Password managers
Self-hosted alternatives to 1Password, priced
2 open-source tools that can replace 1Password, each shown with what it would actually cost to run for a team of 10 people. 1Password on the Business tier costs $89.90 a month at that size.
| Tool | Server only | With your time | vs 1Password | Operational weight | Licence |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Vaultwarden | $4.80 | $42.30 | +$1,564 | easy | AGPL-3.0 |
| Passbolt | $14.40 | $127 | -$1,782 | medium | AGPL-3.0 |
The final column is the 36-month difference: positive means self-hosting is cheaper.
Which one to pick
Vaultwarden 67,195 stars
A Rust reimplementation of the Bitwarden server. It runs comfortably in a fraction of a gigabyte because vault data is small and encrypted client-side.
At 10 people it needs 0.3 GB of memory and 2.2 GB of disk, which fits the Basic 512 MiB at DigitalOcean for $4.00 a month. Setting it up is roughly 2 hours of work, then 0.5 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full 1Password versus Vaultwarden breakdown · Vaultwarden at every team size
Passbolt 6,115 stars
PHP application with MariaDB. GPG key handling makes onboarding slower than Vaultwarden but the audit trail is stronger.
At 10 people it needs 1.3 GB of memory and 5.2 GB of disk, which fits the Basic 2 GiB at DigitalOcean for $12.00 a month. Setting it up is roughly 6 hours of work, then 1.5 hours a month to keep it healthy.
Full 1Password versus Passbolt breakdown · Passbolt at every team size
How the pricing was established
1Password pricing was read from its own pricing page on 2026-09-12. Server prices come from the providers listed on the hosting page. The sizing model and the cost of your time are set out in full on the methodology page.