Passbolt Review 2026: Open-Source Team Password Manager Pricing and Verdict

Passbolt is built for teams that want to read the code and own the server. It is open source under AGPL v3, built on OpenPGP, and run by a European company, so it lands on shortlists where Bitwarden is the default.

The price question is less about the per-seat rate, which is close to Bitwarden's, and more about the 10-seat floor and what each tier makes you run yourself.

Methodology: this review reads the plans, limits and terms on Passbolt's Pro and Cloud pricing pages in their USD view, its security page and its plan FAQs, plus the business pricing pages of Bitwarden, Keeper and 1Password, all on November 4, 2026.

Team totals are our arithmetic on those printed per-user prices. It is a read of the published terms, not a hands-on deployment.

Toolradar data: Toolradar, the software directory we run, tracks 38 password managers as of November 4, 2026, and 58% of them are free, freemium or open source.

Passbolt is in that majority through its Community Edition, which is why its paid tiers have to justify themselves on administration features rather than on access to the vault.

Passbolt is an end-to-end encrypted password and credential manager built for teams. Secrets are encrypted on the client with each user's OpenPGP key, so the server stores only ciphertext, and permissions are set per password, per folder and per group.

It manages passwords, TOTP codes, encrypted notes and custom fields, with browser extensions, iOS and Android apps, a Windows desktop app, a CLI and an open API.

It ships in two shapes. You can self-host it as the free Community Edition or the paid Pro Edition on Debian, Ubuntu, Red Hat and other Linux systems, Docker or a VM appliance.

Or you can buy Passbolt Cloud, hosted on Google Cloud in Belgium and Germany on the Business plan or in a sovereign Luxembourg data center on Sovereign and Enterprise.

For the full field, our best password managers ranking compares the main business vaults, and best open-source security tools places Passbolt among other auditable software.

A self-hosted install runs on your own server from Passbolt's official scripts, Docker container or VM appliance. Each user creates an account with a secret key and passphrase, and installs the browser extension that encrypts and decrypts locally.

Admins share credentials to users or groups with granular rights, and the browser integration autofills and suggests only credentials relevant to the page.

Pro adds the features an IT team usually needs before rollout: LDAP and Active Directory provisioning, SCIM, single sign-on with Microsoft, Google, OpenID and AD FS, MFA policies, account recovery through key escrow, and an activity log that can be exported as syslog.

Pro runs on a subscription key, a file Passbolt emails after purchase that enforces your user quota, and adding seats means contacting sales for a new key.

The cloud plans remove the server work. Cloud Business is pay as you go per user and bills monthly or yearly, with a 7-day free trial and a free yearly full database backup. Support on Pro and Cloud Business is next-business-day email, counted in CET business hours, which matters for a US team that hits a problem on a Friday afternoon.

Passbolt prints two price lists, and which one applies depends on whether you want to run a server. Self-hosted: Community Edition is free for unlimited users; Pro is $4.9 per user a month billed annually, with a 10-user minimum, one instance and volume discounts after 100 users; Enterprise is quoted. Cloud: Business is $5.4 per user a month billed monthly, or the Pro rate on yearly billing, with a 10-user minimum and a 7-day trial; Sovereign is $8 per user a month billed annually, also from 10 users; Cloud Enterprise is quoted. Non-profits, schools and open source projects get separate plans on request. Sources: Passbolt Pro pricing and Passbolt Cloud pricing, checked on November 4, 2026.

Cost scenario, 25 users for a year: Passbolt Pro self-hosted or Cloud Business on yearly billing costs $1,470, Cloud Business on monthly billing $1,620 and Sovereign $2,400. The same team pays $1,200 on Bitwarden Teams or Keeper Business, $1,800 on Bitwarden Enterprise or Keeper Enterprise, and $2,697 on 1Password Business. These totals are our arithmetic on printed per-user prices, before any server cost for self-hosting.

The comparison flips once SSO is required. Bitwarden and Keeper put SSO on their Enterprise tiers, so a 25-person team that needs it pays $330 a year more there than on Passbolt Pro. For a 5-person team the floor bites the other way: Passbolt bills 10 seats, $588 a year on Pro, against $240 for five Bitwarden Teams seats. Rival prices were read on the Bitwarden, Keeper and 1Password business pricing pages the same day, all on annual billing.

Passbolt fits an IT or DevOps team of 10 to a few hundred people that wants to self-host, needs SSO or directory sync, and values open code over polish. Pro gives it SSO, LDAP, SCIM, account recovery and audit logs at the price other vendors charge for their team tier, and the AGPL licence means the code can be inspected. Regulated European organizations get a further option in the Sovereign cloud.

It is a poor fit for a team under 10, which pays for empty seats on every paid plan, and for a non-technical office that wants a vault people adopt without training. The OpenPGP model means every user holds a secret key and passphrase, an extra step a non-technical office may need help with. US teams should also weigh support hours: the SLA is next business day in CET, and phone support starts on Enterprise.

One licensing point deserves a check before you buy. Passbolt's FAQ says Pro needs a valid subscription key to run, and also that an expired subscription keeps working with your team while losing updates and support; confirm with sales how your instance behaves at expiry. MSPs comparing options should start with our password managers for MSPs guide, and teams on a zero budget with best free password managers.