sigil. vs Keepsafe

Short answer: choose Keepsafe if you want a mature, cross-platform vault with a built-in cloud backup and you are fine with an account tied to your email. Choose sigil. if you want a vault that has no account, no server and no visible list of vaults, where the encryption key comes from a sign only you know.

Both apps hide photos behind a lock and keep them out of the regular Photos library. The difference is where trust sits: Keepsafe runs a service around your vault; sigil. has nothing outside your phone.

sigil.

Keepsafe

Price

Free · Pro €39.99 once or €19.99/yrUS App Store: Monthly Premium $9.99, Yearly Premium $23.99

Lifetime option

€39.99 once, no subscription—

Free tier

100 photos and documents + 10 videos per vault, 1 vault + decoy vaultBasic: PIN-locked vault, camera, albums, cloud backup of first 200 items

Account required

No account at allAccount tied to an email; login and PIN reset use emailed codes

Encryption

256-bit encryption; key unlocked by your sign (Argon2id, bound to the secure chip)256-bit AES at rest (vendor-stated)

Zero-knowledge

Yes — no server, we never see anythingSays staff cannot view content; no explicit key-custody claim

Multiple vaults

Up to 7 vaults with Pro, one sign each; the app never lists them—

Decoy vault

Free: a decoy pattern opens a decoy vault with harmless photos and erases nothingDecoy Vault with a separate PIN (Premium)

Disguised icon

Neutral utility icons that don't say vault.Secret Door disguise is Android-only

Private camera

Photos never touch the Camera RollIntegrated in-app camera

EXIF / location removal

Location/EXIF stripped on import and export—

Cloud sync

No — local-first, no cloud backup yetPrivate cloud: 200 items free, up to 10,000 with Premium

Unlock

Only the sign you draw — no Face ID or Touch ID, by designPIN pad and Touch ID

Break-in alerts

No intruder photos; optional self-destruct after too many wrong signs—

Platforms

iPhone onlyiOS, iPadOS, visionOS, Android

sigil. compared with Keepsafe

Feature	sigil.	Keepsafe
Price	Free · Pro €39.99 once or €19.99/yr	US App Store: Monthly Premium $9.99, Yearly Premium $23.99
Lifetime option	€39.99 once, no subscription	—
Free tier	100 photos and documents + 10 videos per vault, 1 vault + decoy vault	Basic: PIN-locked vault, camera, albums, cloud backup of first 200 items
Account required	No account at all	Account tied to an email; login and PIN reset use emailed codes
Encryption	256-bit encryption; key unlocked by your sign (Argon2id, bound to the secure chip)	256-bit AES at rest (vendor-stated)
Zero-knowledge	Yes — no server, we never see anything	Says staff cannot view content; no explicit key-custody claim
Multiple vaults	Up to 7 vaults with Pro, one sign each; the app never lists them	—
Decoy vault	Free: a decoy pattern opens a decoy vault with harmless photos and erases nothing	Decoy Vault with a separate PIN (Premium)
Disguised icon	Neutral utility icons that don't say vault.	Secret Door disguise is Android-only
Private camera	Photos never touch the Camera Roll	Integrated in-app camera
EXIF / location removal	Location/EXIF stripped on import and export	—
Cloud sync	No — local-first, no cloud backup yet	Private cloud: 200 items free, up to 10,000 with Premium
Unlock	Only the sign you draw — no Face ID or Touch ID, by design	PIN pad and Touch ID
Break-in alerts	No intruder photos; optional self-destruct after too many wrong signs	—
Platforms	iPhone only	iOS, iPadOS, visionOS, Android

Security model

Keepsafe says it stores files with 256-bit AES at rest (vendor-stated). Access is gated by a PIN (or biometrics), and the account behind the app is tied to an email address: Account tied to an email; login and PIN reset use emailed codes. That account is useful — it is how you reset a forgotten PIN — but it also means the vault is linked to an identity and a service that can reset access.

sigil. works differently. There is no PIN check against a stored value. You draw a sign on a dot grid, and that sign, hardened with Argon2id and bound to the phone's secure chip, unlocks the 256-bit key that decrypts the vault. A wrong sign is not compared against a stored value; it simply unlocks nothing. You can read the details in pattern encryption and the background in AES-256 encryption explained.

The trade-off is recovery. Keepsafe can help you back in through email. sigil. cannot: if you lose your sign, the only way back is your written recovery phrase.

Privacy: account and server

On zero-knowledge, Keepsafe's position is: Says staff cannot view content; no explicit key-custody claim. That is a reasonable policy statement, but it is a promise about behavior rather than a property of the design.

sigil. has no account and no server, so there is nothing on our side for anyone to access or leak. We do not know who you are, how many vaults you have, or what is in them. If that matters for your situation — for example journalists and sources or border crossings — the absence of a server is the main reason to pick sigil.

Features

Decoy and duress. Keepsafe offers Decoy Vault with a separate PIN (Premium). sigil. has a decoy vault too, opened by its own decoy pattern, while your other vaults stay hidden: there is no list showing how many exist.

Multiple vaults. In sigil., every sign opens its own vault and there is no list of vaults anywhere in the app, so nobody can tell how many exist. See multiple hidden vaults.

Disguised icon. On iPhone, Keepsafe's icon disguise is not available: Secret Door disguise is Android-only. sigil. can show a neutral utility icon on your Home Screen that doesn't say vault (disguised icon).

Camera. Both have one. Keepsafe: Integrated in-app camera. sigil.'s private camera writes straight into the encrypted vault, so the photo never touches the Camera Roll.

Metadata. sigil. strips EXIF and location data on import and export. We did not find this documented for Keepsafe. If you want to check a file yourself, use the photo metadata viewer.

Price

Keepsafe pricing on the US App Store: US App Store: Monthly Premium $9.99, Yearly Premium $23.99. The free tier: Basic: PIN-locked vault, camera, albums, cloud backup of first 200 items.

sigil. is free with every feature included (decoy vault, self-destruct, disguised icon): 100 photos and documents plus 10 videos per vault, one vault plus the decoy vault. Pro lifts the photo and video limits and gives you up to 7 vaults, each opened by its own pattern: €39.99 once, lifetime, no subscription, or €19.99 per year. No free trial and no monthly plan. Over the free limit nothing is locked; you just can't add more. See pricing.

Where Keepsafe is better

Being honest about this matters more than winning the comparison:

• Cloud backup and sync. Private cloud: 200 items free, up to 10,000 with Premium. sigil. is local-first and has no cloud backup yet. If your phone is lost and you have no copy elsewhere, your sigil. vaults are gone with it. Read how to securely back up private photos before relying on any local-only vault.
• Platforms. Keepsafe runs on iOS, iPadOS, visionOS, Android. sigil. is iPhone-only today.
• Account recovery. A forgotten PIN is recoverable through email. In sigil., a lost sign plus a lost recovery phrase means the data is unrecoverable by design.
• Maturity. Keepsafe has been around for many years and has a very large user base. sigil. is new.

How to switch from Keepsafe to sigil.

1. In Keepsafe, open the album you want to move, select the items and export them to your iPhone's Photos library.
2. Install sigil., draw a sign and write down the 12-word recovery phrase on paper.
3. Import the exported items into your vault. sigil. strips location and EXIF data on import.
4. Open a few items in sigil. to confirm they are there and readable.
5. Delete the exported copies from Photos, then empty Recently Deleted — see how to delete Recently Deleted photos.
6. Once you are sure everything moved, delete the items from Keepsafe and, if you no longer need it, the Keepsafe account itself.

Verdict

Keepsafe is a convenient, well-known vault with cloud backup and an email-based safety net. sigil. trades that convenience for a smaller attack surface: no account, no server, a key that exists only when you draw your sign, and vaults nobody can count. If you want the vault to be private even from the company that makes it, sigil. is the better fit. If you want cloud backup today, stay with Keepsafe or pair sigil. with your own backup plan.

For a wider view, see the best private photo vault apps for iPhone or our full Keepsafe review.