Dashlane

dashlane.comcontributed by Samuele Ongaro

KEEP IT

The value is the network, the data or the infrastructure. Keep paying.

A password manager with autofill, breach monitoring and a VPN bundled, aimed at people who want the whole security bundle in one subscription.

Promptfree, for everyone, and the only version there is
Do not build this. The cryptography is audited, and this is not a place to be original.

Every account you own sits behind it. Autofill that works across browsers and mobile keyboards is its own long-tail engineering problem, and a bundled VPN is a network you would be renting anyway.

WHAT TO DO INSTEAD
- Keep it, or move to Bitwarden, which is open source, audited, cheaper and self-hostable if you want the data on your own machines
- Look at the bundle honestly: if you are paying for a VPN you never switch on, you are paying twice for a password manager

WHAT YOU CAN BUILD, AND SHOULD

An auditor over your own vault, from the manager's export or command-line tool. Local, no server, nothing kept:
- Reused passwords, ranked by how much each account matters
- Weak passwords by entropy, and any in a breach corpus, checked with k-anonymity so nothing leaves your machine
- Accounts with no second factor where the service supports one
- Entries whose domain no longer resolves or now redirects elsewhere — a login for a company that was acquired is a login on somebody else's system
- Credentials untouched for years on accounts that matter
- A short quarterly report you act on

Read, report, and clear the export. Put the cleanup in the script rather than trusting yourself to remember it.

ON BREACH MONITORING
You can do this yourself for nothing: check each address against a public breach corpus using the k-anonymity range API, where only a hash prefix is sent and the address never leaves your machine. That is a fifty-line script and it is the same signal the paid feature provides.

THE THING NOBODY TESTS
Recovery. If your phone and laptop both vanished today, could you get back in? Rehearse it once, write down what you did, and keep it somewhere physical. That answer decides whether the manager is protecting you or holding you hostage.

THE ONE-LINE VERSION
Never write the crypto. Write the auditor, check the breach list yourself, and test your recovery.

What you lose

  • Cryptography that has been independently reviewed, which is never worth writing yourself
  • Autofill that works across browsers and mobile keyboards
  • Breach monitoring against databases you cannot access

If you would rather not build

  • Bitwarden Premium, at a tenth of the price

What it costs

as published on their pricing page

PlanBilled monthlyBilled yearlyLast read
—$4.99/mo——

Their pricing page is where these came from. Seeing a different price? Tell us.

The escape hatch

open source · no votes, no paid placement

Vaultwarden

$0

A Bitwarden-compatible server the official apps talk to.

dani-garcia/vaultwardenfree · open source

KeePassXC

$0

An offline encrypted database with browser integration.

keepassxreboot/keepassxcfree · open source

Why this verdict

our own opinion · changed only by a person

18/100

Verdict no at 18, on principle rather than difficulty. The right move is a cheaper reviewed product, or Vaultwarden if you want the server.

History

tracked since 10 Aug 2026 · nothing is ever overwritten

Interest · last 30 dayspeak 1/day
views0130 Aug4 Sept9 Sept14 Sept19 Sept24 Sept28 Sept
— views— prompt copies none yet— votes none yet

Questions about Dashlane

answered from the record above

Is Dashlane free?

No — the plan we track is $4.99 a month. Premium at around $4.99/month billed annually for an individual.

Can you replace Dashlane by building your own?

KEEP IT. The value is the network, the data or the infrastructure. Keep paying. Replacement score 18 out of 100, build time longer than it saves. Read what you lose before you decide.

How much does Dashlane cost?

$4.99 a month on Premium — $59.88 a year. Recorded 10 Aug 2026.

What do you lose by replacing Dashlane?

Cryptography that has been independently reviewed, which is never worth writing yourself; Autofill that works across browsers and mobile keyboards; Breach monitoring against databases you cannot access. If any of those carry weight for you, keep paying.

Is there an open-source alternative to Dashlane?

Yes: Vaultwarden, KeePassXC. The prompt on this page is for when you want it your way instead.

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