Dashlane Password Manager ends free option: here are your alternatives

Password managers can be grouped into free, freemium, and commercial-only options. Free and freemium have been the most common options for users. Free tools, like KeePass, and freemium options, like Bitwarden, seem to be the most popular choices.

Dashlane belonged to the freemium group up until now. The developers of the password manager announced the discontinuation of the free plan this week.

Starting September 16, 2025, Dashlane Free will no longer be available. Free users of Dashlane may switch to the Premium or Friends & Family plan to continue using the service. Those who do not want to pay for the password manager have until September 16 to export their password data.

Dashlane started to notify all users of the free plan by email about the planned discontinuation of the product. It will upgrade all free users to "a trial of select premium features". During this trial, users have no limitations regarding passwords or passkeys, or the number of devices they may run Dashlane on.

However, users have until September 16, 2025 to either export their passwords or subscribe to a paid plan to continue using Dashlane and accessing their data. Dashlane started to limit free tier users to 25 passwords in 2023.

Dashlane Personal Pricing

Dashlane maintains two plans for non-business users: Premium and Friends & Family. Both share most features, e.g., unlimited passwords, passkeys and devices, secure sharing, dark web monitoring, or real-time phishing alerts. Premium includes a VPN on top of that, which Friends & Family does not provide. The latter is good for up to 10 members, e.g., family members, though.

• Dashlane Premium: $4.99 per month
• Dashlane Friends & Family: $7.49 per month

Dashlane alternatives

Dashlane may not be the most expensive password manager out there, but it is not the cheapest either. Here are alternatives for Dashlane that you may consider.

• Bitwarden: open source cross-platform password manager with a generous free version supporting unlimited devices, passwords, passkey management and more. A premium option is available for $1 per month or $10 per year that adds emergency access, security reports, file attachments, and an integrated authenticator to the mix.  Sync passwords using integrated features.
• KeePass: free password manager for Windows, forks support other systems and browsers. Great security and features, but lacks native syncing. You can read my KeePass review here for a general overview of the password manager.
• Proton Pass: another open source password manager by the makers of Proton Mail, VPN and Storage. Free option supports unlimited logins, notes and devices, gives access to all apps and extensions, supports passkeys, and 10 hide-my-email aliases on top. Syncing is supported. Paid plan is $2.99 per month currently. It adds unlimited emails, built-in 2FA authentication, secure vault sharing, dark web monitoring and more.

You should be able to import the Dashlane passwords to these applications.

Closing Words

The writing was on the wall. A password manager with a limit on the number of stored passwords is not really a great option. Many Dashlane free users may have moved on after Dashlane announced the limitation in 2023. Now, the remaining users are forced to make a decision.

Now You: have another password manager in mind that would be a good fit for Dashlane users? Feel free to leave a comment down below.

Source

Hope you enjoyed this news post.

Posted Friday 8 August 2025 at 2:33 am AEST (my time).

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