pass password manager
Hacker ApprovedRanked 8 of 21 password managers by recommenders
Simple, stable command-line password manager storing gpg-encrypted files in git, so syncing and backup are easy. Common caveat: weak phone and Windows support.
Simple, stable command-line password manager storing gpg-encrypted files in git, so syncing and backup are easy. Common caveat: weak phone and Windows support.
48 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 41
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 85%
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 10 years
Median of the 7 owners who said how long they have had it.
Each square is one year.
Why it carries the badge
- 41 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 5.9 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
Syncs and backs up via git
“The 'pass' utility has git integration and encourages you to have a git remote somewhere to host a duplicate of your encrypted store.”
Comment from 9 Oct 2026 in “Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?” “It's a shell script that stores passwords in a git repository, containing one file per entry.”
Comment from 21 May 2026 in “Get your passwords out of Bitwarden while you still can” “Use pass or gopass for all your CLI tokens and sync them via a private git repo.”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “Bitwarden CLI Compromised in Ongoing Checkmarx Supply Chain” - Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “I tried building my startup entirely on European infrastructure”
- Comment from 21 May 2026 in “Get your passwords out of Bitwarden while you still can”
Used reliably for years
“This is how I have been doing password management for over a decade with password store”
Comment from 28 Aug 2026 in “Show HN: Sesame - a local-first, open-source password manager” “This has reduced my maintenance burden on my spouse's devices down to practically zero.”
Comment from 8 Nov 2025 in “Two billion email addresses were exposed” “I've been using pass ( https://www.passwordstore.org/ ) for years on multiple desktops”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Passkeys were invented by engineers with zero understanding of consumer brain” - Comment from 3 Sep 2026 in “Ask HN: Advice on Migrating from 1Password?”
- Comment from 19 May 2026 in “The Quiet Renovation at Bitwarden”
- Comment from 26 Jun 2026 in “LastPass notifies users of yet another data breach”
Simple, short, stable design
“It's short, pretty easy to read and likely in part because it's so simple, it's also very stable.”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “Bitwarden CLI Compromised in Ongoing Checkmarx Supply Chain” “since it is a local only tool, you don't really need to update it constantly”
Comment from 23 Apr 2026 in “Bitwarden CLI Compromised in Ongoing Checkmarx Supply Chain” “the upside of that design is that it tends to be very resilient”
Comment from 2 Jan 2026 in “Pacc: A Better Unix Password Manager” - Comment from 21 May 2026 in “Get your passwords out of Bitwarden while you still can”
Encrypted files via gpg
“Just a shell script wrapper to gpg and the passwords are encrypted files you can backup and sync anyway you want.”
Comment from 18 May 2026 in “The Quiet Renovation at Bitwarden” “Pass encrypts all these files via gpg, for which I use a key stored on a Yubikey.”
Comment from 28 Nov 2025 in “GitLab discovers widespread NPM supply chain attack” “my "offline" yubikey can be brought in whenever i want to decrypt the passwords”
Comment from 22 Jul 2026 in “Passkeys were invented by engineers with zero understanding of consumer brain” - Comment from 15 May 2026 in “Bitwarden scrubs 'Always free' and 'Inclusion' values from its site”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Account and entry names visible
“the fact that all of your account names are visible in the clear is a deal breaker for me”
Comment from 21 May 2026 in “Get your passwords out of Bitwarden while you still can” “Some of them have critical metadata leakage issues”
Comment from 21 Feb 2026 in “Password managers less secure than promised” “pass does not encrypt entry names”
Comment from 1 Jan 2026 in “Pacc: A Better Unix Password Manager” Weak phone and Windows support
“It's next-to-impossible to implement pass on every device everywhere and have all the same features on each client”
Comment from 21 May 2026 in “Get your passwords out of Bitwarden while you still can” “`pass` is a dumb idea if you have a phone or a Windows PC and want to access your passwords there”
Comment from 9 Oct 2026 in “Ask HN: What do you run on a $5 VPS that's worth keeping online 24/7?” Hard to share passwords
“The existing tools (pass, sops, git-crypt) are close but they assume a single human identity.”
Comment from 1 Mar 2026 in “How HN: Agent-Vault – A Zero-trust credential manager for AI agents” “which doesn’t have an easy way to share passwords”
Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: If you lose your memory, how to regain access to your computer?”
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 |
| pass password managerThis page | 41 | 7 | 85% | 12 | 10 yrs7 owners | Approved |
What people said
40 of the 54 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“No reason to use anything more complicated.”
“There are great clients for both phones and windows machines.”
“`pass` is a dumb idea if you have a phone or a Windows PC and want to access your passwords there”
“The 'pass' utility has git integration and encourages you to have a git remote somewhere to host a duplicate of your encrypted store.”
“Unfortunately most of our staff are non-technical, so it might be okay for a backend component”
“I've used it for about a decade at this point, and it's just perfect.”
“Except for Mooltipass and Password Store, which unfortunately no one has heard of.”
“Mooltipass and Password Store are the only two password managers to do the bare minimum.”
“This is how I have been doing password management for over a decade with password store”
“my "offline" yubikey can be brought in whenever i want to decrypt the passwords”
“I've been using pass ( https://www.passwordstore.org/ ) for years on multiple desktops”
“This is what I've been using for a long time now.”
“passwordstore.org also a nice alternative”
“It does protect against the entire vault being decrypted at once and exfiltrated.”
“It's next-to-impossible to implement pass on every device everywhere and have all the same features on each client”
“Pass has a pretty good ecosystem of plugins/other clients, as well.”
“"pass" just keeps working.”
“the fact that all of your account names are visible in the clear is a deal breaker for me”
“I love that it syncs with GIT.”
“It's a shell script that stores passwords in a git repository, containing one file per entry.”
“I've been using it for ten years with a git repository.”
“Just a shell script wrapper to gpg and the passwords are encrypted files you can backup and sync anyway you want.”
“every secret is it's own gpg-encrypted textfile in a git repo”
“I use `pass` on all my personal dev workstations and phone”
“It was a good experience in general to use pass”
“since it is a local only tool, you don't really need to update it constantly”
“It's short, pretty easy to read and likely in part because it's so simple, it's also very stable.”
“Use pass or gopass for all your CLI tokens and sync them via a private git repo.”
“Pass from https://www.passwordstore.org/ fame is simple.”
“The existing tools (pass, sops, git-crypt) are close but they assume a single human identity.”
“Some of them have critical metadata leakage issues”
“which doesn’t have an easy way to share passwords”
“And synchronising is very easy (it's a git repo).”
“You can easily script it to decode passwords on demand.”
“the upside of that design is that it tends to be very resilient”
“pass does not encrypt entry names”
“there are many free "offline-only" password managers, eg `pass` [0] comes to mind.”
“Pass encrypts all these files via gpg, for which I use a key stored on a Yubikey.”
“currently password-store, and passage is a fork using Age instead”
“This has reduced my maintenance burden on my spouse's devices down to practically zero.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.