Over a decade ago, I fell in love with 1Password. It did what all great software does, what I needed it to do and then got out of the way. Not only that, it did it with style. The Mac app was slick, fast, and always integrated the latest technologies and APIs pretty much as soon as they were available. The iOS app was amazing as well. And as iOS opened up more system wide functions to third parties (extensions in iOS 8,first class password manager support for third parties in iOS 12), the app had everything it needed to really sing, and it did. The past year has really changed things though.

Last year, 1Password 8 was released. Where in the past I had always upgraded right away, there was hesitation this time around. As part of the new version, the company AgileBits changed from offering a one time license as an option, to only moving to a subscription based model. Now, I’m not against paying for software or apps. It’s actually the opposite. I happily paid for my 1Password license, and would again if I needed to to move to the new version. I’m not against subscription based apps either. I subscribe to many apps (overcast, weekcal, carrot weather). But this new situation gave me a chance to pause and think.

A yearly subscription to 1Password 8 is $60. That’s more than I paid for a one time license that lasted me years. Well, maybe the app has gotten a lot better and is worth it? If the app is really killer, paying for it is a no brainer. In this case, no. In fact, from everything I can see, this version is a pretty big step backwards. Version 8 was rebuilt and still seems to have a ton of bugs. Not to mention, local vaults are no longer a feature. Everything has been rearchitected to work with 1password.com, so if you only want to store your vault locally, you have no option. Given how things are going over at LastPass, only having a cloud option doesn’t seem like the place you want to be right now.

In the meantime while sitting on the sidelines, thinking about what I’m going to do, I started using iCloud Keychain. Slowly, but surely I started saving the passwords I entered in from sites using 1Password, into iCloud Keychain. It’s been fantastic, works very well, and made me question the value I was getting out of 1Password even more. Why am I using a third party app when the system service has everything I need? Especially now that you can add notes to passwords, and it even generates second factor codes and fills them in for you. I do store some other things in 1Password, like drivers license info, and any notes I wanted to keep safe. But those are just as easy stored in an encrypted note through Apple notes. So again, where is the value?

So I’m now in the sad position of saying goodbye. At some point, 1Password 7 will start breaking as we move into newer OS updates. It’s time to move on. Today, I removed 1Password from my Macs and iOS devices. It’s never easy to lose software you’ve used and enjoyed for years. We had a good run though.