I had done that for a long time. It worked until it didn't and I lost passwords. I tried again with keepass2android and it's built-in sync. It again worked fine until at some point it wasn't able to sync anymore for no discernible reason.
I'd love for this to be a reliable setup, but it just isn't in my experience, at least when there are 3+ devices involved with different clients and no proper awareness of the password manager and the sync sides of each other.

Are they still going to publish the Android client app via their own F-Droid repository?

Yeah this only makes sense if the builds start diverging from the open source code, extra features that are closed source.

I've been very happy with Vaultwarden+Keyguard

https://keyguard.dev/

Edit: I had not looked closely enough at the license and did not realize it's not FOSS, my bad

But that's not Foss, so I didn't consider it

There will be... Some fork at least

Heh, I'm looking at you to those people that looked at me weird because I told them I was good with Keepass!

You can watch this same process unfold live before your eyes with Android OS, or if you don't want to miss the beginning of the show, grab some popcorn and watch these guys.

If I'm going to have to host my own infrastructure, I don't want it tied to Bitwarden, given the new direction of the company.

I fully support Vaultwarden though, and I wish them well.

I'll be going with KeyPassXC and Syncthing.

Vaultwarden (and all the client apps) depend on Bitwarden for the API spec. If Bitwarden introduces closed features in the API that Vaultwarden can't/won't implement, but the client apps do, it will split the spec. They can also introduce API license keys, which would render Vaultwarden mostly irrelevant.

The only way for Vaultwarden to remain relevant going forward is to own it and split ways from Bitwarden. This would in turn mean that the FOSS client apps have to decide which to support. But I think the ecosystem is going to fragment eventually anyway, so the sooner every app decides which way they want to go, the better.

So, Vaultwarden it is?

Money

So it's open core now? As if this would be any better.

Everybody can still fork/rename/publish the FOSS version

Yeah, but there's no guarantee the FOSS version will be the same as the closed one.

My knowledge of network security is very limited, right now I only self-host things like movies, music, ROMs, etc. I would love to do the same with my passwords, but I don't think I would feel comfortable doing it with such sensitive data.

Only if you're using the Android app or the web browser plugin, the actual core system does not.

They could lock Bitwarden out tomorrow and Valtwarden would still work fine.

Then people would just have to write specific application and plugin if they wanted to continue to use it with no change.

The web interface would be fine.

It's been a long while, but I believe you just export from Bitwarden and import into Vaultwarden.

A viable concern if you wanted to put it public-facing. If you only care about syncing when you're home, though, you should be able to host it perfectly fine just not giving any pathways in from the outside world.

If you wanted to use the Android application, you would have to learn about TLS certificates anyway, because it doesn't work without HTTPS.

Why is it that every time i comment about keepass, its because some web based password manager once again broke, got hacked, or stopped development. Keepass users just stay winning :)

Also i have been using keepass with TOTP 2FA for years what are you on about?

Also also, you shouldnt use fido passkeys. Its a failed technology that is worse than what it tries to replace.

Or you could just fork it when there's a problem

This seems to be clients for the end devices, which I'm worried may actually be a move towards locking out VaultWarden which will uses the BW Clients

The apps keep a synced local copy, so if the server is down or unreachable you can still get to your passwords. That can also be locked by biometrics etc.

There's a lot of stuff that without be lost by going to just the web interface

Sounds like you're volunteering to do that additional amount of work.

The web interface is from bitwarden. Technically they could fork it but that would be much more work.

The web app keeps a local synced copy too btw. Biometric is fair tho

Works fine with acme certs though

Thank you very much for the awesome project mentioned! I had no idea about it!
The marvel works great with Vaultwarden, too, it seems!

Though, Bitwarden system/clients are not so featureful as KeePassXC, for example, it's a great alternative for a more adequate synchronization.

It is free and open-source on Desktop at this moment.

Keyguard is a commercial app and unlocking a premium funds its further development and supports me (Artem Chepurnyi) directly. As of right now, only the Android builds distributed via Google Play store have main features locked behind a paywall, other distribution channels have a build with everything unlocked.

Source: https://keyguard.dev/docs/premium/

But it makes sense to pay for it, since Bitwarden is a constantly changing system and these projects based on it must always be up-to-date with their API changes, too. This is time and worry consuming, and should be compensated.

No it is not, the web interface is the page you get when you browse to the swrver directly, it is very different from the Bitwarden one.

When presented a hypothetical between the commenter suggesting it be

A) forked now

And me suggesting

B) forking when there is a problem

You elect C) the commenter does the work?

Brilliant contribution

Awesome!

So the current plan is that the core remains OSS

.... for now.

Embrace, Enhance, Extinguish.

*: got the E's in the wrong order

The web interface is based on bitwarden. You are thinking of the client api.

https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden

I'm personally using Let's Encrypt and duckdns.org for a completely free solution.

Currently only hosting everything on my local network though with VPN to access when not at home.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

4 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 6 acronyms.

[Thread #125 for this comm, first seen 11th Oct 2026, 04:30]
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There is no way I'm self hosting something this important... So now I'm not sure what to do actually.

100% but move where? I'm not going to self host something this critical. KeypassX is so much worse. I can't even use it on mobile probably.

Yeah we have seen the same process many times now.

Exactly. No way I'm going to use this for something critical.

It's not overreacting when you have seen the same development at least 10 times before. Its called experience.

History shows this will happen. Or do you have any counter example?

Mariadb, libreoffice and most recently OpenCourant

Not arguing against it of course, just dislike when people make forking (and establishing a whole new standard) sound like not that big of a deal.

License is: all rights reserved.

That's free like in beer, and open like 'allowed to inspect' that's not what most people mean when they talk of Foss.

source: https://github.com/AChep/keyguard-app/blob/master/LICENSE

well, the first step of forking is clicking a button or execting a "git clone" command. thats trivial. publishing to android is a bit of work, but very one-time.

keeping up with development is a different story - but many foss projects thrive with support from whoever needs to have something fixed.

You'll also have to convince other maintainers to adopt the new API in this case, otherwise it's pointless. Vaultwarden is only the server, you'd at least require one third-party client (e.g. Keyguard) to add and maintain the Vaultwarden API and probably also someone to fork the browser plugins. This whole issue is quite involved.

If self hosting is not an option. Ideas that come to mind:

Evaluate what it is worth to you and maybe pay for it, if they offer enough worth to you and it is affordable.

Then there are people who host it and provide it to others. Together with other apps, as a suite. Maybe that's an option. But I suppose, donating or paying is expected here, too.

Or switch to another solution. Preferably one with an import feature.

There is certainty that the Foss version won't be worse than current bitwarden client. Then those will diverge. So?

I highly doubt future compatibility. Things will diverge. I care about having a good hostable password manager. I don't care about the name of the client or if it's compatible with some closed source shit.

The current FOSS backend used to be the center of the ecosystem. Going forward that may change. If it stops being that center and it becomes merely a token offering so Bitwarden can claim "we're still doing FOSS" then it will become pointless.

Simply forking the backend is meaningless without the work to also drag along the entire ecosystem, or establish a new one. Forking a project takes time, effort, vision, persistence, determination.

The back end is already solved by vaultwarden, so I'm not sure what you mean