Most employees don’t pay much attention to passwords. Still, anyone with the remotest knowledge of the IT landscape would acknowledge what a challenge password security has been. Employees are not entirely to blame anyway. Almost every online service today requires signing up with a password, and how does one person track hundreds of passwords?

That’s why, for teams and businesses, password management should not be left in the hands of team members. Regardless of the cybersecurity training given, keeping multiple passwords is just inefficient unless the team maintains centralized control over password management in the organization.

Hence, a need for robust password management tools.

Thankfully, you don’t have to look around much. This article contains all the information you need. We’ll review the most important factors to consider in a password manager, highlight 6 of the best password managers, and finally discuss why all businesses should use a password manager.

Factors to Consider in Choosing the Best Password Managers

A password manager is primarily a security tool, and security is the most important factor to consider. Yet, teams should consider many other factors when deciding upon a password manager. We’ll highlight the most important factors below:

Collaboration and Administration

• Robust Sharing & Collaboration: Look for tools that enable seamless and secure password sharing within specific teams or groups. Ideally, there should be granular controls over what data is shared and with whom.

• Role-based Access Controls (RBAC): Make sure the password manager allows you to assign different permission levels based on roles and responsibilities, ensuring employees only see what’s relevant to them.

• Centralized Administration: A user-friendly admin dashboard is crucial for onboarding, offboarding, setting password policies, and monitoring usage across the team.

• Cross-Platform Compatibility: Your team likely uses a variety of devices. Choose a password manager that works seamlessly across different operating systems, browsers, and mobile devices.

Security

• Zero-Knowledge Architecture: This ensures that even the password manager provider cannot access your team’s sensitive data. All encryption and decryption should happen on the user’s device.

• Strong Encryption: The password manager should use the latest encryption standards (e.g., AES-256).

• Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA): MFA adds an extra layer of security and is a must-have feature for all team members.

• Compliance: If your industry has specific regulations (GDPR, HIPAA, etc.), ensure the password manager is compliant.

Team-Centric Considerations

• Ease of Use: A complex interface will deter adoption. Choose a manager that’s intuitive and requires minimal training.

• Automated Password Changes: Look for password managers that can simplify password changes across multiple websites and services for your team.

• Auditing & Reporting: The ability to track password usage, policy violations, and potential security issues is important for team accountability.

• Delegated Administration: Consider tools that allow you to delegate certain administrative tasks to trusted team members, reducing your management overhead.

• Password Generator: A strong password generator encourages healthy password practices and saves your team time.

Additional Factors to Consider

• Pricing: Carefully assess team-based pricing models to find the most cost-effective plan for your needs. Be sure to calculate the long-term cost.

• Support: Responsive and helpful customer support is essential, especially when onboarding a team to a new tool.

Best Password Managers for Teams

These managers are designed specifically for teams to ensure secure teamwork and collaboration while offering robust security features, ease of use, and efficient password management.

1. Uniqkey

Source

Uniqkey is an all-in-one solution that offers robust password management capabilities for teams. Its centralized access management features allow teams to control permissions with flexibility and implement strong password policies organization-wide. With robust sharing and collaboration features, this helps you get shadow IT under control and boost visibility. 

Uniqkey features granular role-based access controls (RBAC), following the principle of least privilege to ensure that employees have access to only the data and services that they need to perform their assigned responsibilities at that moment. Access controls can be implemented via parameters such as geo location, IP, time, and so on.

In addition, Uniqkey simplifies the process of onboarding and offboarding employees, ensuring smooth transitions while safeguarding company data. Leveraging SCIM 2.0 integration with Azure AD, Uniqkey facilitates efficient user provisioning and role assignment, enhancing productivity and security.

Uniqkey is also adept at handling EU data security compliance standards for organizations, including the GDPR, to say the least. All these features make Uniqkey an excellent password manager for teams and organizations looking for robust security without compromising on user experience. 

Pricing:

• Uniqkey offers per-user pricing, and interested businesses must contact the sales team for precise pricing based on their unique needs.

Pros:

• Centralized access management for IT admins
• Secure onboarding and offboarding with Azure AD integration
• EU data privacy compliance
• User-friendly interface
• Frictionless 2FA with automatic TOTP filling

Cons:

• Pricing is not readily available: It requires contacting the sales team.

2. 1Password Business

Source

1Password is a secure and feature-rich solution for team password management. Its zero-knowledge architecture, robust encryption methods, and administrative features make it a strong choice for businesses seeking a centralized way to secure employee credentials and enforce best practices.

While it lacks a free tier for businesses, the competitive pricing and comprehensive feature set make it a compelling option for teams of all sizes.

Security is one area in which 1Password excels. It uniquely employs dual-key encryption, featuring a unique Secret Key with the account password to protect data.

This approach ensures that attackers require both keys even in a breach, rendering compromised data useless. Furthermore, 1Password’s Secure Remote Password (SRP) protocol mitigates the risk of credential interception during authentication.

Integration with popular identity providers like Azure AD, Okta, Duo, and Ping Identity simplifies the login experience for employees, allowing them to unlock 1Password with their existing SSO credentials. This enhances convenience and strengthens overall security by leveraging the organization’s authentication mechanisms.

Additionally, 1Password addresses the challenge of shadow IT by providing visibility into employee accounts and alerting IT teams when credentials have been exposed in data breaches. This proactive approach lets organizations quickly update compromised passwords and mitigate potential risks.

Pricing:

1Password offers tiered pricing plans to suit different team sizes:

• Teams Starter Pack (Up to 10 users): $19.99 monthly. This is a flat rate that is suitable for small teams.
• Business: $7.99 per user per month (annual billing). It comes with reporting ability, admin controls, and advanced protection. 

Also, there’s a 14-day free trial available to new users.

Pros:

• Robust security with dual-key encryption and SRP protocol.
• Integration with popular identity providers (Azure AD, Okta, Duo, etc.)
• A proactive approach to addressing shadow IT by providing visibility into employee accounts.
• Competitive pricing and free trial.

Cons:

• No free tier for businesses.
• Some important security features are only available in higher-priced plans.

3. Dashlane for Business

Source

Dashlane for Business is a well-rounded solution for businesses seeking robust password management and advanced security features. It offers strong core functionalities like password generation, autofill, breach monitoring, enterprise-grade integrations, and administrative controls.

Dashlane enables unlimited group and collection sharing, facilitating seamless collaboration among team members. This streamlines password sharing and management across departments, enhancing productivity and efficiency. 

Further, it prioritizes security with various advanced features, including single sign-on (SSO) integration, SCIM provisioning, SIEM integration, and activity logs with advanced policies.

The proactive security tools are particularly noteworthy. Dark Web Insights provides early breach alerts, while contextual notifications flag compromised employee credentials upon login attempts.

Pricing

Dashlane’s business plan is priced at $8 per user monthly, billed annually. There is no cap on the number of users the team can add to its subscription. A team using the business plan has access to SCIM provisioning, SIEM integration, VPN for WiFi protection, real-time phishing alerts, and secure sharing.

Organizations may opt for the Site License Program, which allows companies to purchase a flat-rate license covering their entire workforce – an attractive cost-saving option.

Pros:

• Unlimited group and collection sharing
• Advanced security features like SSO, SCIM provisioning, SIEM integration
• Proactive security tools with Dark Web monitoring and breach alerts

Cons:

• Single Pricing Tier: This may not be suitable for all business sizes

4. Bitwarden Teams

Source

Small and medium-sized businesses seeking a secure and user-friendly password solution should check out Bitwarden Teams. It includes all the core features, such as passwordless logins and affordable pricing. Larger organizations, of course, would benefit from a higher-tier plan.

A key strength of Bitwarden is that it is open-source, which means the code is publicly accessible. Security professionals can audit it to ensure there are no vulnerabilities and that it does what it says it can do. Transparency helps build trust for businesses, and this is where Bitwarden excels.

Teams would also be excited by Bitwarden Send, a feature that allows employees to encrypt whatever they send. You can send items to colleagues and even third parties, configuring them with a deletion date, expiration date, maximum access count, password requirement, and more. This provides the utmost confidence that any information shared is secured with the recipient.

Pricing:

• Teams Plan: $4 per month/per user billed annually. This lower plan lacks important features like SCIM support, custom roles, etc. You have to pay more for those.
• Enterprise Plan: $8 per month/per user billed annually. The Enterprise plan provides access to advanced features such as security policies, passwordless SSO, account recovery, and more.

Pros:

• Open-source code for security transparency.
• Affordable pricing.
• Bitwarden Send feature for secure sharing with configurable options.

Cons:

• The team plan lacks advanced features (SCIM, custom roles, etc.)
• It may not have as extensive integrations with identity providers compared to competitors.

5. NordPass for Business

Source

NordPass for Business is an excellent choice for teams and businesses seeking a user-friendly and feature-rich password management solution. It also features a unique and flexible pricing model that makes it a top contender in the password management market, along with other innovative features.

NordPass uses the XChaCha20 encryption algorithm, which deploys machine learning for a robust and secure autofill function. It is much faster than other encryption algorithms and does not require hardware support. No surprise that experts are tipping it to get popular very soon.

There is also the NordPass Authenticator, a patented approach to 2FA. It generates time-based one-time passwords (TOTPs) directly from within the NordPass app, thus eliminating the need for team members to sync with account owners to retrieve 2FA codes. It combines the biometric, possession, and knowledge authentication methods.

Overall, NordPass’s approach to password management is designed to promote efficient collaboration among team members and enhance security.

Pricing:

• Teams Plan: From $1.79 per user per month. It allows access for up to 10 users and is suitable for small teams. Teams can implement company-wide settings and also integrate with Google Workspace SSO.
• Business Plan: From $3.59 per user per month. This is suitable for teams of 5 to 250 users and provides the additional benefit of a security dashboard for comprehensive visibility.
• Enterprise Plan: From $5.39 per user per month. This full-featured plan is suitable for large companies. It contains all the benefits of the lower plans and SSO with other providers such as Entra ID, Okta, MS ADFS, etc., as well as user and group provisioning via Active Directory.

Pros:

• Secure with XChaCha20 encryption and machine learning for autofill.
• Unique NordPass Authenticator for biometric 2FA.
• Streamlined TOTP generation within the app.
• Highly flexible pricing plans.

Cons:

• It may not have as extensive integration options as some other solutions.

6. Zoho Vault

Source

Zoho is recognized as an affordable cloud software suite offering productivity features for businesses and it also boasts a feature-rich password manager designed for flexibility and robustness.

Zoho Vault has one of the most comprehensive integration suites among password managers, extending to all kinds of tools, including productivity suites, cloud storage services, helpdesk solutions, and SSO platforms. Of course, identity providers like Okta and OneLogin and directory services like Active Directory are included.

So, whether your team uses Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, or Zoho’s productivity suite, using Zoho Vault will not pose any issue regarding compatibility. Teams can build custom integrations using REST APIs, ensuring flexibility to tailor the password manager to various organizational needs.

In addition, Zoho Vault also provides robust access control capabilities. Admins can set IP address restrictions and define other granular access privileges for shared passwords. Onboarding and offboarding employees are also seamless using Zoho Vault.

One thoughtful feature it adds is the ‘break glass’ emergency access feature, which gives appointed individuals temporary access to all passwords during crises. Depending on the nature of the crisis, this could make a difference between sinking the company and keeping it afloat.

Pricing:

• Standard: $0.90 per user per month (billed annually). This is available to an unlimited number of users, and it includes features such as user provisioning, cloud backup, IP access restriction, integration with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, secure password sharing, and more.
• Professional: $3.60 per user per month (billed annually). Teams with at least five users can opt for this plan and access advanced features such as creating user groups, sharing folders, generating activity reports, etc.

Zoho Vault also offers a discount to non-profits looking for a discount regardless of the team size.

Pros:

• Comprehensive integrations (productivity suites, cloud storage, SSO, etc.)
• Granular access control and IP restrictions
• Bulk user provisioning and centralized access management
• GDPR Compliance
• Cost-effective pricing with non-profit discounts

Why Teams Need Password Managers

The simple decision to use a strong password manager can be the difference between security and a huge financial loss from a data breach. Password managers offer many more benefits beyond security, as they can make your team more productive. Let’s check out some of the reasons.

A. Enhanced Security

Password managers’ first and most significant benefit lies in their ability to bolster a company’s security posture significantly. Password reuse is a major security vulnerability, but password managers eliminate this risk by generating complex and unique passwords and encrypting stored credentials using strong algorithms.

Even if a hacker breaches the password vault, the encrypted data remains unreadable. Additionally, password managers can integrate with Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) solutions, significantly reducing the risk of unauthorized access, even if a password is compromised.

B. Comprehensive Visibility

Traditionally, managing user access and account privileges across a company is a complex and time-consuming task. IT teams often need a clearer overview of all company accounts and who can access them. Without visibility, security blind spots emerge, making it difficult to identify and remediate potential vulnerabilities.

With a password manager, you get a centralized solution that provides the IT team with a clear picture of all company accounts and access privileges. Hence, they are empowered to easily identify inactive accounts, suspicious activity, potential security weaknesses, shadow IT devices, and much more.

C. Policy Enforcement

With a password manager, the admin can configure the rules to enforce company policies related to password security. It’s a guaranteed way to implement best practices for password creation, for instance.

But it doesn’t end there; password management tools can also be set to change passwords at regular intervals automatically, say quarterly. That reduces the risk of security breaches. There are a whole lot of options that business leaders can explore for policy enforcement via password managers.

D. Simplified Onboarding/Offboarding

Onboarding and offboarding events are among the most vulnerable situations regarding access credentials. It is not uncommon for employees who have left the company for years to retain some level of access to company systems. This is harder to achieve with a well-monitored password management solution.

First, it eliminates manual setup when provisioning and de-provisioning accounts. Within minutes, login credentials can be changed from the admin side, reducing the risk of malicious or unintentional data breaches.

E. Productivity and Efficiency

Password managers offer immense security benefits, but that’s not all to the story. They also provide many advantages that can significantly improve team productivity and efficiency. An example is the deployment of password management in the onboarding and offboarding process, as mentioned just a few lines above.

Today’s password managers unfailingly come with auto-fill features to save time and reduce frustration on the part of employees. Without having to remember complex credentials all the time, employees gain smoother access to what they need and can work faster.

F. Secure Sharing and Collaboration

There might be a need to share passwords among team members. Using a password manager helps you achieve this securely and seamlessly. Password management tools typically offer granular access control features that enable businesses to assign specific permissions for shared accounts.

This comes with several benefits. For one, users are limited to only the level of access required for their duties. Additionally, password managers maintain audit trails, which are handy when tracking who accessed which accounts and when.

G. Compliance and Governance

Data security regulations are becoming increasingly stringent across various industries. Businesses are obligated to implement robust security measures to protect sensitive data.

Password managers help companies adhere to these standards by ensuring the use of complex passwords and enforcing granular access permissions.  By strengthening password security and reducing the risk of data breaches, password managers contribute significantly to a company’s overall data breach prevention strategy.

Secure Your Organization With The Best Password Managers

Cyberattackers are relentless in their pursuit, and that’s why it seems the war cannot be won, even though those on the good side continue to develop tools and innovations to up their defenses. In short, investing in a reliable password manager is not a mere precautionary measure; it is a necessity.

Once you realize this, you must focus on implementing the right password management solution. This depends on the needs of your team and the goals you want to achieve. All the password managers reviewed in this article are very secure tools that employees highly rate so you can rest assured.

Featured Image by storyset on Freepik