Dashlane vs. LastPass: Which Password Manager Wins?

How do two of the biggest password managers compare?

TLDR: Though you’ll find a cheaper price with LastPass, Dashlane wins when it comes to security, customer experience and reputation.

As two of the biggest password managers in the world, LastPass and Dashlane have been vying to be the best password manager for years. Both products come packed with features, for a price. Free plans exist for each, but you’ll have to decide if you can work around their limitations. We’ll help you choose the right product, plan or alternative. 

Password managers work by storing all of your individual passwords in a “vault” that is accessible by one master password. Dashlane and LastPass guard that vault with Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)- 256, which is the industry standard and offers the same level of security the U.S. government and military uses to protect its files. They also feature Password-Based Key Derivation Function 2 (PBKDF2), which protects your account from brute-force hacks. This means a hacker cannot manually guess your password by typing in hundreds of key combinations.

Founded in 2009, Dashlane is headquartered in New York City and also has offices in Paris and Lisbon. Dashlane employs 300+ people, is available in 12 languages, and reports having more than 14 million users and serving 18,000+ companies.

LastPass started in 2008 and was later acquired by LogMeIn, a Boston-based company that also has GoToMeeting and GoToWebinar under its corporate umbrella. LastPass reports it serves 25.6 million users and 70,000 businesses.

We love seeing zero-knowledge security models for both companies. The keys for your master password to unlock your vault are locally encrypted on your own device, so Dashlane and LastPass never store it on company servers. If either company’s servers were hacked, no one could gain access to your master password, and they wouldn’t be able to break into your password vault. Additionally, no one at Dashlane or LastPass is able to access your account or hand over your encryption keys to anyone, including the government.

Both Dashlane and LastPass have password generators, which automatically generate long, unique and hard-to-guess passwords for each of your accounts and remembers them for you. These more complex passwords provide better security.

Both Dashlane and LastPass also have bug bounty programs and security scores in their respective dashboards. These security scores rate the strength of your passwords and suggest which passwords need to be updated. It can also show you which websites you’ve reused the same password and encourage you to update each password to something stronger.

Security Differences Between LastPass and Dashlane

LastPass has an edge over Dashlane due to its frequent audits by other companies and its multi-factor authentication (MFA). LastPass offers more flexibility in its authentication features, allowing you to combine multiple authenticators — like Face ID, fingerprint scanners, YubiKey, authenticator apps and more — to have several layers of security.

WINNER: Dashlane

Dashlane only allows two-factor authentication, which it says is for security reasons. If you have multiple authenticators in play, Dashlane will only use the one that’s the highest priority. Even without that additional feature, we have to hand the win to Dashlane for one distinct reason: The company has never been breached.

LastPass is still rebuilding its reputation with the community after a security hack in 2015. User email addresses, master password reminders and authentication hashes and user salts were exposed. Even though LastPass has tightened security since then and hackers were unable to crack LastPass encryption to see individual passwords stored in user vaults,  it shows a lack of caution and a lack of respect for security measures — at least in the past.

Both Dashlane and LastPass feature interfaces and apps that are simple and intuitive to use. Signing up is equally easy for both products. You won’t have problems enabling autofill or auto-syncing your vault between devices. In fact, once your passwords are stored in your vault, we bet you’ll wonder how you ever functioned without a password manager.

WINNER: Tie

We do think Dashlane has a slight edge over LastPass in terms of presentation. Dashlane’s mobile app is the best we’ve ever seen. Your information is easy to find, and the program is simple to use and always right at your fingertips. Dashlane also features a cleaner, less clunky web browser vault. Though LastPass’ apps certainly aren’t bad, Dashlane’s apps are a step above. The usability functions of both products, however, are close enough to warrant a tie.

Both LastPass and Dashlane offer a 30-day free trial for higher-tier plans, which we recommend using instead of the free plans. If you’re committed to keeping your password manager cost free, we recommend looking elsewhere such as the Norton Password Manager instead of going with Dashlane or LastPass.

Dashlane vs. LastPass: Free Plans

When it comes to free versions, neither Dashlane or LastPass offer the best plan. We recommend using the free plans to try both companies, but you’ll be severely limited in several ways.

For starters, Dashlane caps your password storage to 50 passwords, and you can only use the service on one device. LastPass’ free plan limits are better because you get unlimited passwords. However, the company recently limited its free version to only supporting one device type at a time. So, you can install the password manager on your desktop or mobile device, but not both.

LastPass only offers one-to-one sharing of passwords on its free plan, as opposed to one-to-many sharing. Dashlane lets you share a password with up to five accounts.

Dashlane vs. LastPass: Individual Paid Plans

You can pay monthly or annually for Dashlane plans. LastPass, however, only offers annual pricing. Also, Dashlane offers two individual plan options, while LastPass keeps things simple with just one plan.

If you compare LastPass’ price of $36/year for the Premium plan alongside Dashlane’s Essentials plan price, which costs $35.99/year or $3.99/month, the differences are staggering. While LastPass offers unlimited passwords and unlimited devices with its Premium plan, Dashlane’s Essentials plan allows unlimited passwords on just two devices.

You do get access to Dashlane’s automatic password changer across device types and browsers, while LastPass only offers it for Chrome, Safari and Firefox. You won’t, however, have dark web monitoring or encrypted file storage with Dashlane’s Essentials plan like you would with the LastPass Premium plan.

Only after you upgrade to Dashlane Premium will you see a closer competition between Dashlane and LastPass plans. Dashlane’s Premium comes with a virtual private network (VPN) to protect you on public Wi-Fi, but we don’t think that feature warrants the higher price.

Dashlane vs. LastPass: Family Plans

When it comes to Family plans, both Dashlane and LastPass offer six Premium accounts bundled together and include all the features. LastPass, however, does it for half the price. 

WINNER: LastPass

LastPass is significantly pricier than Dashlane so if you’re looking to keep costs as low as possible, regardless of features, LastPass clearly wins out in this category. 

While neither product offers customer service by phone, both allow you to contact customer support through email. Starting in August 2021, however, LastPass removes the ability to contact customer support through email for its free users. That means the only way a free plan user will be able to receive help is through the limited online resources and community forums.

WINNER: Dashlane

Dashlane, on the other hand, doesn’t restrict its email support to paying customers. The company takes the cake by also offering live chat support – something many other password managers do not provide.

The stark contrast between Dashlane and LastPass’ reputations can be seen most clearly in the reviews both companies received on TrustPilot.

Dashlane’s current rating sits at a 4.1 out of 5 stars and is based on more than 3,200 reviews. The company received a “Great” rating. LastPass, however, has a 1.5 out of 5 stars from just 270 reviews. The company has an overall “Bad” rating.

LastPass continues to strip away features from its previously praised free version (like unlimited devices and email customer support). Combine that drawback with LastPass’ past security breach and other incidents, and we can see why many users are unhappy with the company.

WINNER: Dashlane

Dashlane has a much better reputation with its community. Users reported that receiving help from a representative is easy and the communication on Dashlane’s end is simple.

Dashlane has a long, clean legacy with smooth usability and top-tier customer service, but it’s extremely expensive. LastPass has a rockier history and wants customers to take a specific route, but still manages to be one of the best password managers in the business.

Despite the price, we think Dashlane is the clear overall winner. 

Pricing is accurate at time of publication.