Akeyless vs Passbolt (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Akeyless if

• Fits if one platform should hold both employee passwords and machine secrets
• Makes sense if you need SSO sign-in and audit trails on a vault

Look elsewhere if

• Not for you if you want a personal password manager, as it is built for companies
• Tight if you have more than 3 users or 50 passwords on the free plan
• Watch out: Enterprise pricing is not published and depends on user counts
• Watch out: going over a purchased user quota is invoiced at the end of the 12-month contract
• Skip it if you need desktop or phone apps, as only web and an extension are listed

Pick Passbolt if

• Fits if your team has someone who runs servers and wants open-source code
• Works for data that must stay in the EU, or secrets pulled into pipelines through an API

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if you're one person, because no paid plan is aimed at individuals
• Pricey if you're a team of three or four, as every paid plan bills for at least 10 users
• Not for you if nobody wants to maintain a server and you won't pay, since free means self-hosted
• Tight if you stay free, as single sign-on, LDAP, account recovery and the activity log are paid
• Watch out: the browser extension is required, the desktop app is Windows only, and offline mode is beta

Akeyless

• Enterprise pricing is not published; it is quoted per contract and depends on user counts.
• The password manager is one product in a larger platform built for companies, not for individual consumers.
• The free plan is capped at 3 users and 50 stored passwords, with audit logs kept for 3 days.
• Overage beyond a purchased user quota is invoiced at the end of the 12-month contract.

Passbolt

• Every paid plan has a 10-user minimum, and there is no paid plan aimed at individuals.
• The free Community Edition has to be installed and maintained on your own server and comes with community support only.
• The browser extension is required to use Passbolt, the desktop app is listed for Windows only and offline mode is labeled beta.
• Single sign-on, LDAP provisioning, account recovery and the activity log are not part of the Community Edition.

Akeyless

Passwords, passkeys and secrets together

Stores passwords, passkeys, static secrets, rotated secrets and dynamic secrets in one vault, with central password generation policies.

Rotated and dynamic secrets

Credentials can change on a schedule or on demand, or expire after use, to cut down on long-lived shared passwords.

Controlled sharing

Share credentials with employees, contractors and third parties through role- and attribute-based access, with time limits.

Identity provider sign-in

Signs users in through SAML, OIDC, Google, GitHub and other identity providers, and enforces MFA through them.

Item-level audit logs

Tracks access to each credential and can stream logs to SIEM and compliance tools; the free plan keeps audit logs for 3 days.

Personal and corporate separation

Employees keep personal credentials apart from business-owned ones, which security teams can govern.

Passbolt

Granular credential sharing

Shares passwords, TOTP codes and encrypted notes with individual users and groups, organized in private and shared folders under role-based access control.

End-to-end encryption

Passbolt says secrets are end-to-end encrypted through a public-private key architecture, and it requires its browser extension in order to guarantee that.

Self-hosted or cloud

Install it on your own Linux server with packages, a Docker container or a virtual machine, or use Passbolt Cloud, which the company hosts in the EU.

Open source, paid editions included

The Community, Pro and Enterprise editions are all distributed under AGPLv3, so the entire source code is available to inspect and modify.

API and command line interface

An open API and a CLI let DevOps teams create, retrieve and rotate secrets and inject them into CI/CD pipelines as environment variables.

SSO, directory sync and audit log

Paid editions add single sign-on with Microsoft, Google and OpenID, LDAP and Active Directory provisioning, account recovery and an activity log.

Akeyless

• Free$0

  Password Manager limits listed: 3 users, 50 passwords (static secrets), unlimited roles and groups, 3 days of audit logs.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Contract priced by users, with limits up to 100K passwords or custom. Sold through sales.

Passbolt

• Community Edition$0

  Self-hosted and open source with unlimited users: sharing, private and shared folders, groups, browser extensions, CLI, open API and community support.

• Pro Edition$4.90

  per user / month, billed annually

  Self-hosted, minimum 10 users. Adds LDAP provisioning, single sign-on, account recovery, an activity log, tags and next-business-day support.

• Cloud Business$4.90

  per user / month, billed annually ($5.40 billed monthly)

  Hosted by Passbolt in Belgium and Germany, minimum 10 users, with a yearly database backup and next-business-day email support.

• Cloud Sovereign$8

  per user / month, billed annually

  Hosted in a sovereign private data center in Luxembourg with ISO 27001 certified hosting. Minimum 10 users.

• Enterprise EditionCustom

  Self-hosted, with high-availability and disaster-recovery consulting, custom feature development and a 4-hour support SLA.

• Cloud EnterpriseCustom

  Isolated hosting in Luxembourg with a custom domain, custom backup policies, 24/7 SOC monitoring and a 4-hour support SLA.

Akeyless

No public discounts listed.

Passbolt

• Annual discount

  10% off Cloud Business with yearly billing

  Cloud Business costs $5.40 per user a month billed monthly or $4.90 billed annually; the pricing page labels yearly billing as 10% off.

• Nonprofit

  Discounts for non-profits and education

  Non-profits, charities, foundations, associations and educational institutions can request a discount on Passbolt Pro or Cloud. The amount is at Passbolt's discretion.

• Other savings

  Discounts for open source projects

  Maintainers and contributors of public open source projects and communities can request a discount through the same form.

• Other savings

  Volume discounts above 100 users

  The Pro Edition pricing notes that volume discounts apply after 100 users, arranged through a quote.