Bitwarden
The security whitepaper names the design end to end — AES-CBC 256-bit with HMAC-SHA256, PBKDF2 with 600,000 iterations or Argon2id, RSA-OAEP for sharing — and states that servers only ever store encrypted data, with the code published openly for anyone to inspect. Third-party reviews run at least once per year and audit results with SOC 2 reports are published and updated annually. What I did not find on the pages I read: a stated list of which fields stay unencrypted, dated audit reports, or any documented past incidents.
Proton Pass
The dedicated security page names 256-bit AES-GCM and OpenPGP elliptic-curve cryptography and states that encryption covers usernames, web addresses and notes rather than just the password field, with public independent audit reports and a bug bounty on top of open-source code. We found no public information on audit dates or named firms, incident history, or a detailed key-derivation description, which is what would separate this from the top tier.
Sharing, roles & recovery
Bitwarden
Sharing runs through organizations with collections, projects, groups and access settings, and moving an item into an organization transfers ownership to the company — so a leaver's shared credentials stay with us. Admin account recovery is documented down to the key model: the enrolled member's key is wrapped with the organization's public key, nobody including the admin can see the old master password, every recovery step is logged, and emergency contacts can be designated. Approval workflows and hiding the password while allowing autofill I found no public information on.
Proton Pass
Shared vaults with selectable access levels, single-item or whole-vault sharing, external links with expiry and view limits, revocation at any time, and emergency access under Pass Plus cover the daily reality of my team. The terms state the company has no ability to recover data if a password is misplaced, and we found no public information on an admin-side recovery or offboarding path for a business account — exactly the scenario I am buying against.
SSO, directory sync & provisioning
Bitwarden
SSO via SAML 2.0 and OIDC comes with a genuinely clear key story — authentication is decoupled from decryption, the identity provider never holds the decryption key, and members can unlock through trusted devices, their master password, or a self-hosted key connector that is self-hosting only. SCIM and Directory Connector handle user and group provisioning, and passkeys can both log in to and decrypt the vault when PRF-capable. SSO sits in the Enterprise tier only, and I found no public information on automated suspension when a member is deprovisioned.
Proton Pass
Setup guides cover SAML SSO with SCIM provisioning for both Microsoft Entra and Okta, including user creation, deactivation and SCIM groups for managing access, and the pricing page shows SSO and SCIM sitting in the Professional tier rather than buried at the very top. Passkeys across all devices and enforceable 2FA are documented; we found no public information on how the vault key is released at SSO unlock or on hardware security keys.
Audit logs, policies & reporting
Bitwarden
Event logs record over 60 event types, export as CSV or JSON through a public API, feed named SIEM platforms including Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel and Elastic, and retention is stated — indefinite, with a 367-day viewable window — while enforceable policies reach master password requirements, two-step login, export, Send usage and browser-extension behaviour, backed by weak and reused password reports and a Have I Been Pwned check. The vendor itself cautions that event logs may not suffice for security, legal forensics or auditing purposes for all organizations, which tempers what I would hand an auditor.
Proton Pass
The Professional tier lists detailed activity logs, enterprise policies and SIEM integration, and the support pages document concrete, defaulted toggles for sharing outside the organization, export, vault creation, password-generator rules and 2FA. Sign-in events record location, ISP and device, with password health, dark-web alerts and inactive-2FA detection in Pass Monitor; we found no public information on log export, retention periods, or named SIEM targets.
Hosting choice, offline access & export
Bitwarden
Self-hosting is documented properly — Windows, Linux, Docker or Kubernetes with a Helm chart, a standard and a lightweight deployment, and compatibility with all clients — and the client list covers Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, Android, iPhone and iPad. Export is documented in honest detail across web, browser, desktop, mobile and CLI, though attachments travel only in a zip for individual vaults and trash items and Sends are never included. I found no public information on an EU cloud region choice, a status page with incident history, or vault access during a vendor outage.
Proton Pass
Clients span Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iPhone and iPad plus the five major browsers, import guides cover fourteen named competitors, and export offers a PGP-encrypted JSON, an unencrypted ZIP or a CSV — though not from the mobile apps. We found no public information on hosting-region choice, self-hosting, or offline access during a service outage, so the way out is documented while deployment choice is not.
European sovereignty
Bitwarden
The chain is American: the contracting party is 8bit Solutions LLC, wholly owned by Delaware-incorporated Bitwarden Inc., governed by California law, hosting on Microsoft Azure with storage primarily in the European Economic Area and the United States. Standard Contractual Clauses and Data Privacy Framework certification are stated, a subprocessor list is published, and self-hosting is offered as the escape hatch that takes the vendor out of the data path. Ownership of the company is unstated, and Google Analytics with cross-site linking is in the chain.
Proton Pass
Contracting is with Proton AG of Geneva under Swiss law with disclosure only on binding Swiss-authority requests, an EU representative in Luxembourg, a DPA offered, and a published subprocessor list naming locations — including US-incorporated Stripe, Chargebee, Zendesk and Hubspot for payments, support and sales. Where the vault data itself is hosted is not stated on the captured pages and we found no EU-region or self-hosted option, so the company's Swiss footing is proven but not the resting place of my vault data.
Pricing transparency
Bitwarden
Both business tiers carry public per-user prices — Teams at $4 per month / per user and Enterprise at $6 per month / per user, billed annually in USD with taxes not included — plus a free trial, a 30-day refund policy, and 30 days' notice before price changes take effect. SSO is documented as an Enterprise capability, so the jump for single sign-on is visible and only one tier up from Teams. What I could not compute from the pages I read: seat minimums, add-on prices such as Secrets Manager, and self-hosted licensing.
Proton Pass
Consumer prices are plain — Free at 0,00 €/Monat, Pass Plus at 35,88 € alle 12 Monate, Unlimited at 9,99 €/Monat — but the captured business pricing page gives feature matrices and seat ranges (Essentials 3 to 30 users, Professional 3 users and more) without a per-user price I could put in a budget for the business tiers. Credit where due: the page shows SSO and SCIM landing in Professional, VAT reverse charge for business plans is stated, and the terms are blunt that early termination costs the remainder of the payment due for the agreed term.
Sovereignty, side by side
Dimension
Bitwarden
Proton Pass
Legal entity
Incorporated in US
Not determined
Ownership
Not determined
Not determined
Data residency
Not determined
Not determined
Subprocessors
Not determined
US CLOUD Act reach
Facts, side by side
Only facts both products carry under the same definition — anything else would not be a fair row.
As of 28 Oct 2026, the panel rates Bitwarden higher: 3.5/5 against 3/5. Weighted by what each judge cares about, 6 of the 6 judges pick Bitwarden and 0 pick Proton Pass. Which one fits depends on the criteria that matter to you; the table on this page shows both side by side, and each judge’s reading has its own page. Both were scored by the same AI bench under the same rubric, from public evidence only, as the methodology describes.
Is Bitwarden or Proton Pass European?
Bitwarden is not European by provenance (Rest of world, United States). Proton Pass is European (UK / wider Europe). Provenance is read from each company’s own legal pages: who builds it and who owns it.
Do Bitwarden and Proton Pass have a free plan?
As of 28 Oct 2026, Proton Pass’s own pages state a free plan; Bitwarden’s pages as captured do not. Each product page links the pricing page it was read from.