KeepSolid Passwarden is one of the best password managers – its broad range of features makes it one of the most capable options for individuals, families, and businesses.

Beyond its broad set of features, though, there’s no doubt that Passwarden is one of the more expensive options for password management. That’s why we’ve gone hands-on with this tool to find out if it’s worth the cash – or if you should opt for a more affordable alternative instead.

• You can sign up for Passwarden here.

KeepSolid Passwarden: Plans and pricing

Unlike some other companies, there doesn’t seem to be a free version of Passwarden anymore, but that just means you can skip the typically limited tier and jump straight into an affordable plan with all the bells and whistles. There are no tiers as such - you either pay for an account, or you don’t have any account.

The Personal plan costs $1.99 / £1.99 / AUD$2.99 per month, but you can also pay annually and save some cash, for $19.99 / £19.99 / AUD$29.99. Interestingly, Passwarden is one of the only password managers that offers a lifetime subscription option, which costs $199.99 / £199.99 / AUD$299.99.

A variety of payment methods are supported, but KeepSolid clearly encourages PayPal because it offers a 10% discount. 

During signup, you’ll be greeted with popups to pay more for MonoDefense, which incorporates all of the sibling products. Most notable is the inclusion of an unlimited VPN connection, alongside data and traffic encryption, dark web monitoring, and malware protection. Compare the criteria KeepSolid wants you to compare, and it comes out on top of Norton 360 Deluxe, Bitdefender Total Security, McAfee Total Protection, and Avast One, though the latter three don’t include a password manager so are not relevant to this buying guide.

Expect to pay $11.99 per month for MonoDefense including Passwarden, $79.99 per year, or $399.99 for lifetime access, though you’ll often find deals on like one that was running for July 4 which offered lifetime access for just $199.99.

For up to seven accounts, you will need to consider the Family plan, which costs $3.99 / £3.99 / AUD$5.99 per month in total. As above, there are annual subscription and lifetime access options.

KeepSolid Passwarden: Setup

It’s easy to start using Passwarden. Head to your app store of choice – this software is available on Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android – and get downloading. If you’d prefer another platform, Passwarden also comes as a browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge, and it’s available as a web app too.

Once you’ve picked your platform and completed its download, you’ll have to create an account and a master password – it’s the same process that you’ll find on most other password manager tools.

You’ll be given a recovery key, which is an important item that can recover your account if you lose your master password. A slick import wizard will easily retrieve existing password details from other sources – Passwarden can import from every major browser, from tools like LastPass, Dashlane, and 1Password, and directly from CSV files. Once all that’s done, you’re ready to go.

KeepSolid Passwarden: Interface and performance

There is no limit to how many devices you can use with Passwarden, and your passwords are automatically synced across all your devices.

Vaults are at the heart of how Passwarden stores and organizes your secure data. Think of them as similar to folders in a computer’s filing system. All of your vaults are accessible when you log into Passwarden using your master password.

Inside a vault, you can save account login credentials, personal information, payment data, or even encrypted notes. You can create as many vaults as you want inside your Passwarden account, giving you the flexibility to organize your passwords however you like.

Another nice thing about the vault structure is that individual vaults can be securely shared. This enables you to share account information with family members or coworkers, for example, while limiting their access to only data inside the shared vault.

Passwarden also has one of the best password generators we’ve seen. When you go to create a new account entry inside your vault, simply click a password generation button and the software will create a secure password for you. You can choose what kinds of characters to include - such as uppercase letters, digits, and symbols - and select the password length.

The software is simple to navigate thanks to a really user-friendly interface, with your vaults displayed along one edge of the screen and your data entries in the center. To create a new password or record, just click Add New Item and select what type of entry you want to create.

While Passwarden might not be the obvious choice, living in the shadows of some of the industry’s giants, it’s clear that time and thought has gone into the designs, which provide a slick and consistent experience regardless of your chosen device. Even the browser extensions look great.

We were disappointed to see that you cannot create your own data types or customize the input fields for existing categories. While this isn’t a huge problem and it shouldn’t stop you using Passwarden if you like the sound of this tool, that’s a feature that is pretty common in rival apps.

With a distinct lack of business plans, this is evidently a consumer-focused app. It’s surprising that KeepSolid has not yet disclosed any plans to bring passkey integration into the ecosystem, given that many rivals have and that third-party access to passkeys is really beginning to shape up in 2023.

KeepSolid Passwarden: Security

KeepSolid takes the security of your passwords extremely seriously. Passwarden uses 256-bit AES encryption to keep your data safe. Your master password is known only to you, and you have the option to enable two-factor authentication to make logging into your account even more secure.

One additional unique security feature of Passwarden is duress mode. You can create a separate master password that you can use if you are forced to log into your account under duress. When you use this password to log in, your Passwarden account will only display a limited set of vaults that you have marked as non-essential. Most users will probably never need this feature, but it’s nice to know it’s there.

KeepSolid Passwarden: Support

Passwarden comes with 24/7 email and live chat support. The company’s website has a small FAQ section and a comprehensive selection of manuals for its apps, but there’s no phone support. 

Given that KeepSolid claims that it has 35 million customers worldwide, we would like to see real-time support become more readily available. It would also be nice to have localized versions of the site, rather than a seemingly US-only site with prices only advertised in dollars.

KeepSolid Passwarden: The competition

Passwarden’s sharing features make it a good solution for small teams, but it lacks the administrative features that larger organizations require. If you need tools like centralized password management and single sign-on, for example, consider LastPass for business. Plans start at $4 per user per month.

We’re also a big fan of Bitwarden which allows businesses to host their own passwords in a location they know and trust, even behind a firewall or proxy.

Passwarden also isn’t the cheapest option for purely personal use. If you’re looking for a budget-friendly password manager, mSecure offers unlimited lifetime access for just $19.99. However, it’s worth noting that mSecure and similar budget password managers don’t offer secure password sharing.

KeepSolid Passwarden: Final verdict

The platform works across all your devices and makes it easy to autofill passwords as you navigate the web. It works well for small teams, enabling users to securely share a single password vault with other team members.

The biggest downside to Passwarden is the price. Many individual users don’t necessarily need Passwarden’s top-of-the-line features. If you don’t need password sharing, you may be able to opt for a much cheaper (or even free) competitor.

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Virtually every web hosting company offers WordPress, the content management system (CMS) that powers over a third of all websites in 2021. However, managed WordPress hosting, such as the services provided by WP Engine, takes WordPress hosting to the next level.

WP Engine uses its own caching system, content delivery system (CDN) and your choice of data centers in North America, Europe, or Asia. Your websites are hosted on the fast Google Cloud Platform. This all means your WordPress website should load quickly for your visitors, improving the customer experience.

Rated a remarkable 4.5 out of 5 by users on Trustpilot (at the time of our review), WP Engine has been praised on multiple occasions for its responsiveness and reliability.

Managed WordPress hosting not only helps your WordPress site perform well, but it makes the day-to-day running of your site easier. WP Engine includes features like automatic plugin updates, malware detection, and automated backups, so managing a WordPress site becomes less of a chore.

In our WP Engine review, we pit the provider against the best website builder services available today by looking at its pricing, features, performance, and customer support.

Plans and pricing

WP Engine has no less than 12 hosting plans available, alongside custom dedicated hosting solutions. These are split into Managed Hosting, Managed Hosting Plus, and Secure Hosting plans. If you pay annually instead of monthly, you receive a discount of around 20%.

The Managed Hosting plans starts at $25/month. For this, you get a single website, 10GB of local storage, 50GB of bandwidth, and 25,000 visits per month.  The other three Managed Hosting plans increase the number of sites, visits, and storage you get. WP Engine also has ecommerce Solutions for Woo plans as well as Advanced Solutions plans.

WP Engine’s introductory plans may be a bit restrictive, then, but the mid-range Managed Hosting Plus plans are more competitive. Compare pricing directly with other managed hosting plans and it might initially seem expensive, but WP Engine packs in more features for your money.

Features

The core reasons to choose WP Engine over cheaper WordPress hosting are increased reliability, performance, support, and management, but these are hard to quantify. Some features stand out when you browse the interface, however, that can give you some insight into the service offered.

WP Engine Page Performance is a neat tool designed to help you speed up your WordPress site by offering meaningful metrics on performance.

Running a test returns you a page-performance report that details how quickly your page rendered, how long it took to load in its entirety, and the total size of the page. It even includes historical data on your site’s performance over the past six months and recommendations on how you can reduce page load.

Avoid embarrassing mistakes on your site by making changes to a copy of your website before it goes live. This is called Staging, and it allows your developers to make extensive changes to your site without affecting your customers.

In a relatively unusual move, WP Engine restricts the WordPress plugins you can install. Those typically restricted are plugins that have been noted to cause performance issues and security holes. For important features such as caching, backups, and search engine optimization tools, WP Engine has made alternatives available that don’t put a high load on the server.

Interface and in use

WP Engine’s interface is professional and well laid out, but the powerful features might mean a steep learning curve for inexperienced users. If you have an understanding of terms like Git, CNAME, and redirect rules, you’ll be right at home here, but otherwise you’ll need to spend some time on the support site.

In our testing, the default WordPress home page loaded in just over two seconds. This is one of the fastest responses we’ve tested, with competitor Liquid Web only slightly behind.

Support

A managed WordPress service should offer extra value through its support, and WP Engine delivers. The support site includes videos and articles of a quality you’d expect from a paid training course, with help on deeper WordPress functionality that many WordPress hosts don’t go into.

There’s 24/7 live chat support and a ticket system, too. In our testing, the response was quick and the agent knowledgeable. For all plans except for single-site plans, there’s telephone support, too.

The competition

If it’s the higher level of customer support you value in a managed WordPress host, Liquid Web often tops customer satisfaction polls. It has a focus on high-end products like virtual private servers (VPS) and dedicated servers, so if your needs extend beyond a high-performance WordPress site into other software solutions, we recommend checking it out.

TsoHost is another managed web hosting provider we recommend. The price can ramp up, with even the most basic VPS options starting at $52 per month, but you get a level of on-hands customer support that’s virtually unrivaled.

Final verdict

Though not the cheapest managed WordPress hosting company around, we feel WP Engine’s speed, reliability, and long list of features warrant its higher price.

It’s not the first WordPress host we’d recommend to newcomers, as the breadth of tools can be intimidating.

But features like the integrated content delivery network, staging, caching, automated backups and great customer support makes it easy to recommend to SMEs that need a WordPress host that will grow with their needs.

With so much of our lives wrapped up online, it can be difficult to remember the dozens of passwords we need daily – which is why Enpass promises to simplify the process.

This app tries to make password management straightforward, so it could be a good option for individuals or families who want a way to manage passwords without much tech knowledge. Businesses could look to Enpass, too, if they want a straightforward office option.

Add in password generation, auto-fill options, and password audit settings and you've got an app that can, in theory, tackle all of your mainstream password management needs.

Our review will determine if you should install Enpass on your PC or laptop. And if you'd like more password manager advice, head to our round-up of the best password managers or our list of the best business managers. 

Enpass: Plans and pricing

There’s a free desktop client available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, but this is limited in terms of functionality and, most importantly, it doesn’t allow you to sync password between devices, so for anything more, you’ll find yourself having to pay.

The annual Individual Plan costs $19.99 / £19.49 / AUD$34.99 per year and the Family Plan is $29.99 / £38.99 / AUD$69.99 per year, but there are no monthly plans. Alternatively, you can pay $99.99 / £82.99 / AUD$144.99 once for lifetime access. All paid plans also come with unlimited vaults.

Regardless of plan, you’ll get full access to the desktop and mobile apps, 2FA support, and security alerts for website breaches. The Family plan allows for up to six members, which is about as good as it gets. Some others offer between four and six family members.

The standard business plan costs $2.99 / £2.99 / AUD$5.15 per user per month. It includes extra options like Microsoft 365 integration, admin consoles, premium support and app settings enforcement, and the $3.99 / £3.91 / AUD$6.83 Enterprise plan adds corporate policy enforcement, application deployment, and customizable branding. There’s also a newly introduced Starter Plan pre-built for up to 10 users which costs $9.99 / £9.99 / AUD$17.49 per month, which is much cheaper than paying for each user individually.

Most notable for the business plans is the Microsoft 365 integration, which allows users to share password vaults via OneDrive. They also get premium support.

Enpass: Setup

Getting started with Enpass is extremely simple. The first time you sign in, you'll be required to create a master password for your Enpass account.

After that, the platform can automatically import existing account information from a spreadsheet, your browser, or another password manager. Happily, Enpass instantly loads a tab of common settings that you can toggle straight away – including Windows Hello login, toggles for password audits, and more. You also get links to download browser extensions immediately.

Extensions are aplenty, and range from popular browsers like Chrome, Edge, and Safari, as well as less obvious choices like Firefox, Opera, Brave, and Vivaldi.

It's also easy to add passwords manually, and data entry is extremely versatile. You can add notes or files, create tags for easy searching, and choose from dozens of templates.

Enpass: Interface and performance

Enpass has several features for monitoring your passwords and making it easy to use them when you need. The platform will store and auto-fill not just your account usernames and passwords, but also your credit card and identification data. To access your information, you simply need to enter the master password for your Enpass account.

Enpass can also auto-generate passwords. There's an option to make passwords pronounceable, which we appreciated. We also liked the password audit feature, which can identify weak or duplicate passwords within your account.

Adding entries with tags, templates and categories is just a hint about how easy it is to use Enpass, and that continues throughout the whole app – you can even add new categories or edit existing ones if that would be helpful.

Tagging means that it's easier to search for data here than on other apps, and the litany of themes and templates available for the various Enpass apps means that the software's look and interface are very customizable.

Elsewhere, you get rapid syncing, and you can organize data inside multiple vaults to keep groups of passwords and categories linked together – although its vault and sharing options could be improved. As with most other apps, Enpass will audit your passwords and alert you when your data is compromised in breaches.

Enpass also impresses with its platform support. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, and portable versions are available for USB sticks which is a unique and quirky offering that, in some cases, can be very useful. Android and iOS apps are available, along with the extensive collection of browser extensions. That's a solid slate of options, although some other apps do go further with support for Command Line functionality.

Enpass is a member of the FIDO Alliance which is partly responsible for the deployment of passkeys. As such, the company promises to be working on a solution to make passkeys compatible with the password manager, citing the inconvenience and complexity of managing passwords and passkeys independently as a potential challenge.

There’s very little information about the company’s precise plans, which is disappointing, especially given its FIDO member status. Plenty of other password managers have already started integrating passkeys, with others joining throughout the rest of 2023. Dashlane and Nordpass are two examples.

Enpass: Security

One of the best things about using Enpass is that none of your data is ever uploaded to the company's servers. Instead, you get to choose where it's stored, whether locally on your computer or in the cloud, with support for Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive, OneDrive, and even more means that Enpass is almost certainly compatible with your favored option.

Thankfully, the company saw ahead to the problems a hard drive malfunction could cause and built in several options for creating copies of your data. You can create an encrypted backup file, which can only be opened using the Enpass app and de-encrypted with your master password. Alternatively, you can link your Enpass account to most major cloud storage providers and create a synced backup file containing your encrypted passwords. Because you can store locally, you can also link up to your favorite NAS device which, in some cases, will be able to create its own backups.

All data you enter into Enpass is encrypted with 256-bit AES and further protected using SQLCipher. Essentially, that means it's impervious even to brute-force attacks.

Two-factor authentication is now supported via facial and fingerprint recognition – something that was missing from Enpass in the past – and if you're using cloud storage then additional protections will come into play with whichever provider you're using.

Enpass: Support

Enpass offers support by email or phone. However, phone support is only available 11 AM to 6 PM India Standard Time, which is 9.5 hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time. For any US users, that means you'll have to call first thing in the morning to get phone support.

Thankfully, Enpass also has a fairly comprehensive online documentation portal. You'll find a detailed user guide segmented by device type, frequently asked questions, and a user forum. The user guide is fully searchable, too.

Enpass: The competition

Enpass is designed primarily for individuals, as there are more sophisticated options for multi-user accounts and password sharing elsewhere. If you're looking for a password manager for business or just an app with more advanced options, it's worth considering LastPass.

This alternative software offers inexpensive team accounts and better two-factor authentication and enables secure password sharing. 

Bitwarden is notable for its support for self-hosting, so business users in particular can keep their data in a known and trusted location, even behind firewalls and proxies.

If you’re after a broader approach to cybersecurity, some others like Dashlane and Proton Pass also give some paying users access to VPNs.

Enpass: Final verdict

Enpass is a relatively simple password manager that nails all the basics. While it lacks the high-end options you'll find elsewhere, the software is well-organized and easy to use.

If you need a straightforward and flexible password manager, Enpass is a very sensible choice. It’s also reasonably priced in comparison with rivals, plus it’s one of the few that gives you the option to pay once and have access for life.

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Kaspersky is one of the big names in security, so we’ve got high hopes for its password manager tool – and on paper the app impresses.

Kaspersky Password Manager includes every mainstream feature you would expect, from password vaults and auto-filling to a neat password generator. Furthermore, Kaspersky’s tool also aims to prove useful in other ways thanks to document and photo vaults, card and address logging, and biometric sign-in options.

The app misses some advanced features, so we’re going to find out if Kaspersky Password Manager can live up to its big-name status – or if lesser-known rivals are a more secure choice.

Kaspersky Password Manager: Plans and pricing

Kaspersky Password Manager has a free version that unlocks all features and works across devices. But, it’s limited to storing just 15 entries, which frankly isn’t enough for the vast majority of users, rendering the plan virtually useless.

The paid version costs $14.99 / £10.49 / AUD$18.99 per year and enables you to create an unlimited number of records. Although this is noted as the price for new customers only, there is currently no price increase after the first year, but we suspect this may eventually change given the careful choice of terminology.

You can also get access to the Password Manager as part of the two more expensive security plans in some markets, Plus (£18.99 per year) and Premium (£19.99 per year). It seems that this isn’t the case in the US or Australia, though.

Kaspersky Password Manager: Setup

Getting started with Kaspersky Password Manager is fast and easy. As with other password managers, you’ll start out by creating a master password for your account. If you want to use the software across multiple devices, you’ll also need to register and confirm an email account (you’ll need an account for a paid plan, anyway).

The first time you start the platform, it will prompt you to install a set of browser extensions to enable auto-filling. You can also download any stored credentials from your browsers to add them to your database. Helpfully, Kaspersky Password Manager supports importing entries from other popular password managers as well as CSV files.

Kaspersky Password Manager: Interface and performance

Kaspersky’s app interface will look familiar to anyone who has used another password manager, but there are some important differences. The first is that there are fewer data categories. Kaspersky Password Manager has six, whereas competitors like mSecure have more than 20. You’re able to create custom entries here, but you don’t get the templates, categories, or level of control that you’ll typically find elsewhere.

In addition, we didn’t love the way that Kaspersky Password Manager organizes information. You can create groups of entries, but there are no tags. The folder view is also a little bit harder to navigate than the simple list view that many other password managers use. Oftentimes, users value being able to clearly separate credentials for areas of their life, be it work and personal, or social media, banking, and so on.

The password generator in Kaspersky Password Manager is a standard affair. You can choose which special characters are allowed in a password, if any, but there’s no option to force it to create human-readable words. Some password managers do this, but it’s not especially common. Still, it would be nice to have more control.

Elsewhere, you get a conventional range of features. This app can store and autofill your payment details and addresses alongside login information, and synchronization across devices is near-instant. You can store documents in an encrypted vault, too. You also get leak detection and weak password checking.

That’s great, but Kaspersky Password Manager doesn’t have the high-end features found elsewhere, like self-destructing messages or powerful sharing options. You also can’t coordinate your passwords in alternative cloud storage services.

This app is available on Windows, macOS, Android, and iOS. It also has browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. That’s a solid slate of options for mainstream users, but this is another area where other tools go further – it’s pretty normal now to find support for more browsers and operating systems.

While Kaspersky has plenty of business products, its password manager is clearly designed to accommodate to basic consumer needs. With passkeys slowly gaining traction in consumer corners of the Internet, we would like to see support for these new passwordless login methods added. Kaspersky hasn’t expressed an interest yet, while many other competitors have either added or are on the verge of adding support. Given that the company is a heavy hitter in the world of cybersecurity, it’s a shame that it’s not paving the way here.

If you’re after a more rounded approach to cybersecurity, you’ll often find password managers bundling in VPNs to their more expensive plans. While this isn’t the case with Kaspersky, the company does have its own VPN service. It costs $42.99 / £34.99 / AUD$49.95 per year for up to five devices, which is about as cheap as a VPN gets. Add to this the cost of the password manager and you’re about on par with other companies, so it’s important to consider alternatives. 

Kaspersky Password Manager: Security

Kaspersky Password Manager does a good job of securing your data. Kaspersky operates a zero-knowledge principle, which means that the firm never knows anything about your data – and AES-256 encryption matches the high security standards found across the rest of the industry.

That’s a robust set of security options, and two-factor authentication is supported with facial and fingerprint recognition too.

That said, Kaspersky Password Manager doesn’t have a self-destruct feature to prevent brute forcing your password, and you don’t get the option to store your data at alternative locations in the cloud.

More broadly, Kaspersky is one of the biggest names in modern-day cybersecurity and its researchers are au fait with all the latest threats, so you should have some confidence that your data is in good hands.

Kaspersky Password Manager: Support

Home users can deploy Kaspersky’s phone and live chat support, which operates seven days a week from 9 AM to 5 PM EST. You can also try the virtual assistant on the company’s website, which serves as a smart search bar. There’s a dedicated knowledgebase for Kaspersky Password Manager, which offers a fair amount of information about how to install and troubleshoot the software. This is a welcome sign, because some other big companies that offer a password manager often regard it as a minor product and as such, have limited troubleshooting support, such as Norton.

Kaspersky operates forums with helpful advice from the community, and the average response time for emails is 24 hours.

Business customers can access 24-hour phone and remote assistance support, although this is only available with more expensive products.

Kaspersky Password Manager: The competition

If you’re looking for a more flexible password manager, we’d recommend mSecure which comes with fully customizable data categories and enables you to create as many custom fields as you want. The software also matches Kaspersky Password Manager’s cross-device sync using the purpose-built mSecure cloud.

If you’re sold on something that comes from a cybersecurity company, you’ve got options from Norton and Bitdefender. Alternatively, Proton Pass has some significant security background.

Kaspersky Password Manager: Final verdict

Kaspersky Password Manager is an affordable software that covers the basics well, but it does leave a lot to be desired. The platform doesn’t enable you to add customized fields to your data entries, nor can you share login credentials with family or coworkers. We liked the browser extensions, but the ability to auto-fill passwords is far from unique to Kaspersky Password Manager, and overall, not very much helps it to stand out above its rivals.

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Most password managers may have a limited free product or a free trial, but you’ll eventually have to pay to get to the best features – but that’s not the case with Norton Password Manager, which is a totally free security product.

It might not cost you a cent, but you’ll still find biometric login, robust security protocols, and cross-platform functionality here from the company best known for its antivirus software. On paper, the Norton app could be a top-notch, affordable alternative to many of the big-brand paid password manager options.

After we’ve deduced whether or not Norton Password Manager is worth the free download, check out our conclusions about the best password managers. 

Norton Password Manager: Plans and pricing

Norton Password Manager is a free tool, but when you log in, the site lists your subscription status as Trial. This could concern those looking for a free-for-life product, as Norton software such as Norton AntiVirus Basic and Norton Security were initially available as trials only to be removed later.

Though Norton Password Manager is free, the Norton website gently pushes you to purchase it as part of a security suite package with a subscription. A bewildering number of options are presented, as Norton offers at least 20 unique products and just as many ways to pay for them.

The flagship product is Norton 360, a subscription-based security suite that includes antivirus protection, a firewall, cloud backup, a VPN, and password management. More services become available with a few additional tiers, including additional cloud storage, support for more devices, identity theft monitoring, credit card activity alerts, and court record scanning. In some cases, you can also get certain insurance bundled in.

Pricing varies depending on where you are, because each country has its own set of services. In the US, for example, you can expect to pay between $114.99 and $349.99 per year for your choice of four tiers, with the first year eligible for a hefty discount to attract new customers. 

British customers only get three plans to choose from, costing between £24.99 and £149.99 per year from the second year onward, while those in Australia can pick from a slightly different quarter of plans to American customers. They can expect to pay between AUD$75.99 and AUD$194.99 per year after the first year.

Ultimately, though, Norton’s Password Manager remains a free standalone product for now.

Norton Password Manager: Setup

Getting started with Norton Password Manager is simple, as the product is largely web-based. You create a Norton user account and set a unique password for your password vault – an extra-secure area for your most important data.

Most users will also install the browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Safari. These extensions offer to save and fill in website passwords automatically. Norton Password Manager apps for iOS and Android are available from the respective app stores.

There’s a downloadable Norton Password Manager application specifically for importing passwords from Chrome and Firefox. You can also import passwords from Dashlane, LastPass, and 1Password files, making transferring everything to Norton Password Manager easy.

Norton Password Manager: Interface and performance

We liked Norton Password Manager’s interface, which runs in the form of a browser extension. It’s organized cleanly, with sites itemized in a grid or list format. Separate sections for logins, wallet, addresses, and notes keep all your personal details organized.

A safety dashboard feature gives you an overview of your passwords and their relative strengths. There’s a password generator to help create unique passwords. It’s one of the easiest password managers to use and its interface is straightforward, so it’s an ideal option for people who aren’t particularly tech-savvy.

Despite Norton being one of the oldest names in cybersecurity, it’s a pleasure to see that it continues to be willing to invest in modernizing its expansive fleet of software and services, and that they haven’t been left behind compared to more modern rivals. Even though Norton has a much broader portfolio than companies like Dashlane, its password manager can keep up with the best (within the limitations of what the free service offers).

When you enter user credentials on a new website, Norton Password Manager will ask whether to store the details in the protected vault or in its usual password database. It’s also possible to generate a new, secure password when you’re creating a new entry in Norton Password Manager.

Besides storing your passwords, Norton Password Manager gives you some basic metrics on them, listing weak, duplicate, and old passwords that you should change. However, there’s no information available on whether the email addresses and passwords you’ve used have been a part of a data breach. Still, for many Internet users who find themselves repeatedly using the same handful of passwords on rotation, having them pointed out can make identifying weak credentials a lot more efficient.

Autochange is an interesting feature that lets you update the password stored on a site with just one click. It automatically goes through all the steps you’d normally have to perform to change the password. Unfortunately, it only worked about half of the time in our testing, returning an error for the rest. In reality, that’s probably just as much down to each individual website’s architecture as it is down to Norton, and the few other password managers that can handle changes for you share similar experiences.

This app is easy to use and has good core features, but there’s no denying that Norton Password Manager’s free status means it’s lacking some more advanced capabilities. If you pay for apps elsewhere you’ll find dark web monitoring, more support for different browsers and operating systems, and dedicated desktop clients rather than browser extensions. Other apps have more options for organizing and categorizing your passwords and more robust search functionality.

Because Norton Password Manager is just one very small subsection in the company’s broad range of offerings, there’s not a whole lot of information about what it offers and any updates it has been subject to. While finding this information can be troublesome, it appears on the surface to be a strong contender in the realms of basic, free password managers. 

We could not find any indication that Norton is committed to bringing passkey support to its product. Given that it’s purely a consumer-focused product (there are no business plans, or even family plans for that matter), we would like to see support for the new method of passwordless authentication that’s slowly gaining traction, with more sites beginning to add support and both Android and iOS opening up better third-party support during 2023.

Some other companies bundle in VPN services with their paid plans, but Norton instead offers this as a separate proposition. If you don’t want to pay for the entire Norton 360 package, you can subscribe to the VPN for $49.99 / £39.99 / AUD$84.99 per year for one device, $79.99 / £59.99 per year for up to five devices, or $99.99 / £79.99 per year for up to 10 devices, which is reasonably priced in comparison to others. Strangely, Australian customers wanting access for more than one device can only choose between three (AUD$109.99) or five (AUD$129.99), but not ten. You’ll also unlock a significant discount for your first year, as with other Norton subscriptions.

Norton Password Manager: Security

Norton Password Manager has robust security features that put it on par with the best password managers. Your data is stored in the cloud using 256-bit AES encryption.

All connections from the browser to the cloud vault are made through TLS secure connections. The only way to unlock your vault data is with the vault password, which is never stored or sent anywhere. Even better, two-factor authentication is available if you install the Norton Password Manager app on your mobile device.

This is a robust set of security features, but if you look at paid apps you’ll find software with more versatile cloud options, a broader array of authentication options, and custom encryption algorithms.

Norton Password Manager: Support

Norton has an extensive support site, but very little of it is dedicated to Norton Password Manager. There are a basic FAQ and some documents that take you through some features, but these mostly lack screenshots and only occasionally have videos. Searching for help on topics often returns results about other products.

There is a support forum with a few posts per day, but Norton Password Manager shares this forum with Norton Safe Web and Norton Safe Search, making finding solutions for problems difficult. Most user problems go unsolved.

We tested the 24/7 live chat by asking the support agent a few simple questions about the product. Although the live chat was responsive, the agent didn’t seem trained on the product and couldn’t answer our basic queries. Overall, it feels like the password manager is a minor and frankly overlooked product.

Norton Password Manager: The competition

LastPass offers a free account with more features than Norton Password Manager, such as one-to-one sharing of passwords, audit reports, and a better password generator. If you’re willing to pay for a premium account, LastPass adds features like priority tech support, advanced multi-factor options, and one-to-many sharing of passwords.

Another security-focused option comes from Proton Pass, which has both free and paid plans available.

Norton Password Manager: Final verdict

Norton Password Manager works quite well as a basic password manager, but it doesn’t feel that the free software is a priority to Norton. The Autochange feature is neat when it works, and we have little doubt our passwords are secure with Norton, but there’s nothing here that other free password managers don’t do better. 

We've listed the best business password managers.

 When it comes to web hosting and website management, there is no shortage of options. The vast majority of companies out there offer affordable services that are good enough to get the job done.  

Kinsta is a cloud-based hosting solution specifically designed for websites powered by WordPress. It provides you with access to high-performance servers and effective tools such as staging environments, automatic backups, unlimited visitors and bandwidth, and more. 

Kinsta also includes quality security features such as DDoS protection, SSL certificate, and malware scanning.

• Want to try Kinsta? Check out the website here

From the main website, you can access Kinsta’s official blog. It’s easy on the eye and filled with a myriad of articles, most of which are related to WordPress. Among these, you can find a number of easy-to-follow guides written in a meticulous manner. In addition to this, Kinsta offers a fresh and video-packed YouTube channel and relatively active presence on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.

Kinsta features

Kinsta offers high-end CPUs, as well as global availability thanks to Google’s C2 machines on its premium tier network. By using these top-of-the-line CPUs, you are guaranteed that your website will be up and running faster than ever before.

To further improve the speed of your website, Kinsta also offers a global content delivery network with over 275 locations around the world. This allows Kinsta to deliver fast pages and serve cached assets from your visitors’ closest location. 

Kinsta also comes with built-in application performance monitoring (APM), which is its custom-designed performance monitoring tool specifically for WordPress sites. We used this feature to identify any potential issues or bottlenecks slowing down our site during our test of the hosting service.

Kinsta's DevKinsata feature provides a comprehensive development environment that makes it easy to develop applications locally on your computer. DevKinsata includes many helpful features such as version control which allows developers to roll back to previous versions of their code if needed, easy debugging capabilities with Xdebug integration, and deployments to production servers with just one click.

With the new Kinsta Cloudflare integration, we took advantage of a wildcard SSL certificate which let us secure our subdomains with just one certificate. A wildcard SSL is an SSL certificate that secures both a root domain and its individual subdomains. This is in contrast to other types of certificates that require you to list each individual subdomain on the certificate.  

As part of its Cloudflare integration, Kinsta offers customers a unique benefit - reserved IP addresses. Reserved IPs are unique IP addresses assigned to each Kinsta customer site. These IP addresses are reserved exclusively for use by that specific customer and ensure that the DNS A-record IP address will not be shared by other sites on Cloudflare's network. In some cases, this can cause problems if a service blocks a spam site that happens to share the same Cloudflare IP address as your site. 

We were also impressed with the Kinsta Brotli Compression Tool (a lossless compression format that is supported by all major browsers and achieves better compression ratios than gzip).

Brotli compression works by compressing web content with a very large built-in static dictionary that contains various strings in multiple languages. By taking advantage of this feature, the Kinsta Brotli compression tool helped us optimize our page speed by reducing our website's page size by up to 45%.

Kinsta also released a tool called Edge Caching. This is an incredibly powerful tool for websites running WordPress that can significantly reduce the amount of time it takes to serve cached HTML to site visitors. Edge Caching is included free with all Kinsta plans, and no additional plugins are required. 

Kinsta’s Edge Caching tool works by saving your website/page cache to Cloudflare’s global network of over 275 data centers. When site visitors load your website, cached responses will be delivered from the location closest to them, helping to reduce latency and ensure faster loading times.

For web hosting services in Australia, Kinsta CDN is in six Australian cities, including Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney.

Is Kinsta easy to use? 

We find Kinsta easy to use - from signing up to navigating through the dashboard. The web host provides you with an intuitive dashboard that makes hosting your website easy. The dashboard let us quickly access all the features and settings in one place, which makes it simple to manage our website’s performance and security. 

With Kinsta, you can also set up and manage multiple websites from one account, meaning you don’t have to switch between different accounts every time you want to make changes or update your site. 

Kinsta also has a number of helpful features that make managing your website easier. All these features are designed so that even those who aren’t tech-savvy can easily manage their website without too much hassle. 

Kinsta plans and pricing

Kinsta offers different plans, ranging from $35/month to $1700/month. All plans include free SSL, CDN, staging, and migrations. But what do you get when you purchase one of these plans? The Starter plan starts at $35/month and allows you to install 1 WordPress, 10 GB, and 25,000 visits per month. Moving up to the Pro plan ($70/month), you get 2 WordPress installs with 50,000 visits per month and 50 GB of storage. The Business 1 plan ($115/month) comes with fice WordPress installs, 30 GB of space, and 100,000 visits per month. The Business 2 plan ($225/month) includes ten WordPress installs with 250,000 visits per month and 50 GB of space. 

Kinsta also offers the Business 3 plan which costs $340/month and includes 20 WordPress installs, 60 GB of space, and 400,000 visits. The Business 4 plan costs $450/month and includes 40 WordPress installs, 100 GB of space, and 600,000 visits. 

Kinsta also offers the Enterprise Plans. For the Enterprise 1 plan, pricing starts at $675/month and includes 60 WordPress installs, 150 GB of space and one million visits. The Enterprise 2 plan is $1000/month and has 80 WordPress installs, 1.5 million visits, and 150 GB disk. 

The Enterprise 3 plan is $1350/month and includes 120 WordPress installs, 2 million visits per month, and 200 GB disk space. Finally, the Enterprise 4 plan is $1700/month with 160 WordPress installs and three million visits per month along with 250 GB. All the above plans comes with a 30-day money back guarantee so you if are not satisfied with the service, you can request for a refund.

Kinsta speed and experience

Kinsta argues that it is almost a certainty that users will see “faster page load times, along with back-end (WordPress dashboard) speed” when hosting with them. Faster than what, we asked ourselves. Faster than the average speed, faster than lightning or faster than Superman?

In any case, GTmetrix (a tool we used to test the speed performance of Kinsta’s main website) appears to agree with them given that it rated the performance of their website with an A (91%), which is not a result we often see. All major core metrics related to the speed were above the average, which looks pretty promising.

When it comes to uptime, Kinsta’s technical team monitors all of its users’ websites at all times, which means that they will be notified if any downtime occurs and lasts longer than five minutes, and, thus, prompt them to rush to resolve the issue. After monitoring Kinsta’s main website for a month using UptimeRobot, we couldn’t find a single trace of downtime, which does inspire confidence.

Kinsta security

Kinsta is one such provider that offers quality security measures (in our opinion) including SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certificates. An SSL certificate is a type of digital certificate that provides encryption and authentication for data sent over the internet. It helps protect user information, like credit card numbers and passwords, from being accessed by malicious third parties. 

An SSL certificate also helps verify the identity of a website so that users know they are connecting to the correct server and not a malicious one.

Kinsta uses “Let's Encrypt”, an open-source Certificate Authority (CA), to provide its clients with 128-bit or higher encryption as well as 2048-bit RSA keys. Kinsta says its servers are also constantly monitored 24/7 for any signs of suspicious activity or hacking, which is good to know.

Customer support

Kinsta offers knowledgeable sales representatives who can help you find the hosting plan that best fits your website or project.

If you want a deeper dive into all of Kinsta’s features, consider scheduling a personalized demo with one of its experts. This is an excellent way to get familiar with Kinsta's powerful dashboard and hosting features, as well as ask any questions that come up during the process. 

We had a few questions about our website and contacted Kinsta through its question form on the website. They got back to us the next day with answers tailored specifically to our hosting dilemma.

Kinsta’s support team is available 24/7 via live chat in the MyKinsta dashboard so that you can quickly receive help. You can also open up tickets here if there are ever any issues with your site.

There are more than a few self-help option including rather regular knowledgebase, “Learn WordPress'' (series of written how-to guides), free e-books, free webinars, a newsletter and a blog we mentioned before, and everything is dedicated to bringing knowledge about WordPress to its users. In addition to this, Kinsta’s YouTube channel is filled with step-by-step guides and the new ones are coming out on a week-to-week basis at the very least.

As an alternative, you can reach Kinsta’s “timely and knowledgeable” support via telephone and chat, and if you are not in too much of a hurry, you can contact them via email as well.

Kinsta alternatives

Much like Kinsta, Flywheel is a fellow US-based host specialized in “top-of-the-line” managed WordPress hosting solutions. Both of them strive to be beginner-friendly, offer well-rounded, feature-packed packages and are on the high-priced side of the spectrum. However, Kinsta’s least expensive solution starts at a whopping $30, half as much as what is offered by Flywheel. Therefore, if the price is the key criterion (since both hosts are competent) for you, you could save some bucks by going with Flywheel.

Bluehost is one of the most popular hosting options on the market today, even when it comes to managed WordPress hosting. In comparison with Kinsta, Bluehost has a myriad of hosting types and options besides WordPress and its WordPress plans are well-structured and suitable for newcomers. If you are, however, looking for premium managed WordPress options, you might find yourself at home with Kinsta.

DreamHost is a US-based provider supplying WordPress-optimized hosting solutions and related services, including a domain registration, which is something you won’t get with Kinsta. Another thing they don’t provide is a website builder and you’ll have that as an option with DreamHost. What is more, in addition to offering more hosting options, DreamHost has more pocket-friendly plans, so you’ll save some money as well.

Although HostGator does not specialize in WordPress hosting, it has a few rather attractive solutions on the offer. Nonetheless, if you are looking for a premium fully managed WordPress hosting (and you are ready to shell out the money) Kinsta might be a better pick. If you would rather have something simpler and more on the affordable side, HostGator is an excellent choice.  

WP Engine is also a great alternative as it offers a wide range of services, from shared hosting to managed WordPress hosting and dedicated servers. WP Engine is known for its fast speeds and reliable uptime, as well as its excellent customer service and support team. 

SiteGround is another great option if you’re looking for an alternative to Kinsta. This provider offers a variety of hosting plans that range from shared hosting to VPS and cloud solutions. SiteGround also has excellent customer service and support, which makes it a great choice if you need help getting started or have questions about how to use their services.  

Is Kinsta right for you? 

Kinsta offers a range of features to help businesses get up and running quickly and easily, including automatic scaling, managed updates, automated daily backups, and 24/7 support.

Kinsta also offers comprehensive security features such as malware scanning, DDoS protection, IP whitelisting, SSL encryption, and more. These features allow you to protect your website from malicious attacks while ensuring customer data is kept safe and secure. 

Kinsta also prides itself on its performance and reliability - It’s caching technology ensures websites load faster than ever before; this helps keep visitors on your site longer which can lead to increased conversions. 

Kinsta FAQs

Network Solutions was launched in 1979 as one of the first companies to provide DNS (domain name system) technology. Since then, it has developed to provide many more services, all related to web hosting. Today they provide “all you need, in one place”, that is: domain names and various hosting options with a whole variety of features and accessible applications. The company is headquartered in the US, with its main office located in Herndon and its data center situated somewhere in North America.

As of 2011, Network Solutions (together with Web.com and Register.com), became an addition to Web.com Group, one of the leading web technology companies that provide services to millions of customers all over the world.

• Want to try Network Solutions? Check out the website here

• Also check out our roundup of the best shared web hosting

Is Network Solutions good value for money?

Network Solutions’ Starter Plan is perfect for businesses just getting started. This plan costs only $3.79 per month and includes 15 GB of disk space, 1 website, and five email boxes. Plus, you get a free business LLC formation included with registration. For just $9.96 per month, the Essential Plan gives you even more features than the Starter Plan. 

It includes 300 GB of disk space, 3 websites, 1,000 email boxes, and a domain name included in your package – plus SiteLock malware scanning and free business LLC formation. If your business needs more than the Essential Plan provides, consider Network Solutions Premium Plan. This plan covers all of the features of the Essential plan plus unlimited disk space, 10 websites, and SiteLock Premium malware scanning with auto malware removal. All that protection comes at a price tag of $34.95 per month. And don’t forget about free business LLC formation as part of this package too.                               

Network Solutions Premium Plus Plan covers everything from the Premium Plan but adds SSL certificates – all for $40.78 per month. As always, free business LLC formation is included in this package as well so you can protect yourself from potential liabilities associated with running a small business online.

Is Network Solutions easy to use?

Because Network Solutions doesn’t exactly have a myriad of hosting options, picking out a preferred plan shouldn’t be a time-consuming decision. The first thing you’ll need to know is if you want a simpler cloud-based solution or a WordPress-optimized one. For the most part, together with these hosting packages, you’ll be getting email services as well. If not (and you want them), digging a bit more around the website will take you to a few email hosting solutions as well.

When you select a hosting plan, you’ll proceed to the issue of the domain name, with the option to register a new one (for the price of $15) or use an existing one.  After this, you’ll be advised to add an SSL certificate (since it is not included with any plan but the “Premium” one) with which the first month of use will be free-of-charge. Here, you can purchase up to 300 certificates, or just click “No, thank you”.

The next step is to check your chart and everything included in it, where you can choose billing cycles for your hosting plan and an SSL (if you purchased it). The billing cycles are surprisingly flexible and provide various options from one month to ten years; and with a domain option you can go for (a baffling choice of) 100 years, which implies an incredible focus on the future. 

Before you can begin creating your account with Network Solutions, you’ll go through a few suggested add-ons, all related to the security of your website. Then you’ll have to add your personal data, create a password and select a security question (some of which seem almost obsolete, like “What’s your library card number?”) Fortunately, you can write down your own question and unleash your creative potential (if you want that, that is).

Network Solutions is a decent choice for anyone looking for an easy-to-use web hosting service with sufficient features. Not only does it offer a good range of benefits such as domain registration, design tools, email hosting, marketing tools, and more but its user interface is also incredibly intuitive and simple to navigate whether you’re a novice or an experienced user. 

All plans come with a proprietary control panel, which isn’t as user friendly as some industry-standard alternatives, but we managed to find our way around. From there, most of the famous apps can be yours after a click or two (WordPress, Joomla, Durpal and so on) and all developers out there will be glad to hear that a whole variety of website development features are supported as well (PHP5, Python, Ruby on Rails, Java Servlets, Zend Libraries and much more). A number of e-commerce features (and all-inclusive ecommerce solution) are available for purchase, as well as a competent drag-and-drop website builder.

Speed and experience

When trying to convince us of the superiority of their services, Network Solutions brings up their “reliable” uptime with the guarantee of 99.9%, live tech support and flexible hosting plans, without any promises regarding the speed. Not knowing what to expect, we tested the speed performance of Network Solutions’ main website using GTmetrix as a tool. It placed the website's speed performance above the average with the conclusive result of B (85%), which is quite good.

We decided to test the uptime of Network Solutions’ main website by using UptimeRobot and see if we're going to take advantage of the guarantees they provided us with. After a month of constant monitoring, UptimeRobot reported a few occasions of downtime, with the longest one lasting for 19 minutes straight. However, the total of downtime was around 42 minutes. This means the total recorded uptime was 99.917% and that Network Solutions managed to deliver on their promises by a whisker.

Help and support

The first help options you’ll probably notice with Network Solutions are their telephone number (which is advised to be used for urgent matters only) and “Contact us” button that will present you with a few ways to help yourself. Their knowledgebase (titled as “Help Center”) can be browsed with the help of a search box or you can pick out some of the preselected categories. There seems to be a decent number of articles which are mostly written in an easy-to-follow way (often with pictures) and rated by users with a five-star rating system. 

If you would rather rely on support agents from Network Solutions’ technical team, you can get in touch with them via support ticket, live chat and telephone, all of which ought to be available around-the-clock.

Network Solutions features a community forum, where its registered users (we assume, since trying to proceed without registration made us hit the dead end) can seek answers to their questions, answer questions from other users or leave feedback for others to see. However, when we tried to register, not a single one from dozens of display names (and some were quite original) was deemed acceptable (the only explanation we got was “Name you entered is already in use”, which doesn’t seem to be the case), so we can’t report anything more than this.

The competition

Both WestHost and Network Solutions have more than two decades of experience under their belt and are a part of something much larger than themselves (WestHost being under the wing of UK2 group and Network Solutions a part of Web.com Group). With WestHost you’ll get cheaper hosting, but only before the price renewal, after which your bank account might be struck with an existential crisis. With Network Solutions, however, there should be no surprises, since all of their discounts are based on the length of contract, therefore, the same period equals the same charge.

Bluehost is one of those hosts that will provide their users with everything needed, but may make them do a double take upon viewing the pricing after the renewal. Even so, Bluehost provides a great value for money and offers (unlike Network Solutions) VPS hosting, managed WordPress and dedicated server in addition to basics, so it is better suited for more ambitious users.

HostGator can provide you with everything Network Solutions can and go beyond that, and we are not thinking about hosting types only. The entry-level (adorably named “Hatchling”) plan with HostGator includes a domain name, website transfer, unmetered bandwidth and SSL certificate, all cost-free. In comparison, Network Solutions’ elementary plan has less bonus features to attract new users with.

MochaHost and Network Solutions share a peculiar similarity when it comes to their entry-level hosting packages which are best ignored. Neither of them offers a free domain registration nor many unlimited features. That being said, MochaHost does provide a free SSL certificate (while Network Solutions doesn’t - except if you opt for its Premium Plus plan) and Network Solutions provides a one-click installer (which MochaHost, oddly, does not). However, with MochaHost you’ll be entitled to an insane 180-day money-back guarantee.

Is Network Solutions right for you? 

Since it was founded at the end of the disco era, Network Solutions certainly knows how to get groovy with its hosting packages, offering a great deal of helpful tools to get your website down with a boogie in no time. 

When deciding on a web hosting service, there are many factors to consider such as price point, customer service availability, and uptime guarantee. Network Solutions offers all these features in one package, making them a great option for anyone who wants reliable web hosting without breaking the bank. 

Network Solutions FAQs

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