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Password Management

Passbolt

EU-Made Report an error

Panel rating · 6 judges · How to read the stars

Category median

Sovereignty: not determined

0–5 in half steps. 5 means the rubric's top anchor is met on the evidence.

by Passbolt SA · www.passbolt.com

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Passbolt: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai Passbolt: AI-assisted analysis on whats-best.ai (dark)

Add ?theme=dark to the image address for dark backgrounds. The badge shows the category and the month of the latest evaluation, and EU-Made where that is the product’s provenance. It never shows a score.

Passbolt at a glance

Vendor
Passbolt SA
Headquarters
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026
Data hosting
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026
Free plan
Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026
Panel verdict
The AI panel rates Passbolt 3/5, the mean of 6 judges. Passbolt is a password manager from Passbolt SA in Luxembourg, offered self-hosted or as a cloud service on Google Cloud Platform databases located in Europe. how scores are made
As of
Vendor pages captured 13 Oct 2026; evaluated by the panel 14 Oct 2026. all sources

Passbolt alternatives, European ones first →

Read this page as one judge. Each weighs the same scores by what they care about.

The CISO

Weighted verdict

Answers to the board for the day the vault vendor is breached. Wants a whitepaper that says which fields are encrypted and which are not, audits by named firms with dates, a bug bounty, and an incident history written down rather than discovered in the press.

Same scores as the panel view — this lens weights them the way this judge cares.

Scored by The CISO

Panel median The CISO This judge’s scores over the panel median. Each label opens its reasoning below.
Scores per criterion, in stars out of 5
Criterion Panel median The CISO
Encryption model & independent audits 4 of 5 4 of 5
Sharing, roles & recovery 3 of 5 3 of 5
SSO, directory sync & provisioning 2.5 of 5 2 of 5
Audit logs, policies & reporting 3 of 5 3 of 5
Hosting choice, offline access & export 3.5 of 5 3.5 of 5
European sovereignty 2 of 5 2 of 5

Encryption model & independent audits

How this is scored

What the vendor can prove about its security design: end-to-end encryption with named algorithms and key derivation, which fields are encrypted on the device and which are not, independent audits and penetration tests with published results, a bug bounty, and incident history disclosed.

0 — Security described in adjectives ("bank-grade", "military encryption") with no architecture, no audit and no statement of what the vendor can read.

3 — Encryption algorithms named and "zero knowledge" claimed, but no whitepaper, no statement of which fields stay unencrypted, and audits mentioned without dates, auditors or results.

5 — A published security whitepaper naming algorithms, key derivation and the client-side encryption model, a stated list of what is and is not encrypted (including URLs and metadata), and a named independent audit or certification (ISO 27001, SOC 2) with its date.

8 — Recurring independent penetration tests or code audits with reports or summaries published, a public bug bounty or vulnerability disclosure policy, past security incidents documented with their impact, and open-source clients or cryptography that can be reviewed.

10 — The design is verifiable end to end: full source or cryptographic design public, every field encrypted client-side including metadata, audits by named firms repeated yearly with full reports, a threat model that states what a compromise of the vendor's servers would expose, and incident post-mortems published.

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The CISO

The security pages describe OpenPGP end-to-end encryption with client-side key handling and critical operations done in the browser extension, and the vendor publishes a Cure53 white-box penetration test and source-code audit of its integration components with per-vulnerability fix versions and even a won't-fix item, alongside a bug bounty and one-hundred-percent open-source code I can have my own people review. I hold the mark back from the top because the security whitepaper is described as distributed to customers rather than posted publicly, the captured pages give no date for that audit, and no page states which fields — URLs and metadata included — are encrypted on the device and which are not. 5 6 7 1

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Sharing, roles & recovery

How this is scored

How credentials are shared and governed across a company: shared vaults or collections, role-based permissions, view-only and time-limited access, admin account recovery, emergency access, and what happens to shared items when an employee leaves.

0 — Personal vaults only, or sharing by sending a password to another user with no permissions and no record.

3 — Shared folders with all-or-nothing access, no roles, and no stated process for recovering an account or reclaiming credentials from a departing employee.

5 — Shared vaults or collections with read, edit and manage permissions, groups and admin roles, an admin recovery mechanism documented with its key model, and offboarding that transfers a leaver's shared items.

8 — Granular permissions down to hiding the password while allowing autofill, time-limited and one-time sharing with external parties, emergency access with a waiting period, delegated administration per team or location, and approval workflows for sensitive items.

10 — Access is governed and provable: least-privilege defaults, recovery and emergency access designed so the vendor never holds a key and stated so, periodic access reviews supported in the product, and every grant, change and revocation attributable to a person.

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The CISO

Permissions are set per password, folders and subfolders can be shared with individuals or teams, role-based access control and groups are named features, account recovery runs through admin approval with escrow, and revocation is claimed to work at the cryptographic level. We found no public information on what happens to a leaver's shared items on offboarding, on emergency access, or on view-only or time-limited sharing of ordinary vault items — just-in-time access is described only for privileged account management. 1 2 5

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SSO, directory sync & provisioning

How this is scored

How the vault fits into the company's identity stack: SSO with Entra ID, Okta or Google, and the key model behind an SSO unlock; SCIM or directory sync for joiners and leavers; MFA options including hardware keys; and passkey support for users and the vault itself.

0 — Each user creates an account by email; no SSO, no directory sync and no MFA beyond an app code.

3 — SSO available only to sign in to the admin console or on the top tier with no description of how the vault is then decrypted, and users provisioned by CSV invite.

5 — SSO with named identity providers (Entra ID, Okta, Google) documented with how the vault key is derived or released, SCIM or directory sync for provisioning and deprovisioning, and MFA including FIDO2 or hardware keys.

8 — SSO unlock designed so the vendor cannot derive the vault key and stated so, group sync driving vault permissions, automated suspension on deprovisioning, conditional access or device policies, and passkeys stored and used across platforms.

10 — Identity is integrated without trust shortcuts: the SSO key model published and independently reviewed, deprovisioning that revokes vault access and shared items immediately with a log entry, passwordless vault unlock with passkeys, and support for the customer's own key-management or trusted-device approval.

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The CISO

Single sign-on with Microsoft, Google, OpenID and AD FS, LDAP and SCIM provisioning, and additional factors including Yubikey hardware keys are all named features, and the directory integration code has been through an external audit. The captured pages never say how the vault key is derived or released when a user unlocks through single sign-on — the first question I would ask before pointing my directory at this product — and we found no public information on automated suspension on deprovisioning or on passkey support. 2 5 7 1

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Audit logs, policies & reporting

How this is scored

What an administrator and an auditor can see and enforce: event logs of access and changes, password health and breach reports, enforceable policies (master password, MFA, sharing, export), SIEM integration, and reports an ISO 27001 or NIS2 audit can use.

0 — No audit log and no admin policies; the administrator sees a user list.

3 — A basic activity list and a password-strength score, but no exportable log, no enforceable policies, and no record of who viewed or copied a shared credential.

5 — Event logs covering logins, item access, sharing and admin changes, exportable or available through an API, enforceable policies for master password and MFA, and password health and breach-monitoring reports.

8 — Native SIEM integration with named targets (Splunk, Microsoft Sentinel, Elastic or syslog), policies for sharing, export and browser-extension behaviour, log retention stated, and compliance reports aligned to ISO 27001, NIS2 or BSI IT-Grundschutz.

10 — Auditability is complete: every view, copy, autofill and permission change logged with user and device, logs tamper-evident and retained for a configurable period, alerting on anomalous access, and an auditor role that can read logs without access to secrets.

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The CISO

There is an activity log of changes, action logs shipped as syslogs or log files, export of user activity to your own monitoring systems, enforceable passphrase, MFA and password-expiry policies, and a health check with breached-passphrase reuse checks — a credible administrator's toolkit. We found no public information on log retention periods, on logging of item views and copies, or on compliance reporting aligned to ISO 27001 or NIS2, and the certifications quoted on the security pages belong to the hosting provider rather than the vendor itself. 2 1 5 6

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Hosting choice, offline access & export

How this is scored

Where and how the vault runs and how the data leaves it: cloud region choice, a self-hosted or on-premises option, offline access during a vendor outage, client coverage across operating systems and browsers, and a complete, documented export and import path.

0 — Cloud only in an unstated region, no offline access, and no export or an export that drops attachments and shared items.

3 — Cloud with a region named, apps for common platforms, and an export in CSV only that leaves out attachments, folders, TOTP seeds or custom fields.

5 — An EU region or self-hosted option, offline read access on desktop and mobile, clients for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android and the major browsers, and an export that covers all item types including attachments.

8 — Both EU cloud and self-hosted or on-premises deployment documented, a status page with incident history, encrypted full-fidelity export and import from named competitors, and vault access continuing during an outage of the vendor's service.

10 — The customer can run and leave the vault on their own terms: self-hosting with documented high availability and backup, an open or documented export format that preserves structure, permissions and history, and a stated procedure for continued access if the vendor ends the service.

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The CISO

Both deployment paths are documented in detail: European cloud on named Google Cloud infrastructure, and self-hosting on your own systems by package, Docker container or virtual machine, with an air-gap option, a standalone server needing no third-party service, and an offline mode in beta; export and import run in kdbx and csv, and a move from cloud to self-hosted is described. Desktop coverage is thin in the evidence — a Windows desktop app is named and we found no public information on macOS or Linux desktop apps — and the status page is described for availability with no published incident history shown. 6 1 2 5 8

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European sovereignty

How this is scored

Who the contracting entity and the parent company are, where vault data and metadata are hosted, and who the subprocessors are. Independently sourced by the sovereignty pipeline; end-to-end encryption narrows what a foreign authority could compel, but metadata, logs and the update channel for the client software remain in the vendor's hands, so the chain still counts.

0 — Non-EU vendor and contracting entity, hosting unstated, and subprocessors unnamed.

3 — An EU data region offered while the contracting entity and parent are non-EU without a stated safeguard, or the subprocessor list is absent.

5 — EU hosting as standard or selectable and an EU contracting entity, but the parent company or parts of the chain (support, analytics, email, client distribution) are non-EU.

8 — EU hosting on named infrastructure, EU contracting entity, subprocessor list published with locations, a DPA covering vault metadata and logs, and a self-hosted option that removes the vendor from the data path.

10 — Sovereign end to end and evidenced: European ownership, entity, hosting and every subprocessor, certifications published (ISO 27001, BSI C5 or equivalent), and source code or builds verifiable so the client update channel is not a blind trust in the vendor.

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The CISO

The vendor's own pages state hosting in Europe on Google Cloud Platform and Made in Europe, and self-hosting can remove the vendor from the data path entirely. But the independently sourced attributes could not confirm the contracting entity's jurisdiction, ownership or data residency on the captured pages, we found no published subprocessor list with locations — Cloudflare appears in the chain for caching and firewalling, with Aikido alongside it — and we found no public information on a data processing agreement covering vault metadata and logs. 6 5 3 2

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Pricing transparency not rated — the vendor publishes no price

How this is scored

Whether a buyer can compute the real annual cost from public pages alone: price per user and tier, which features (SSO, SCIM, SIEM, self-hosting) sit in which tier, minimum seats, add-ons, and the minimum term.

0 — No public prices at all; every tier is a sales conversation.

3 — A starting price exists, but which business features (SSO, SCIM, audit logs) sit in which tier is unclear — the invoice is unknowable.

5 — Per-user tier prices public with the main features per tier, but at least one commonly needed piece (SSO, SIEM integration, self-hosting, minimum seats) is unpriced or "on request".

8 — Every tier priced publicly with its feature set and seat minimum, add-on prices listed, self-hosted licensing stated, minimum term and VAT treatment given.

10 — Complete price computability: annual invoice derivable for a given number of users, with every add-on, self-hosting licence, support level and renewal condition published.

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The CISO

The pricing page publishes a clear tier structure with community, Pro and Enterprise features enumerated and support SLAs of next business day and four hours in business hours, so which features sit in which tier is knowable — single sign-on, SCIM and the activity log are all shown in Pro. But we found no price figures, seat minimums, term lengths or VAT treatment on the captured pages, so a buyer cannot compute an annual invoice from public information. 2 3

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European sovereignty — proven facts

0 of 4 dimensions proven

Built only from facts shown on the vendor's own pages. A dimension we could not prove is left open, not scored as zero.

Ownership Not determined — uncited Report an error
Data residency Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error
Subprocessors Not determined ⚠ unverified — uncited Report an error

Questions about Passbolt

Is Passbolt European?

Yes. whats-best.ai classifies Passbolt as EU-Made.

Where does Passbolt store data?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026.

Does Passbolt have a free plan?

Not stated on the vendor’s pages as of 13 Oct 2026.

What are the best alternatives to Passbolt?

As of 21 Oct 2026, the panel rates Password Depot (3.5/5), Keeper (3/5) and 1Password (3/5) highest among the other 18 Password Management products evaluated. Ratings that look equal are rounded to half stars; the order uses the unrounded rating, then the name. The highest-rated European alternative is Password Depot (EU-Made). Ratings are the AI panel’s opinion, formed from public evidence: how scores are made. The full list, with European products first: Passbolt alternatives.

Where this could be wrong

What we left out

A claim that does not survive our checks costs us the claim, not the page. This is what was taken off this one.

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Sources (8)

The pages every claim on this page was read from — each one checked, dated, and kept verifiable.

  1. 1 Vendor homepage www.passbolt.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  2. 2 Pricing page www.passbolt.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  3. 3 Privacy policy www.passbolt.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  4. 4 Terms of service www.passbolt.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  5. 5 Encryption model & independent audits — found from sitemap www.passbolt.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  6. 6 Encryption model & independent audits — found from sitemap www.passbolt.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  7. 7 SSO, directory sync & provisioning — found from sitemap www.passbolt.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →
  8. 8 Hosting choice, offline access & export — found from sitemap www.passbolt.com Checked 13 Oct 2026 Details →