Ente Auth vs Google Authenticator Comparison

On the device, the codes are encrypted with a key kept in the system's secure storage. With an Ente account, the app encrypts every code before upload with keys that, by Ente's documentation, only your password or recovery key can unlock, so Ente's servers hold only encrypted copies. That is Ente's statement: an outside audit has checked Ente's server, not the Auth apps.

Signed in to a Google Account, the app copies your secrets to that account, where Google says it encrypts them in transit and at rest. Choosing Use without an account keeps the codes only on the phone. There is no option to encrypt the synced copy with a password or key of your own, so Google can technically decrypt it.

The first screen offers Sign up and Log in, with Use without backups as a smaller option below them. With an account, an encrypted copy syncs to Ente. Without one, codes stay on that device only; automatic daily backup files, protected by a password you set, are off until you switch them on. Ente says device transfers and system backups do not count as a backup for offline codes.

The only backup is the copy in your Google Account. Without an account, the app makes no backup file; codes can only be moved by scanning transfer QR codes from the old phone.

An Ente account, which needs an email address and a password, is used only for the encrypted copy and sync. Without it the app works offline; the desktop apps and the Android app downloaded from GitHub may still contact Ente to check for updates.

A Google Account is needed only for syncing. The app works without one, and Google's help page describes how to use it that way from the first launch.

Ente Technologies, Inc. has been a US corporation since 2022; its terms are governed by Delaware law, with a notice address in Dover, Delaware. Ente's privacy policy says its servers and hosting partners are in Europe and that personal information may be accessed from or transferred to the US.

The app is published by Google LLC, a Delaware company based in Mountain View, California. Google's terms are governed by California law unless local law requires otherwise; Google says that for most services the provider is either Google LLC, operating under US law, or Google Ireland Limited, operating under Irish law.

Ente was started in 2020 by its founders and says it is funded by customer subscriptions, not venture capital. Since July 2026 it publishes its revenue and customer counts.

Google LLC is a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., whose shares trade on Nasdaq. Google released Authenticator in 2010 and added Google Account sync in April 2023.

Auth earns no money of its own. Ente pays for it from subscriptions to its photo storage service and asks people who want to support Auth to subscribe there; at launch in 2022 it said existing users would keep Auth for free if it ever became paid.

The app has no revenue of its own; Google pays for its development as part of its account-security products.