Vaultaire vs Keepsafe: which iPhone photo vault fits you?

A note on who's writing: this page is published by the team behind Hushkeeper, a competitor to both apps. To keep it fair, every claim about Keepsafe and Vaultaire comes from their App Store listings, help center or official website as of October 2026 (see Sources at the end). Listings change often, so check the current page before you pay for anything.

At a glance

The real difference: who holds your files

Most comparisons list features. The more useful question for a vault is simpler: if someone gets hold of your phone, your cloud account or the company's servers, what can they see?

Keepsafe works like a classic online service. You have a Keepsafe account, and signing in on a new phone means entering your email and a short code Keepsafe sends there. Its help center says backups go to a private cloud space tied to that account and act as a copy of your gallery. The App Store listing describes "military-grade encryption" but doesn't name the algorithm, explain how keys are derived from your PIN, or say who could decrypt the cloud copy. That isn't proof of weakness; it just means you can't verify it from what's published.

Vaultaire takes the opposite approach. Its listing says no account is required, files are encrypted on the device with AES-256-GCM using a random key that your pattern unlocks, and its servers never receive your files or keys. Backups go to your own iCloud and are encrypted before they leave the phone. The trade-off is the usual one for this design: recovery depends on you keeping your recovery phrase, not on a support team resetting a password.

If you want to understand how much iCloud itself protects, our guide to whether iCloud Photos is private explains what Apple can and can't read with and without Advanced Data Protection.

Ads, tracking and analytics

Keepsafe's free version shows ads, and Premium removes them. Its App Store privacy label lists usage data as data used to track you across other companies' apps and websites. For a free app that's a common model, but it's worth knowing before you put your most private photos into it.

Vaultaire's listing says there are no ads and no cross-app tracking, and its privacy label lists nothing under data used to track you. Two details are worth reading, though. The label shows an email address linked to you for customer support, and usage and diagnostic data not linked to you. Vaultaire's website adds that anonymous analytics and crash diagnostics are on by default and can be switched off with the "Share errors anonymously" setting, and that crash reports can include file names. If that matters to you, turn the setting off after installing.

Hushkeeper's position is no ads and no tracking in any tier, including the free one, with no account to sign up for.

Hiding, decoys and pressure situations

Keepsafe Premium includes Album Lock, which lets you give individual albums their own PIN. The listing doesn't mention a decoy or duress mode, so we won't claim either way beyond that.

Vaultaire lets each pattern open its own vault and offers a Pro duress mode: a special pattern opens one chosen vault and removes the other vaults' data and recovery mappings from the device. It also offers alternate app icons. Its own site is candid that someone examining the phone could still estimate how many vaults exist.

Hushkeeper works the same way in principle: every pattern opens its own vault, the unlock screen never lists them, and a Pro duress pattern opens a harmless vault while removing every other vault from the device, with their encrypted iCloud backups kept for later restore. If you're weighing disguise features in general, read whether calculator vault apps are safe first: an icon swap hides an app, but only encryption protects what's inside.

Pricing compared

All three start free. Keepsafe's free Basic tier backs up up to 200 items and shows ads. Vaultaire's and Hushkeeper's free tiers both allow up to 3 vaults with 100 photos and files and 10 videos in total, with encrypted iCloud backup included.

On paid plans, Keepsafe's listing shows Premium at $9.99 a month or $23.99 a year, along with several other Premium items at different prices, so check which one the app offers you. Vaultaire Pro is $1.99 a week, $5.99 a month, $19.99 a year or $39.99 once, and a family plan is $49.99 a year or $99.99 once. Hushkeeper Pro is $1.49 a week, $4.99 a month, $16.99 a year (with a 7-day free trial) or $34.99 once, and Family covers up to 6 people for $39.99 a year or $84.99 once. Prices are US and vary by country.

When Keepsafe is the better choice

• You want the app with the longest track record and by far the most ratings.
• You also use Android, or want your vault on more than Apple devices.
• You'd rather recover your account by email than keep a recovery phrase safe.
• You prefer a backup service run by the app maker over your own iCloud.

When Vaultaire is the better choice

• You want an account-free, encrypted vault that's available on the App Store today.
• You need one of its 31 languages; Hushkeeper supports 5.
• You want encryption details published by the developer and iCloud backups that are encrypted before upload.

When Hushkeeper is the better choice

• You want the same account-free, on-device encryption model at lower prices on every plan.
• You want no ads and no tracking on the free plan, plus daily encrypted backup versions kept for 30 days so accidental deletions can come back.
• You're happy to wait for launch. Until Hushkeeper is on the App Store, Vaultaire is the one of the two you can actually install.

Before you move photos into any vault

1. Strip location data from photos you plan to share; our free metadata remover runs in your browser.
2. After importing, delete the originals from the Photos app and from Recently Deleted, or they stay on the phone. Our guide on permanently deleting photos from iPhone covers iCloud and shared libraries too.
3. Write down your recovery phrase (for account-free apps) or confirm your recovery email (for Keepsafe) before you need it.

Sources

• App Store: Photo Vault - Vaultaire (rating, prices, privacy label, languages, description)
• Vaultaire official website (encryption, analytics setting, duress mode, sharing)
• App Store: Secret Photo Vault: Keepsafe (rating, prices, privacy label, languages, description)
• Keepsafe Help Center: How does the Keepsafe backup work?
• Keepsafe Help Center: How to sign into your account