Related: Fireproof Safe Ratings: What the Numbers Actually Mean
I have been a locksmith in Boise for 25 years, and I have opened more safes than the manufacturers would like to admit, including a few the owners swore were impenetrable. So when people ask me about choosing a home safe, they usually want a brand name. The honest answer is that the brand matters less than the job you are asking the box to do.
The four boxes in this guide cover four different jobs, and they barely overlap. One is a key control box for the person who cleans your house. One is a hotel and dorm style box that holds a laptop. One is a fireproof and waterproof document safe. One is a small steel cash box for a closet shelf.
A $500 safe with a $2 lock is a steel box with a suggestion. So before you spend anything, figure out which job is yours, then look at the lock, the door gap, the weight, and the fine print.
What I check before I ever look at a price
The lock. The lock is the safe. A digital keypad with a mechanical key override is the honest middle ground. Biometric readers are fast, and I installed one in my own shop, but batteries are a single point of failure, and a dead reader is a locked door you cannot open.
The door gap. Pry resistance comes from the door gap and the bolt work, not the thickness of the brochure. A crowbar wants a gap to bite. If you can slide a business card into the seam and feel it catch, that seam is the attack surface. I have opened consumer safes in ten minutes with a 24 inch pry bar, and the ones that held out had tight gaps and bolts that reached into all four sides of the frame.
The weight. Weight is security. A 20 pound safe is a theft convenience for someone with a dolly. If the box is light and it is not bolted down, assume it leaves with whoever finds it.
The fire rating. A rating is minutes at a specific temperature. One hour at 1,550 degrees means something only if the test was real and the lab was independent. If the packaging says fireproof and nothing else, treat it as a heat resistant box, not a document vault.
That is the whole checklist. Everything below is that checklist applied to four boxes at four very different price points.
Best for handing out a spare key: Master Lock Portable Key Lock Box 5400EC
This is not a safe, and I want that on the record before anyone buys it thinking otherwise. It is a portable combination key box that holds up to five keys, and its real job is access control. It lets you give the cleaner, the dog walker, or a contractor a way in without handing over a key you can never take back.
The combination can be changed when the arrangement ends, which is the whole point. Change the code, and the old access is gone.
What it will not do is protect anything valuable. It is a key box. It is not rated for fire, it is not heavy, and a determined person with a pry bar or a pair of cutters is going to get what is inside. Use it for keys you would hand out anyway, and put the spare that matters somewhere else. 
Visit on Amazon →.
Best for a dorm or hotel room: Grimtron 25 lb Laptop Safe
The interesting word in that name is audit trail. A box with an audit trail keeps a record of when it was opened, which is a hotel feature that exists because hotels got tired of arguing about who went into a room. In a dorm, a shared house, or a small office, that record is worth more than another inch of steel.
It is sized for a 17 inch laptop, so it is a laptop box first and a valuables box second. That is the right shape for a dorm room, where the laptop is the single most expensive thing in the room and the most likely thing to walk.
Here is my problem with it, and it is the same problem I have with every box in this weight class. At 25 pounds, it is portable. Two hands and a stairwell, and it is gone with the laptop inside. Bolt it to a shelf or a desk frame if the building allows it. If it cannot be bolted, treat it as a locked drawer rather than a safe. 
Visit on Amazon →.
Best for fire and water: Amazon Basics Fireproof and Waterproof Safe Box
If your threat is a house fire rather than a burglar, this is the box in the group that is built for it. It is a fireproof and waterproof safe with a digital keypad electronic lock, interior lighting, and a removable shelf, at 2.13 cubic feet with a 24 inch by 20.87 inch by 19 inch footprint.
The removable shelf is not a marketing bullet. It is the difference between a box that holds a stack of folders flat and a box that holds a shoebox of loose paper. The interior lighting sounds like a gimmick until you are crouched in a dark closet at 11 pm trying to find a birth certificate by feel.
Two things I want you to do before you trust it. First, read the fire rating's fine print, not the sticker on the front. Minutes at a temperature, and whether the test was done by an independent lab. A rating you cannot read is a rating that does not exist. Second, do not store paper on the floor of any fire rated box. Heat and moisture collect at the bottom, and the bottom inch is where documents die.
Waterproof matters more than people think, and not just for floods. A fire rated box that sits in a basement gets water from the hose that put the fire out. 
Visit on Amazon →.
Best for cash and small valuables: Digital Electronic Money Safe
This is the small steel box with a keypad, 0.23 cubic feet, roughly nine inches wide and under seven inches deep and tall. Cash, a passport, a few pieces of jewelry, a spare set of car keys. That is its whole world, and that is fine.
The honest framing is this: a box this size is a delay device. It moves your valuables out of the nightstand drawer and behind a keypad, which defeats the teenager, the opportunistic guest, and the smash and grab thief who wants to be out of the house in ninety seconds. It does not defeat anyone who brought tools.
If you buy it, bolt it or hide it well. A small box that is visible on a shelf is a small box that leaves with the rest of your electronics. If you can put it inside something heavier, do that. And keep the override key somewhere other than the same room, because a keypad box with a dead battery and a lost key is a brick with a nice finish. 
Visit on Amazon →.
The four boxes side by side
| Product | What it is | Size and weight | Lock | Best for | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visit on Amazon → Master Lock 5400EC |
Portable key control box, holds up to 5 keys | Handheld | Combination | Spare keys, cleaners, contractors | $31.48 |
| Visit on Amazon → Grimtron laptop safe |
Hotel and dorm style box with audit trail | 25 lb, fits a 17 inch laptop | Electronic with audit trail | Dorms, shared housing, small offices | $139.99 |
| Visit on Amazon → Amazon Basics fireproof safe |
Fireproof and waterproof document safe with keypad, interior lighting, and removable shelf | 2.13 cubic feet, 24 in H x 20.87 in W x 19 in D | Digital keypad electronic lock | Documents, drives, photos, records | $417.89 |
| Visit on Amazon → Digital Electronic Money Safe |
Steel cash and jewelry box with keypad | 0.23 cubic feet, 9.06 in W x 6.69 in D x 6.69 in H | Digital keypad | Cash, passports, small valuables | $26.99 |
What the specs do not tell you
Capacity numbers are the easiest thing to misread in this category. A 2.13 cubic foot box sounds enormous until you put a shelf in it and realize the usable space is two shallow trays, not one deep one. Measure the thing you are protecting, not the box.
Door gap and bolt work never appear on a spec sheet, and they are the two numbers that decide whether a pry bar wins. You can judge both in the store or in the first five minutes after unboxing. Open the door, look at the seam, and feel how much the door moves when you push the closed corner. If it flexes, a crowbar will find it.
Keypad batteries are the quiet failure mode of every digital box. Cheap keypads eat batteries in a month, and the ones that die at 2 am are always the ones holding the spare key. Keep the override key somewhere you will actually remember, and replace batteries on a schedule rather than waiting for a beep.
And none of these boxes is burglar-proof. Nothing is burglar-proof. A safe buys time, and time is the only currency that matters. A box that costs a thief four minutes and a box that costs him forty seconds are not the same product, even if the brochure looks identical.
Should you buy the Master Lock 5400EC?
Yes, if you need to hand out access. It holds up to five keys, the combination changes when the arrangement ends, and it solves a problem that a safe cannot solve, which is giving someone a way in without giving away a key.
No, if you think you are buying storage. It is not fire rated, it is not heavy, and it is not a place for anything you would cry about losing.
Should you buy the Grimtron 25 lb laptop safe?
Yes, for a dorm, a shared house, or a small office, mostly because of the audit trail. Knowing when the box was opened is worth more than another layer of paint on the door, and the 17 inch laptop capacity is the right size for the person who actually lives there.
Just bolt it down. At 25 pounds it is a portable safe in the most literal sense, and a portable safe is a gift to a thief with two free hands.
Should you buy the Amazon Basics fireproof and waterproof safe?
Yes, if the thing you are protecting is paper and the threat you are worried about is a fire. It has the interior room, the removable shelf, the lighting, and the digital keypad, and the waterproofing covers the mess the fire department leaves behind.
Read the fire rating fine print, keep documents off the bottom of the box, and understand that fire protection and burglary protection are two different purchases. This box is the first one.
Should you buy the Digital Electronic Money Safe?
Yes, for cash, a passport, and the jewelry you currently keep in a drawer. It is small, it is steel, and it moves your valuables behind a keypad, which is a real upgrade over a nightstand.
No, if it will sit in plain sight on a shelf. At 0.23 cubic feet it is easy to carry, so either bolt it, hide it, or accept that you bought a locked box rather than a safe.