tigerpassword vs 1Password
An honest comparison. 1Password is excellent and hosted; tigerpassword is bought once and has no server. Here is what each does better, in plain words.
1Password is one of the best password managers you can rent. This page is for the person who likes it and still wonders whether a one-time purchase with no server behind it would suit them better. We try to be fair; if we get something about 1Password wrong, tell us and we will fix the page.
The one-line difference
1Password keeps your encrypted vault on its servers and syncs it for you. tigerpassword keeps it in a file on your devices and syncs it through the cloud you already use. Everything else follows from that.
Where 1Password is better
- Sharing and teams. Shared vaults with per-person permissions, guest accounts, recovery by a family organiser, and an administration console for businesses. tigerpassword shares by syncing one encrypted vault through a folder both people can reach — fine for a household, not an organisation.
- Watchtower. Breach alerts arrive without you asking. tigerpassword’s Vault Health checks when you open it, and only ever sends a five-character hash prefix to do so.
- Account recovery. A family organiser can recover a member’s account. tigerpassword has no such path on purpose: no one, including us, can open your vault without your master password and Secret Key. Keep the printed Recovery Kit.
- Polish and breadth. Years of design, every browser, every platform, SSH agent, developer tooling, and a large support team.
- An independent audit, already done. 1Password publishes audit reports. tigerpassword’s audit is what our Kickstarter funds and it has not happened yet.
Where tigerpassword is better
- Price. You buy it once. Two years of a 1Password Individual plan costs more than a lifetime license.
- No server to breach. Your vault is never on our infrastructure, because we have none. A breach of us cannot leak your data; there is nothing there.
- Two secrets, like 1Password — plus a file you own. Both products use a master password and a Secret Key. Only one of them also gives you the encrypted vault as a documented file you can copy, back up, and open with a command-line tool if the company disappeared.
- Seed phrases as a first-class type. Recovery phrases are checked word by word against the BIP-39 list, never autofilled anywhere, and revealed only deliberately. 1Password stores them as text.
- Hardware-key unlock on the desktop. Touch a FIDO2 key instead of typing your master password.
- Sync where you choose. Google Drive, OneDrive, iCloud Drive, any folder — or nothing at all.
Things that are roughly equal
Autofill in browsers, passkeys (both support them; tigerpassword’s iPhone and Mac passkey providers are waiting on signed builds), one-time password codes, importing from other managers, and the basic promise that the vendor cannot read your vault.
Who should stay with 1Password
Families who rely on recovery by an organiser, teams who need an admin console, and anyone who needs a finished, audited product today rather than a well-documented one that is still pre-1.0.
Who should switch
People paying monthly for a personal vault, people who want the vault as a file they control, people holding crypto recovery phrases, and people who would rather fund an audit than a subscription. The switch guide takes about fifteen minutes.