Apple Passwords
Hacker ApprovedRanked 6 of 21 password managers by recommenders
Free, built-in password manager with easy biometric autofill; critics cite a barebones feature set and Apple device lock-in.
Free, built-in password manager with easy biometric autofill; critics cite a barebones feature set and Apple device lock-in.
116 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 79
- criticize it
- 37
- approval share
- 68%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Owned for 1 year
Median of the 4 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 79 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Autofill with Face ID or fingerprint
“Apple passwords just work. They integrate nicely with most websites where I can authenticate using biometrics instead of copy-pasting”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Credentials for Linux: Bringing Passkeys to the Linux Desktop” “Apple passwords just work. They integrate nicely with most websites where I can authenticate using biometrics”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Credentials for Linux: Bringing Passkeys to the Linux Desktop” “Having it all in Passwords is better in that regard, since it requires you to use Face ID to open the app.”
Comment from 6 Jan 2026 in “Why is the Gmail app 700 MB?” - Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “1Password Raising Prices ~33%”
- Comment from 15 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: How are you managing aging relatives passwords?”
- Comment from 22 May 2026 in “Microsoft to stop sending SMS codes for personal accounts”
Trusted Apple security team
“I trust Apple's security team way more than I trust pretty much any other company on this.”
Comment from 3 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: Advice on Migrating from 1Password?” “Apple at least pretends to care about keeping my information in-house.”
Comment from 18 May 2026 in “The Quiet Renovation at Bitwarden” “today it doesn't seem significantly worse to just trust Apple with this, than Bitwarden”
Comment from 19 May 2026 in “The Quiet Renovation at Bitwarden” - Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Apple's AI Can Now Change Your Passwords. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”
Easy shared passwords with family
“I have a "Family" group in my Passwords app where I share passwords and passkeys with family members for exactly this purpose.”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Passkeys were invented by engineers with zero understanding of consumer brain” “create a family group and add the shared passwords there so there's a central access to everything”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Ask HN: How do you manage kids' accounts?” “It does everything we need in our household, including shared creds.”
Comment from 24 Feb 2026 in “1Password pricing increasing 20% in March” Windows support now improving
“Apple has released iCloud Passwords which lets you access passwords and passkeys from a Windows computer.”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Passkeys were invented by engineers with zero understanding of consumer brain” “okayish and getting better Windows app today that works in supported browsers”
Comment from 14 Oct 2026 in “Passkeys are not a trap” “the Apple password implementation on Windows is actually pretty good”
Comment from 1 Jul 2026 in “Asahi Linux 7.1 Progress Report”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Missing Linux client, limited Windows app
“Password App surely is a good alternative, however i don’t think there are clients for Linux or Windows?”
Comment from 18 May 2026 in “The Quiet Renovation at Bitwarden” “My dad didn't like iCloud Passwords because he still uses a Windows laptop and only recently has the iCloud Passwords app been good or all that useful.”
Comment from 14 Oct 2026 in “Passkeys are not a trap” “I don't think Apple bothered to implement passkey support in their Windows iCloud password implementation yet.”
Comment from 14 Oct 2026 in “Passkeys are not a trap” Barebones features compared to dedicated managers
“It works, it's functional, sure. But compared to apps like 1Password it's really, really barebones.”
Comment from 31 Dec 2025 in “Approachable Swift Concurrency” “Apple Passwords will store a user/pass combo for a site. That's it, feature list over.”
Comment from 3 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: Advice on Migrating from 1Password?” “Custom fields and some other special fields aren’t supported in Apple PW”
Comment from 27 May 2026 in “Dropbox CEO Drew Houston to step down” Device access exposes every stored password
“all someone needs to do to get access to every single stored password, is grab your iPhone while it's unlocked”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Ask HN: Which password manager do you use / would you recommend?” “one of its downsides is that if I have my TOTP app on my iPhone, both passwords and TOTP live on the same device”
Comment from 18 Jun 2026 in “I found 10k GitHub repositories distributing Trojan malware” Lock-in to Apple devices
“the same thing could have been implemented without requiring device/iOS lock-in”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “Credentials for Linux: Bringing Passkeys to the Linux Desktop” “driving adoption (and lock-in) to Apple's Password app, while undercutting third-party apps”
Comment from 9 Jun 2026 in “Apple's AI Can Now Change Your Passwords. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?”
Other password managers people recommend
The four most recommended other password managers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitwarden | 278 | 213 | 57% | 12 | 6.5 yrs23 owners | — |
| 1Password | 238 | 179 | 57% | 12 | 15 yrs28 owners | — |
| KeePassXC | 131 | 38 | 78% | 12 | 5 yrs5 owners | Approved |
| Vaultwarden | 112 | 13 | 90% | 11 | 3 yrs9 owners | Approved |
| Apple PasswordsThis page | 79 | 37 | 68% | 12 | 1 yr4 owners | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 129 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“iCloud Passwords is a superior cross-platform password manager than LastPass today”
“okayish and getting better Windows app today that works in supported browsers”
“My dad didn't like iCloud Passwords because he still uses a Windows laptop and only recently has the iCloud Passwords app been good or all that useful.”
“I don't think Apple bothered to implement passkey support in their Windows iCloud password implementation yet.”
“that UX is about as simple as it can be with just about no learning curve”
“It's very convenient; besides storing passwords, it allows for quick autofill when logging in”
“I trust Apple's security team way more than I trust pretty much any other company on this.”
“Apple Passwords will store a user/pass combo for a site. That's it, feature list over.”
“I have a "Family" group in my Passwords app where I share passwords and passkeys with family members for exactly this purpose.”
“a simplistic single vendor setup such as only Apple iPhone and MacBook with iCloud Passwords app”
“Apple has released iCloud Passwords which lets you access passwords and passkeys from a Windows computer.”
“you can unlock with any Apple device that supports Passkey / Passwords app”
“the Apple password implementation on Windows is actually pretty good”
“one of its downsides is that if I have my TOTP app on my iPhone, both passwords and TOTP live on the same device”
“driving adoption (and lock-in) to Apple's Password app, while undercutting third-party apps”
“I think that there is a lot of potential for this to become a real problem.”
“contained entirely within the passwords app which already has access to all your passwords because you chose to trust it”
“Custom fields and some other special fields aren’t supported in Apple PW”
“I can authenticate with my passkey on my Macs and on my iPhone with ease”
“today it doesn't seem significantly worse to just trust Apple with this, than Bitwarden”
“Apple at least pretends to care about keeping my information in-house.”
“Password App surely is a good alternative, however i don’t think there are clients for Linux or Windows?”
“It can sometimes be a bit clunky and slow, though that's likely related to my environment rather than the app itself.”
“has 95% of the features of, and the ones it does have work far better than the 1P equivalent”
“I'm hoping with the advent of Apple Passwords that some of this password saving magic happens for more of her websites as well.”
“but Passwords is sufficiently good that I haven't bothered looking what it's written using”
“Apple Passwords accomplishes the minimum of what I want a Password system to do.”
“The user experience is great if you switch to Safari with fingerprint login.”
“It does everything we need in our household, including shared creds.”
“all someone needs to do to get access to every single stored password, is grab your iPhone while it's unlocked”
“for ease of adoption (nothing additional to download and setup) and cost-effectiveness (free for those who already on iOS/macOS)”
“the built in Passwords app in MacOS was actually sufficient for our needs”
“Apple passwords just work. They integrate nicely with most websites where I can authenticate using biometrics”
“the same thing could have been implemented without requiring device/iOS lock-in”
“Apple passwords just work. They integrate nicely with most websites where I can authenticate using biometrics instead of copy-pasting”
“I don't think it makes it less safe than having an autofill extension”
“Having it all in Passwords is better in that regard, since it requires you to use Face ID to open the app.”
“create a family group and add the shared passwords there so there's a central access to everything”
“It works, it's functional, sure. But compared to apps like 1Password it's really, really barebones.”
“I like how the Apple Password app informs you about Compromised Passwords so you can you know... go in and fix it”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.