Dashlane password manager review 2023: Is it safe enough?

With so many passwords needed to access all different accounts, it has become more difficult to protect your sensitive data. Unsafely stored and easily guessed passwords are among the most critical security issues for your online identity. Therefore, there’s a serious need to protect your credentials against online threats.

Fortunately, Dashlane, one of the market-leading password managers, offers an advanced suite of security for your credentials.

With it, your passwords are protected using top-notch AES encryption, biometric authentication, and they are regularly reviewed for weak spots. Not only are your passwords taken care of, but your whole online traffic is encrypted thanks to a built-in VPN.

Yet, Dashlane is one of the more expensive password managers on the market. Compared with NordPass, which costs $1.72/month, Dashlane’s price of $3.75/month is twice as high. In addition, Dashlane’s decision to remove desktop apps wasn’t favorable considering other competitors still offer a variety of OS support with dedicated apps.

Best alternative to Dashlane

NordPass ensures your most sensitive data protection with excellent security features, industry-leading encryption, multi-factor authentication options, and automatic back-ups, and it comes for a very budget-friendly price.

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In this Dashlane review, we’ll look into the security features, tools available to protect your credentials, ease of use, and price-to-value ratio, to decide whether Dashlane is as good as it claims to be. So, continue reading and find out this password manager’s strengths, weaknesses, and whether it’s worth paying for it.

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Pros and cons

Dashlane is one of the most complete password managers in the market – and there's a lot for us to cover. On top of some classic password manager features, Dashlane offers solutions such as automatic form filling, secure notes, and dark web monitoring.

Visit Dashlane to read more about the features

What is Dashlane?

Dashlane is a popular password manager with reliable security tools and features to ensure your credential protection. This web-based password manager offers dedicated apps for mobile devices only and then has web apps and extensions that are compatible with various browsers.

While not the most budget-friendly password manager available on the market, Dashlane won’t break the bank either. It has various plans depending on your needs and can be scaled to business-level needs.

This password manager has comprehensive security measures to encrypt your data and ensure that none of your sensitive information will be leaked. In addition, this password manager has never been breached and has an upstanding reputation.

Is Dashlane actually secure?

The number of features available in both the free and premium versions is impressive. However, the main question remains: is Dashlane safe?

YES, Dashlane is safe. This provider follows a zero-trust architecture approach, meaning your data can be accessed by you only with a master password. Your information settles down on Dashlane’s servers only when it’s encrypted. And 256-bit AES encryption and 2FA ensure that no one from the outside has a single chance of decrypting your vault.

With the removal of Dashlane’s desktop apps, the provider promised not to compromise the most important quality of a password manager – security. For this reason, all security features, such as 2FA, a VPN, emergency access, and the most secure encryption on the market – AES-256, weren’t removed.

Finally, Dashlane has never had a security breach. Meaning, it has a spotless history in terms of security.

With the security features in place, there are still certain limitations Dashlane has. Regarding the 2FA, Dashlane doesn’t allow sending temporary 2FA codes via SMS due to security concerns. Alternatively, you can use different authenticator apps such as Google Authenticator and Authy, while premium subscribers can use 2FA with USB authentication from YubiKey. There’s even an option to use your Apple Watch. We rate this security feature highly because it means that nobody else will be able to get into your account.

Overall, Dashlane covers the basics of securing your passwords. There’s strong encryption, zero-knowledge infrastructure, 2FAs, and a few other tools. However, we did miss out on some extras, that other top providers like NorsPass have, like automatic backups or independent audits that would ensure your data protection.

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Dashlane features

Dashlane has a great selection of password manager features. It has all the useful ones to keep your passwords secure. In the table below, you’ll see the main tools available with your Dashlane subscription.

We’ve found that all the features are easy to use and manage. The password generator, while a bit limited when compared to the likes of NordPass, which allows you to generate phrases as a password, is still reliable enough to generate a strong password.

The password generator was simplistic to use and similar to other providers. One drawback was that it couldn’t generate pronounceable word-based passwords for easier remembering, something that NordPass can offer.

Advanced for filling worked just like any other automatic form filling. If you’ve filled out your personal data to Dashlane, then it would be able to auto-fill that data when requested. There’s also an option for adding payment information from the main Dashlane menu. In addition to bank accounts and credit cards, you may add PayPal as well. To not mix them up, you can choose a color and even the actual bank.

Dark web monitoring and password health checker were another two features that the majority of top-rated password managers have, like NordPass or Keeper. The dark web monitoring works in a way where it checks for leaked emails that can be connected to your credit card or address. This is a bit limited, especially compared to the likes of NordPass’ Data Breach scanner, which checks for passwords, banking details, and other sensitive information leaks.

In addition, there are other excellent tools that Dashlane offers.

Dashlane password changer

Dashlane password changer shows all your passwords from worst to best and offers to improve them all at once. This way, you don’t have to go to each account and manually change your credentials.

We really enjoyed how simple and quick it was to change multiple different passwords so quickly. In addition, this is also safer way to change your passwords since you can use the Dashlane password generator to create extra secure credentials.

Another perk of this tool is that you can see which of your passwords pose a security risk and are in need of update. Dashlane password changer.

Capturing logins

If you're not importing your password database from a browser or another password manager, you'll need to first capture your logins. Otherwise, you will have to enter each of them separately.

This is a quite unique feature for password managers since usually you only have the option to import passwords from other password managers or fill them in yourself. This Dashlane tool saves a lot of time and allows for a very simple and quick solution.

You can set Dashlane to:

• Fill in the details and log you in automatically
• Only complete the autofill
• Disable this altogether

For multi-page websites, you might need to manually enter the second (or third) login by clicking on the Dashlane logo and selecting the right login details. This isn't a major inconvenience, but we'd like to have it fixed in the near future.

Dashlane Secure Notes

Storing sensitive information like ID scans, wifi codes, software licenses or membership numbers requires a level of security that your computer’s Notepad just doesn’t provide. While at the same time, being able to access this information on multiple devices is incredibly handy.

Dashlane Secure Notes allows you to save any sensitive information. It has pre-set options for the following:

• Application password
• Database
• Finance
• Legal document
• Membership
• Server info
• Software license

Unfortunately, Dashlane offers only paid storage that's limited to 1 GB, while to compare, NordPass offers up to 3GB storage. For some users, this will clearly not be enough. Also, some of Dashlane's competitors offer much better deals when it comes to secure note storage.

This feature is not just about storing your data. You can also send it to your phone and securely share it with your family and friends.

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Share your passwords

There are times when you might need to share access to personal accounts with friends, family, or colleagues. Rather than having to disclose your passwords, you can use Dashlane to share access to a particular account.

Dashlane allows you to easily share your credentials by simply selecting “Share item” within your account and entering the recipient’s email address.

You can also specify the level of access you wish to grant them, limiting what they’re able to view, edit and share. If you decide to revoke access, you can do that whenever you want. We really enjoyed this level of customization, because it allows you to safely share credentials without fearing that they will be edited. This is especially useful for businesses that require different login accesses for their employees.

And now comes the big hit to the convenience of this feature. To access the account, your friend must sign up for a free Dashlane account if they haven’t done that already. This limits the possibilities of this tool since it's restricted only for Dashlane users.

Dashlane VPN

Using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a popular way to keep your personal information safe, especially when using open or insecure networks. A VPN encrypts your data and hides your IP address, increasing your online security and privacy. However, finding a VPN as a password manager feature is rare, to say the least.

At the moment of writing this review, Dashlane's VPN is a unique feature and an advantage over other password managers. However, it's available to Premium users only.

Dashlane didn't build this VPN from scratch, it's based on the well-known Hotspot Shield service. Speed is important for VPNs because they inevitably slow your connection down to some extent due to encryption and distance from servers; however, Hotspot Shield isn’t on our fastest VPNs list, since there are much speedier options on the market, like NordVPN or Surfshark. Therefore, we don't recommend this tool for streaming purposes – we tested it out and had to deal with quite a few lags and buffering issues.

On the other hand, Dashlane has decided to keep unlimited bandwidth, meaning it doesn’t place a cap on the amount of data you can send and receive while connected.

To start using Dashlane VPN, you simply need to choose a server and click “Connect” to enable data protection. At the moment of writing this Dashlane review, one could pick from servers in 20+ countries. That is a limited list of server countries, which can lead to overcrowded servers or inability to bypass restrictions.

Unfortunately, for advanced users, there's no way to choose a tunneling protocol, and the VPN doesn't reconnect when the connection is lost. To make matters worse, Dashlane VPN doesn't have a kill switch. This means that in case of a VPN failure, your real IP will be exposed. Therefore, those looking for a proper VPN should choose a dedicated, well-known service.

Overall, our tests showed that this is a very basic VPN tool that isn't powerful enough to meet out criteria of what makes a good and reliable VPN provider.

Single sign-on

With a Dashlane business subscription, you’ll also get the Single sign-on (SSO) feature. This feature offers a simple login experience for organization workers that use their organization’s IT tools. This way, you’ll be able to use the same login you use to access your business tools to access Dashlane.

To access this feature, you’ll need to create a new Dashlane account since you can’t use your personal one. You’ll be directed to your company’s SSO page to finalize your account.

We found that this tool simplifies logging in to different accounts, which is especially useful for businesses. In addition, it’s a much safer way than just having different passwords for different accounts and having to remember each of them.

Dashlane pricing and plans

Dashlane pricing is fairly straightforward, with a Free plan, a Premium plan, and a Family plan for personal use subscribers. There's also a Business plan for teams and more advanced use. If you don't feel like paying the entire yearly fee, you can also purchase Dashlane on a monthly plan.

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While the prices are slightly higher than those of most competitors, the features included in the Premium and Family plan still make it one of the best value-for-money password managers available. In addition, all plans come with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Here’s what you can get with each Dashlane plan:

• Free – Dashlane free allows you to store unlimited passwords on one device, meaning you won’t be able to sync passwords across your smartphone, tablet, etc. In addition, you’ll also only get the most basic features.
• Premium – Premium plan ads to the free Dashlane plan. You’ll have unlimited device support with one account. In addition, you’ll get dark web monitoring for 5 emails, a VPN, and 1GB of encrypted storage.
• Family & Friends – this plan has everything that Premium does but adds up to 6 accounts with one subscription, dark web monitoring for 5 emails per account, and 1GB of encrypted storage per account.
• Business – Dashlane Business plan offers the most features without any restrictions. You’ll get unlimited devices, accounts, and encrypted storage. There will be no limits on the number of accounts scanned for leaks on the dark web.

Dashlane ease of use

Dashlane offers only mobile apps or web-based password manager versions. This provider has discontinued the desktop app versions, which is a drawback. However, the available tools are still excellent and provide all the needed protection and tools.

Dashlane app for mobile devices

The Dashlane mobile app is available for both Android and iOS devices. The Android app is a bit more feature-rich than the iOS version; however, you will still get most of the important features no matter which OS you use. This means you’ll have the same access to all your passwords, VPN, Secure Notes, and auto-fill information wherever you are and whichever device you’re using.

The advantages of the Android app version include support for apps like Facebook and LinkedIn, making it a simple matter of tapping when prompted to log back into apps. While this is fairly seamless, if the said app has 2FA, you’ll still need to wait for a one-time code to be sent to you via the authenticator app of your choice. This can make the whole process of logging in a little slower and more frustrating, but it’s far more secure than leaving apps logged in.

High-security apps like Internet banking or payment apps like PayPal might be more difficult. However, we were able to log in easily as we had already set a biometric lock for those apps and were prompted to provide a fingerprint scan after Dashlane filled in our login info.

Another perk is that the Dashlane mobile app can also act as an authenticator, meaning you can use the app to access websites that use two-factor authentication without the need for an additional third-party app like Microsoft Authenticator.

The Dashlane mobile app supports all the main mobile browsers when running on iOS and on Android.

iOS compatible mobile browsers:

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Safari

Android compatible mobile browsers:

• Chrome
• Firefox
• Firefox Focus
• DuckDuckGo
• Edge

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Dashlane web app

Since the switch to a web-first experience, in order to make full use of your password manager, you’ll have to install the Dashlane browser extension, which will lead you to the web app.

The perk of the web app is that you can use the Dashlane browser extension in standalone mode, which makes the service accessible on platforms like Chromebook and Linux, which don't have dedicated apps.

The web app version offers the full feature experience. While testing, we found that storing, organizing, and securing our passwords under the dedicated Password section was very easy. So even beginners in the password manager world will easily navigate this tool.

In addition, you can also save time by safely storing your payment cards and IDs. On top of that, you can use the Sharing Center section to share passwords or Secure Notes with other people securely.

As for features, depending on the plan you have, you can access Dark Web Monitoring, VPN, and Secure Notes features from the main dashboard. There’s even a possibility to monitor your password health – checking your weak, compromised, or reused passwords. Overall, the feature package is similar to other top-rated password managers on the market and will provide comprehensive protection for your most sensitive data.

The biggest drawback of Dashlane’s switch to being a web-only password manager is that without an Internet connection, you cannot access it, which could cause issues for some users.

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Dashlane browser extensions

Dashlane browser extensions are available on:

• Chrome
• Safari
• Firefox
• Opera
• Edge

The password manager version don't differentiate on different browsers and are all very simplistic to set up and navigate, even for beginners.

The extension is heavily tied to the web app. While we were able to use the extension to add and generate passwords, features like payments, secure notes, and IDs were only accessible through the web app.

Customer support

In case you run into any issues with your password manager, Dashlane offers various customer support channels to help you out. Whether you prefer to deal with the issues on your own or you need to get in contact with a professional support agent, Dashlane has got you covered.

There’s an extensive knowledge base and FAQs page if you intend to research your issue yourself. You can even find detailed step-by-step instructions for every topic, like app installation, extensions, or troubleshooting. These resources can be accessed through the website or via the Chrome extension.

Alternatively, you can contact Dashlane directly via the live chat or email support channels. This way, you’ll instantly get in contact with a professional agent to help you solve any problem.

We’ve tested the live chat option when contacting Dashlane about a few app installation questions. It took between 5 to 10 minutes to get in contact with an agent that very quickly and efficiently answered all of our questions and provided solutions.

If you encounter an issue outside of the live chat support hours, there’s an automated bot will do its best to provide you with relevant resources, and should that fail, email support is available seven days a week.

Video review

If you’re short on time, our Dashlane video review can help. Here, you will learn all key aspects of this password manager, including Dashlane security, ease of use, pricing, and more.

Dashlane alternatives

Dashlane is one of the best password managers available. But how does it stack up to some of its competitors?

NordPass

NordPass is a simple yet strong security tool that’s especially suitable for beginners.

Dashlane and NordPass equally allow to store unlimited passwords for free users.

Plus, Dashlane’s Premium plan offers unlimited devices, while NordPass allows only for six simultaneous connections.

Other than that, the services are a bit similar. They both offer such features as secure notes, a data breach scanner, a password generator, and two-factor authentication.

Read more: NordPass review.

1Password

1Password is superior to Dashlane in terms of security and features. First, 1Password has apps for all major platforms, meaning you stay protected while changing your devices and browsers, while Dashlane has no apps for desktops.

Furthermore, 1Password offers robust protection not only for your regular passwords but also for your credit cards. Meaning instead of manually entering passwords for your banking accounts, you can securely autofill them using the password manager.

Or if you are planning to explore a heavily-censored country, you can use 1Password's Travel Mode and hide selected logins once you cross the border.

What's different is that 1Password doesn't offer a free version but includes a 14-day free trial and offers nearly twice cheaper yearly plans than those that Dashlane has. 1Password's paid plan is $2.99 per month instead of $3.75 for Dashlane Premium.

To learn more, read our in-depth 1Password review.

RoboForm

Roboform is one of the most reliable password managers on the market. It offers a long-time experience that guarantees robust protection for your logins, it splendidly autofills your credentials, and helps to create new complex passwords.

One of the major RoboForm’s advantages against Dashlane is its great free version. It allows you to store unlimited passwords and sync them across multiple devices. You can autofill not only logins but also forms, and there’s a password security audit that doesn’t let you miss a single safety gap.

Meanwhile, RoboForm premium includes more security features for a noticeably better price than Dashlane, which is 0.99/month. You receive 2FA protection, a cloud backup, priority 24/7 customer support, and more.

Check our RoboForm review to learn more about it.

How to download and install Dashlane?

1. Download the Dashlane application from the official website.
2. Install and launch the app.
3. Open the app and login or create a new account.
4. Start saving the passwords or import them from a browser, or other password manager.

Stay safe with Dashlane

Bottom line: Is Dashlane worth it?

Dashlane is a comprehensive and user-friendly password manager. After writing this review, I can even say that it’s one of the best, and it is bound to stay that way for a while. It offers an impressive bunch of features that will make your online life much, much easier.

For example, Dashlane’s password changer is an incredible time-saver. In addition, its included VPN makes Dashlane stand out from the competition. Keep in mind that it offers unlimited data, which is pretty rare with VPNs that are included as an extra.

And while its Premium plan is slightly more expensive than the majority of its competitors, the cost is far outweighed by the sheer number of features included in your subscription.

In any case, you can start with the app’s free version and pay your way up as soon as you feel the need for all the cool extra features offered by the paid subscription.

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