Every household already has a system. Here is where each one holds.
The folder, the box at the bank, the password manager, the shared drive — all of them do real work, and pretending otherwise would tell you something about us. The differences worth your attention are below, in words rather than check marks.
The comparison that matters is what happens to another person.
Each system answers these five questions differently. None of the answers below is a strawman.
| The question | Folder in a drawer | Safe-deposit box | Password manager | Cloud storage | Stemma |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Could someone else find it? | Only if they know which drawer | If they know the bank, and have standing | Logins, yes — if sharing was set up | If they can guess the folder structure | Named people are told what exists for them |
| Is the context beside the record? | Whatever was printed and filed | Documents only, no explanation | Passwords without the why | Files without instructions | Each record keeps its note: what it is, where the original lives, what to do |
| What does a breach expose? | Anyone holding the folder reads it all | Physical theft is rare but total | Depends on the vendor’s architecture | Provider-side data, often readable | Ciphertext and metadata; contents are encrypted before upload |
| Is there a defined release? | Whoever finds it first | Court paperwork and bank hours | Emergency access varies by product | Account recovery, if the provider allows it | Check-in lapse, named-person confirmation, then read-only release |
| Does it stay current? | As current as the last printing | Updated on bank visits | Passwords update; context rarely does | Grows, but nobody prunes it | Built to be revisited when life changes the record |
Encryption claims describe current, compatible clients; the security page states the boundary in full.
The folder in a drawer
It is honest work, and it beats nothing by a wide margin. Paper needs no password, no subscription, and no company to outlive. For a household with simple affairs and a diligent keeper, a folder can carry most of the weight.
The folder answers the questions its keeper thought to write down, on the day they wrote them. It cannot say which accounts appeared since, where the recovery codes went, or who is meant to read which page. And another person still needs to know the drawer exists.
The safe-deposit box
For original documents that must survive fire and theft — deeds, certificates, the signed will — a box at the bank remains a good instrument. Nothing digital replaces the signed original.
A box protects paper; it does not explain it. Access runs on bank hours, key location, and, after a death, legal standing that can take weeks to establish. The box also holds nothing that changes monthly: accounts, logins, policies in force.
The password manager
For daily credential hygiene, a password manager is the right tool, and households that use one are safer for it. Stemma is not trying to replace it at the browser prompt.
A login list is not a handover. The manager stores the what but not the why: which account pays the mortgage, where the deed is, what the executor should do first. Emergency access, where it exists, hands over every secret at once — with none of the context and no sense of which person should see what.
Generic cloud storage
A shared drive holds anything and costs almost nothing. As a working archive for scans and statements, it is genuinely useful — many households already have one.
Storage is not stewardship. A drive has no notion of a record versus a file, no instructions beside the document, no release plan beyond account recovery, and — in most configurations — contents the provider can read. The folder tree that makes sense to you is the puzzle someone else inherits.
Where we are not the right fit.
A comparison you can trust has to cut both ways. Three honest reasons to close this tab — because a product trusted with a household's most important records should be the one that tells you.
You need documents drafted
Stemma is not a legal service and does not draft wills or trusts. The plan itself is your attorney’s work; we keep the working record the plan refers to.
You want an asset custodian
We store information about assets and copies of documents — never the assets themselves. Money and property stay at institutions built to hold them.
Your folder already works
A current folder, a diligent keeper, and an executor who knows the drawer is a working system. If that is your house, keep it — and consider Stemma only if you want the index and the release to survive the keeper.
Start with the record another person would need first.
One account, one original document, or one instruction — written where someone else can find it.