As digital communications governance standards and data security mandates evolve, solutions like Zoho Vault are becoming increasingly valuable to businesses. More than just a secure password manager, Zoho Vault offers a host of great features that are ideal for both personal and enterprise use.
You can use this platform to streamline identity and access management, enable single sign-on for your crucial apps, and track compliance and safety issues with visual reports. Although it lacks a few bells and whistles here and there (like automated web form filling), Zoho Vault is an excellent all-around tool for data management.
It can even be combined with other powerful governance solutions from Zoho, like the Ulaa secure browser, Zoho Directory, and Zoho OneAuth.
Here’s our behind-the-scenes review of Zoho Vault.
Quick Verdict: Pros and Cons
Zoho Vault is an intuitive and straightforward solution for password management and security. We think it’s particularly valuable for small and mid-sized businesses looking for a user-friendly, secure, and affordable solution for data security. However, larger businesses might find this solution a little too simplistic for advanced use cases.
Pros:
- Exceptional security, with 256-bit encryption and zero-knowledge architecture
- Various plan options to suit any need or budget
- Seamless integration with Zoho and third-party apps
- Extensive visual reports and auditing tools
- Easy to use and intuitive interface
- Comprehensive access privilege controls
Cons:
- No support for Safari passwords
- Limited technical support at times
- Missing some advanced features
Zoho Vault: Overview, Plans, and Pricing
Zoho Vault is a feature-rich password manager that seamlessly integrates with Zoho’s wider ecosystem of business-focused tools, such as its CRM platform, collaboration apps, and IT management tools.
It’s a feature-rich and flexible toolkit that makes it easy to create, store, and manage passwords across your digital ecosystem. Plus, it comes with intuitive tools that can help you boost your compliance standards. For instance, you can set up automatic notifications that remind users to change their passwords every few months.
There are four plans to choose from, including a free forever plan, which supports unlimited passwords storage for unlimited devices. You even get a security and data backup dashboard, offline access, browser extension, and audit trails included with the free plan.
The premium plans all come with a 15-day free plan and build on the free plan with more enterprise-focused tools. These plans include:
- Standard: $0.90 per user/month (annually): All the features of the free plan, as well as secure password sharing for team members and third-parties, and password sharing with TOTP codes. You also get centralized admin controls, user provisioning and management, cloud backup, password expiration alerts, IP address access restriction, and advanced technical support and reporting capabilities.
- Professional: $4.50 per user per month (annually): All the features of the Standard plan plus folder sharing, break glass accounts for emergency access, webhook integrations, CLI access, report scheduling, breached password alerts, and geolocation restriction. You can also create and manage user groups from Azure and Google Workspace.
- Enterprise: $7.20 per user per month (annually): All of the features of the Professional plan, as well as single sign-on for cloud apps, custom alerts for password events, password access control, SIEM integration and help desk integration
Volume discounts are also available for larger companies, if you contact Zoho directly.
Zoho Vault Review: Password Management
Although Zoho Vault lacks advanced features, like automatic form entry, it’s still packed with countless great features. At the heart of the platform is a broad range of password and identity management tools. You can store unlimited passwords, documents, and notes in the cloud, create custom password types, and import passwords from external files into your system.
Plus, all of those passwords are protected with 256-bit encryption, for peace of mind. Users and business leaders can grant and revoke password access for colleagues, share passwords with individuals, groups, and third-parties, and restrict access to certain passwords.
You even get powerful tools for assigning roles and permissions to both individuals and team groups. On top of that, Zoho Vault allows users to customize password request workflows, set time-limits on access to certain tools, and create custom alerts to remind users to change their password.
For even more granular controls, you can also restrict access to certain apps for specific IPs and IP ranges and manage single sign-on for all of your critical apps across a range of browsers.
Reporting, Insights and Integrations
More than just giving you an intuitive environment to create, store, and share passwords with members of your hybrid workforce, Zoho Vault gives you in-depth insights into your workplace’s security. Business leaders can monitor every action their team members take around the clock.
This means you can see which users are requesting access to specific apps, and monitor which browsers and tools they’re using. You can create custom workflows, to receive notifications when users perform a specific task, or attempt to access sensitive data.
You’ll also be able to create and download custom visual reports. We particularly love how easy it is to create reports that show you when your users change their passwords, and which tools they use most often.
From an integration perspective, Zoho Vault works seamlessly with all of the key applications offered by Zoho, like Zoho Desk, and Zoho’s Workplace tools. You can also integrate the system with help desks, like Zendesk and Service Now, to streamline security support operations.
Plus, the system can easily integrate with Microsoft apps, Azure Active Directory, Google Workspace, and backup solutions like Box and Dropbox.
Other Standout Features
Alongside all of the great identity and security management features mentioned above, there are plenty of additional features that make Zoho Vault a powerful option for businesses. Although the features you get will depend on your chosen plan, Some noteworthy options include:
- Multi-level sharing permissions
- Password ownership transfer
- Password generation (for extra-strong passwords)
- Extensions for virtually every popular browser
- Automatic data backup
- IP blocking
We also love the “Emergency access” features, which allow you to gain instant access to specific passwords during critical situations.
Zoho Vault: Ease of Use
One of the things that makes Zoho Vault so compelling as a password manager, is how easy it is to use. You can set up the system in minutes, and upload passwords from other tools into your database in a matter of seconds. The solution easily integrates with a range of business apps, like Gmail and Microsoft 365, and API access is available too.
Most employees will probably interact with Zoho Vault through it’s browser extensions, which allow them to immediately log into various applications and tools with just a couple of clicks. However, mobile apps are available if your team members need to manage security on the move.
Although some features will take a little time to get your head around (such as the custom access controls), everything on the platform is extremely intuitive. You can even make batch changes to passwords with a couple of clicks, which is ideal for larger teams.
In the past, one slight downside of Zoho Vault was it’s lack of support for passkeys. However, Zoho has begun adding this functionality to it’s toolkit, ensuring employees can take advantage of a convenient passwordless sign-in experience.
Unlike some other password managers, however, Zoho doesn’t offer a VPN option, although you may be able to take advantage of integrations if you need that functionality.
Security and Customer Support
Obviously, excellent security is a must for any password manager. Fortunately, Zoho Vault is great at protecting your data, users, and passwords. Every password you store in the system is defended by AES-256-bit encryption.
Plus, Zoho Vault users a host-proof hosting model, which means all of the encryption applied to your data is performed in your browser. This means that attackers can never actually access your passwords in transit – because they’re never sent in plain text to any system.
In addition, the real-time auditing tools included in Zoho Vault make it much easier for business leaders to stay on top of security issues and potential risks. You can generate all kinds of detailed reports that make it easy to track the weak points in your network and security strategy.
In terms of customer support, Zoho has one of the most advanced customer support sites out there, with extensive documentation to help you troubleshoot virtually any issue. You can access PDF guides, FAQs, and video demonstrations. Plus, Zoho regularly hosts webinars that provide insights into data security best practices.
Direct support is also available on all plans via 24/7 email and a customer service phone line in various regions of the world. However, you’ll only get “priority” technical support if you upgrade to a paid plan. If you’re using the free plan, you might have to wait a little longer for a response.
Zoho Vault Review: The Verdict
Zoho Vault won’t be ideal for everyone. For individual users, for instance, the free plan is great, but it comes with a lot of features you won’t necessarily need. If you don’t need to share passwords between users, LastPass might be a more streamlined alternative.
Certain features are missing for much larger companies, such as VPN access and automatic form filling. However, we think Zoho Vault is an excellent choice for SMBs and mid-sized businesses. It gives you phenomenal control over users and passwords, valuable insights into your security weaknesses, and powerful tools for data management.
It’s a great all-around option for teams in today’s digital world that need to streamline access to crucial tools without compromising on data security.
