Cybersecurity · head to head
RoboForm vs Steampipe

Steampipe
Developer Tools
Query cloud APIs, SaaS tools and code with SQL, with no extract or load step
- From
- Free
- Free plan
- Yes
The short version
- Each has a real cost: RoboForm free plan is restricted to a single device; syncing across multiple devices requires the Premium plan; Steampipe aGPL-3.0 across all four engines is a procurement blocker at organisations that ban the licence outright, and the network clause reaches any internal portal or service that puts a web interface in front of it.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which RoboForm and Steampipe actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).
What each one covers
Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.
Only in RoboForm
Nothing recorded that Steampipe does not also cover.
Only in Steampipe
- SQL over live APIs
- Wide plugin set
- Embedded Postgres
- Compliance benchmarks
- Joins across providers
- Hosted option
What people use each for
The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.
RoboForm
- Auto-filling passwords across multiple devices and websitesnot Steampipe
- Sharing family passwords securely with household membersnot Steampipe
- Receiving alerts when credentials appear in data breachesnot Steampipe
- Granting emergency access to trusted contacts for account recoverynot Steampipe
- Enforcing multi-factor authentication across online accountsnot Steampipe
Steampipe
- Security teams answering posture questions against live cloud accounts rather than a nightly exportnot RoboForm
- Compliance evidence gathering where the answer must reflect the account at the moment it is askednot RoboForm
- Inventory and drift questions spanning several cloud providers in one querynot RoboForm
- Engineers who would rather write SQL than learn each provider command line toolnot RoboForm
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
RoboForm
- Free plan is restricted to a single device; syncing across multiple devices requires the Premium plan
- Premium's advertised $2.49 per month rate is a first-year discount that renews at $29.88 per year
- Family plan covers only up to 5 accounts and likewise renews at a higher $47.75 per year after the first-year discount
Steampipe
- AGPL-3.0 across all four engines is a procurement blocker at organisations that ban the licence outright, and the network clause reaches any internal portal or service that puts a web interface in front of it.
- Dashboards, benchmarks and mods were removed from Steampipe entirely at version 1.0 in October 2024 and now live in a separate product, so pre-2024 documentation and tutorials describe commands that no longer exist.
- Live querying is bound by cloud provider API rate limits and keeps no persistent store by default, which is why a separate DuckDB-backed product exists for log volumes and why large accounts return slowly.
- The company is fifteen people and bootstrapped, maintaining four command line tools plus a hosted service plus two further products, and the newer tools have thin community traction relative to that surface area.
- Hosted tiers include only three users regardless of tier, with additional Enterprise users charged separately, so a team of thirty costs an order of magnitude more than the headline figure before compute and storage are counted.
Pricing, plan by plan
RoboForm
Free- FreeFree
- Unlimited passwords on single device
- Advanced 2FA
- Password breach monitoring 5 emails
- Premium$2.49/month
- Billed annually
- All Free features
- Unlimited devices
- Family$3.98/month
- Billed annually
- Up to 5 Premium accounts
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Steampipe
Free- Steampipe CLIFree
- AGPL-3.0
- All plugins
- No user or query limits
- Pipes DeveloperFree
- One user
- 400 compute minutes
- 3GB storage
- Pipes Team$49/month
- Three users
- 2,000 compute minutes
- 20GB storage
- Pipes Enterprise$249/month
- Three users
- 10,000 compute minutes
- 100GB storage
Which should you pick?
Choose Steampipe if
- You need sql over live apis.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, Web.
- You also want wide plugin set.
Questions people ask
- Is RoboForm or Steampipe better?
- Neither clearly leads. RoboForm starts at Free and Steampipe at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
- Which is cheaper, RoboForm or Steampipe?
- RoboForm starts at Free and Steampipe at Free.
- Does RoboForm or Steampipe run on more platforms?
- RoboForm runs on Web. Steampipe runs on macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker, Web.
- Can I use RoboForm for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is RoboForm best used for?
- RoboForm is most often used for auto-filling passwords across multiple devices and websites, sharing family passwords securely with household members, receiving alerts when credentials appear in data breaches, granting emergency access to trusted contacts for account recovery. Of those, auto-filling passwords across multiple devices and websites and sharing family passwords securely with household members are not what Steampipe is typically brought in for.
- What can RoboForm do that Steampipe cannot?
- Steampipe covers SQL over live APIs, Wide plugin set, Embedded Postgres, Compliance benchmarks.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
RoboForm: How much does RoboForm cost?
Premium plan is $2.49 per month when billed annually ($29.88/year renewal rate). Family plan supports up to 5 Premium accounts at $3.98 per month annual. Free plan is available with basic password management.
SourceSteampipe: When did Steampipe become AGPL?
May 2021, about four months after the project went public. It is a settled licence rather than a recent change, and predates the Business Source Licence wave it is often confused with.
RoboForm: Is there a money-back guarantee?
Yes, RoboForm offers a 30-day money-back guarantee on all paid plans.
SourceSteampipe: Where did the dashboards and benchmarks go?
Into Powerpipe. They were deprecated in March 2024 and removed from Steampipe at version 1.0 in October 2024, so the check, dashboard, mod and variable commands are gone.
Steampipe: Is it fast on a large cloud estate?
Not always. Queries call provider APIs at request time, so rate limits rather than query planning set the pace, and there is no persistent store by default.
Steampipe: Does the AGPL affect internal use?
Running it internally for your own analysis is fine. Putting a web interface in front of it that other people use is where the network clause becomes a question for your legal team.
Steampipe: Is a bootstrapped vendor a risk?
It cuts both ways. There is no investor pressure toward a licence change or an exit, and there are also fifteen people supporting a large product surface.
Related pages
Other head to heads
- RoboForm vs LastPass
- RoboForm vs 1Password
- RoboForm vs Norton 360
- RoboForm vs Bitdefender Total Security
- RoboForm vs NordPass
- RoboForm vs McAfee Total Protection
- RoboForm vs Authy
- RoboForm vs Enpass
- RoboForm vs Bitwarden
- RoboForm vs Sticky Password
- RoboForm vs Cisco Duo
- RoboForm vs Clerk
- RoboForm vs Securiti
- RoboForm vs Sigstore
- RoboForm vs Speakeasy
- RoboForm vs Sysdig
- RoboForm vs Tenable
- RoboForm vs Trend Micro Vision One
- RoboForm vs Atlantis
- RoboForm vs Jitsu
- RoboForm vs Frappe
- RoboForm vs Visual Studio Code
- RoboForm vs Penpot
- RoboForm vs GNU Emacs
- RoboForm vs Bazel
- RoboForm vs Eclipse IDE
- RoboForm vs Pants Build
- RoboForm vs Swagger UI
- RoboForm vs Ansible
- RoboForm vs Helix
- RoboForm vs Deep Code
- RoboForm vs Deno
- RoboForm vs Fig
- RoboForm vs Git
- RoboForm vs GoLand
- Steampipe vs LastPass
- Steampipe vs 1Password
- Steampipe vs Norton 360
- Steampipe vs Bitdefender Total Security
- Steampipe vs NordPass
- Steampipe vs McAfee Total Protection
- Steampipe vs Authy
- Steampipe vs Enpass
- Steampipe vs Bitwarden
- Steampipe vs Sticky Password
- Steampipe vs Cisco Duo
- Steampipe vs Clerk
- Steampipe vs Securiti
- Steampipe vs Sigstore
- Steampipe vs Speakeasy
- Steampipe vs Sysdig
- Steampipe vs Tenable
- Steampipe vs Trend Micro Vision One
- Steampipe vs Atlantis
- Steampipe vs Jitsu
- Steampipe vs Frappe
- Steampipe vs Visual Studio Code
- Steampipe vs Penpot
- Steampipe vs GNU Emacs
- Steampipe vs Bazel
- Steampipe vs Eclipse IDE
- Steampipe vs Pants Build
- Steampipe vs Swagger UI
- Steampipe vs Ansible
- Steampipe vs Helix
- Steampipe vs Deep Code
- Steampipe vs Deno
- Steampipe vs Fig
- Steampipe vs Git
- Steampipe vs GoLand

