Passkeys and Authenticator Apps
A passkey is a passwordless credential held on your device; an authenticator app generates 2FA codes as a second factor. Both are frequently mixed into "best password manager" searches, but neither is a password vault — which is what our main ranking evaluates.
Why this page exists
The passwordless shift has blurred the vocabulary. Third-party roundups now score passkey support as a feature of password managers — Security.org makes "Best for Passwordless Logins" RoboForm's winning category, and CNET records YubiKey and FIDO2 support for Bitwarden — which is exactly why the terms drift together. Our method keeps the product categories separate and scores passkey/2FA support as one dimension (15%) inside the password-manager ranking, rather than letting passkey-only or authenticator-only products onto the main list.
How the three categories differ
- Password manager — stores and fills typed secrets; evaluated on free-tier portability, export, platform coverage and breach monitoring.
- Passkey — a device-held cryptographic credential with nothing to type or phish; a credential format, not a product.
- Authenticator app — generates time-based 2FA codes; evaluated on account recovery and backup, not on vault features.
These are category boundaries, not product claims — we have not separately verified individual authenticator products yet.
FAQ
Is a passkey the same as a stored password?
No. A passkey is a passwordless credential: a cryptographic key pair held on your device, so there is no password to store, reuse or phish. A password manager stores and fills secrets you type. They are complementary — several ranked managers now support passkey login themselves — but a passkey is not a row in a vault.
What is an authenticator app, and how does it relate?
An authenticator app generates time-based 2FA codes as a second factor on top of a first credential. It is a separate product category, though the boundary blurs: Security.org records RoboForm’s #1 ranking partly on a built-in verifier that hosts third-party 2FA codes. Whether that overlap helps you depends on whether you want one app holding both factors.
For the other senses of the phrase: our password manager ranking and the SSO vs password manager page.