I am investigating the right way to migrate to Bitwarden. I would like the ability for my wife and I to both have a password manager with the ability to access each others data as needed. I am struggling to understand if 2 premium accounts would accomplish this ($20 a year) or if we actually need the family ($40 a year). I have read through the explanations on free vs family organizations but the descriptions conflict with each other.
Anyone else encountered this scenario have a recommendation?
It’s pretty easy to decide. Premium is not needed at all for sharing data with your spouse, unless you (or your wife) would like to use Premium features (e.g., the integrated TOTP authenticator, the ability to attach and send files, access to Vault Health Reports, the ability to set up Emergency Access, the ability to use Duo for 2FA, or access to priority support).
The way sharing works is that in addition to your own individual vault and your wife’s individual vault, you will create a third vault, which belongs to an “organization” (that you and your wife will both be members of). Vault items (e.g., login credentials) that are stored in one of the two individual vaults cannot be accessed by the other person, but vault items stored in the “organization” vault can be set up so that shared access is possible.
Back to your question: If you want Premium features to apply to any of the shared items (e.g., if you want Bitwarden to generate TOTP codes for a shared account, or if you want to attach a file to a shared vault item), then you must pay for a Family plan. If you only have two individual Premium plans (and set up a Free “organization”), then the Premium features will apply only to the items in your two individual vaults, but will not be available for any shared items stored in the “organization” vault.
Thank you grb. The explanation about the org vault and how the contents are treated differently is the piece that was missing from the help articles. Exactly what I needed.
You’re welcome, glad I could help.