This checks a password against a few common criteria, length, and whether it has uppercase letters, lowercase letters, numbers, and symbols, and gives an overall rating from very weak to excellent. It's a quick way to see whether a password meets baseline practice before you actually use it.
How to use it
- Type a password into the field.
- Watch the rating update as you type.
- Check the list below to see exactly which criteria it meets or misses.
- Adjust the password to address anything unmet.
- Recheck until the rating is where you want it.
When it helps
- Checking a password you've thought of before setting it on an important account.
- Understanding why a site is rejecting a password you thought was strong enough.
- Learning what actually makes a password harder to guess or crack.
- Comparing a memorized password to a randomly generated one to see the practical difference.
- Auditing an old password you're thinking about reusing against current practice.
Good to know
- Length usually matters more than complexity. A longer password is generally much harder to crack than a shorter one packed with symbols.
- Avoid predictable swaps, like replacing a with the at symbol. Those patterns are well known and don't add much real security.
- For most people, the strongest approach is a password manager generating long, random, unique passwords for every account.
- Try a passphrase of several unrelated words instead of one complex word with substitutions. Length and unpredictability contribute more to real strength than clever character swaps.
- If a strength check flags your password as weak but you're set on the base word, extending it with an unrelated word or two is often a faster fix than adding a random symbol.
Questions
Does this store or send the passwords I check?
No, the check runs entirely in your browser using JavaScript. What you type is never sent anywhere or logged.
Why did my long password get rated weak?
Length is one factor among several. A password using only lowercase letters can still rate lower than a shorter one that mixes character types, though a genuinely long password is usually strong regardless.
Is a password with a symbol always stronger than one without?
Not necessarily on its own. A symbol adds a bit of strength, but overall length and unpredictability matter more. A long, random passphrase without symbols can still be very strong.
Does this check against known leaked password lists?
No, this only evaluates structural criteria like length and character variety, locally in your browser. It doesn't check against breach databases, so a structurally strong password could still be one that's been leaked elsewhere.
Is a longer simple password always stronger than a shorter complex one?
Generally yes for practical purposes. A long passphrase, even using only lowercase words, typically has more possible combinations to guess than a short but complex one.
Does adding more symbols always help more than adding length?
Not necessarily. Beyond a certain point, extra length usually adds more real strength than another symbol, since it multiplies the number of possible combinations more significantly.