First of all, there is just my wife and myself. No children or anyone else in Bitwarden. My wife can have free access to ALL my log-ins, secure notes, and everything else. I can have free access to ALL of hers. I cannot see the need for organizations, collections, and the other gobbledegook. Plus, I don’t like the idea of turning over ownership to (play ominous music here)…the organization. For the sake of security, I want us both to use 2F login through a physical security key, so we’ll need at least one premium account. Also, she needs to have her own area for her hierarchy of folders. What would you suggest? Actual Family plan? Both of us having our own premium accounts and each others’ masterpasswords? Something else? Please give me your suggestions. Thank you!
For your situation, you really do not need a Family Plan ($40 per year), since that is overkill for you.
You might want to consider two options:
Option 1: You can both just share a single Bitwarden account and buy Premium for it for $10 per year. You could create folders for each of you and organize your entries that way. You need Premium to use a security key, so that would cost you $10 per year.
Option 2: Create a free Organization, add two Collections (one for each of you), and share passwords that way. You’d need Premium for both accounts to use a security key, so that would cost you $20 per year.
One advantage of using an Organization is having more control. For example, you can choose to set your own passwords to “read only” so that your wife can use the passwords but she cannot accidentally change them.
One disadvantage of sharing a single account is that you will not have more than 1 level of “hierarchy of folders”. Any folders your wife creates will be cluttering up your screen too. You can use ‘sub folders’, but those are just cosmetic and require you to remember to manually add the slash to create it. Sub folders are not actually nested folders as people would typically consider them. While with separate accounts, your wife could create all the folders she wants on her account and you would not see any of them.
If those are not considerations for you then just stick with a single shared account IMHO and save $10 a year.
Btw, an “Organization” is just a separate vault which is shared among multiple people. There is nothing ominous about it. The person who creates the Organization is the owner of it (or one of the owners, if you choose to make your wife an owner too). If you are going to share passwords, an Organization gives you more options and control over entries than sharing an account, not less.
Thanks much! I went with two premium accounts, which together were half the amount of a Familiy plan.