Link: https://blog.ppb1701.com/the-quiet-renovation-at-bitwarden

If you are interested in privacy you are probably interested in password storage ... plus I wanted everyone to know about the inevitable future enshitification of this product. Spread the word and replacement recommendations are welcome too.

This is really disappointing... I figured the open source nature of Bitwarden would save it from enshittification but as the author says, in the end, the company doesn't need to keep it open source.

Time to recommend alternatives?!

https://psono.com/

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/passwords/?h=psono#psono

How is psono? I've been looking to do secrets correctly in my lab for a while and its name has popped up a few times.

Nothing has beaten KeePass for me so far. It takes a bit of setting up if you want your database to sync among all your devices, but in other aspects it's perfect for me

EDIT: In case you're curious, I use KeePassXC on PC, KeePassDX on Android, and Syncthing to sync the database.

What drove me (and my family) from KeePass to Bitwarden was the family sharing and survivor access.

Until KeePass supports these it's not really up to par with Bitwarden.

Especially digital legacy management is a must have for a well rounded password manager.

https://www.passbolt.com/

Same setup here, can recommend.

TLDR: Self-host Vaultwarden

Privacy oriented self-hosting survival guide, where can I find one?

Vaultwarden will survive. Since the client is open source, once they close the API and break compatibility of the clients with Vaultwarden, the old version of the app can simply be forked and rebranded. I also do hope that the KeyGuard app will continue to support vaultwarden as well since if bitwarden closes the API and makes a breaking change, as is likely to happen, it will break KeyGuard as well, but it will still work with VaultWarden for some time.

The real issue is that many people who are using Bitwarden aren't savvy enough to host Vaultwarden in a secure way. Many people are careless with things like secret keys and such and dont know how to properly secure a web facing app or a VPN into their local network. But anyone who self hosts should result learn those things anyway. This one just happens to be a particularly high risk since it contains all of your passwords for everything else.

Need a remind me bot rn

I have nothing but good things to say about Proton Pass. Syncs across iOS, macos, PC & Linux, stores not just usernames & passwords, but short notes, product keys, & can generate temporary email addresses that can be disabled when they start receiving spam

Don't know if it has changed but there was a reason I went to vaultwarden. Syncing was a pain it is probably better now but not looking to go back.

This is why despite me self hosting some things I don't rely on vaultwarden. I'm a flawed person and my family has no idea about anything. I don't need to stretch my imagination very far to think of a handful of reasons why it would fail my situation. I'll gladly pay for a password manager to not have to deal with that.

Keepassxc (linux, winblows, crapple)
Keepassdx (AOSP, spydroid)
Keepassium (SpIOS)

I just tested aliasvault and its pretty good. You can even just import your pre-enshitification Vaultwarden export file.

One thing I noticed though is that your entries must have a collection or else they don't export. But close to easy as pie to leave vaultwarden behind with their Nazi CEO.

damn I just migrated to bitwarden a few months back :(

Cloud version is for businesses not people, for some reason. But selfhosted is free of course.

VaultWarden != BitWarden!

I know. Either way I'm out unless they fork.

VaultWarden literally is a fork, what are you on about?

Why the hell is anyone using anything other than KeePass?

Same! I self host a number of things, but I just didn't trust myself with something as important as this. I had been paying for bitwarden even though the free plan was sufficient, just to show support. But obviously not if they go this route. I will also gladly pay for a password manager to not have to deal with that.

Doesn't keepass only work on a single device? Meaning that you have to handle syncing the database file yourself. I prefer selfhosting vaultwarden. Maybe these changes will make me migrate to something else but for now I'm very satisfied with vaultwarden and the bitwarden client.

Fork means they don't share. But its not like that.

Nothing is stopping Proton from doing the same thing next week. And seeing how many people lock themselves in to Proton (by using all their services, Apple style), they have a strong incentive to also do some "restructuring" and spike prices.

Yeah, I just leave the file in a NextCloud sync directory. All my desktops and laptops download it automatically, and it's trivial to download to my phone. As an added bonus, my fucking password manager isn't exposed to the open internet where every hacker who finds it is gonna wonder what's inside.

Are you a bot? It doesn't seem like you understand what you're talking about.

if you were looking for an excuse to torpedo this abomination, here it is. hosting this gargantuan stack just for an encrypted csv file? at least the client (electron) gobbles up RAM like it's free while being bug-compatible with whatever chrome version was current half a year ago.

sadly, news ain't great on the other side of the fence - keepassXC dev is all-in on vibeshitting; latest non-polluted version is 2.7.9.; works fine and the stuff they're working on is pretty far from essential. some unknown folks forked it but who's to say what their expertise is.

never thought I'd disable my autoupdate timers but here we are. keep your eyes open.

Hey Login seems promising
Free for private users, hosted in germany and end2end

https://www.heylogin.com/en

As an added bonus, my fucking password manager isn't exposed to the open internet

WireGuard 🥹

VaiultWarden is a new implementation of the Bitwarden API. It started from scratch, never was a fork. It's possible they (or other people) will fork the Bitwarden client.

Do I understand correctly that there is no way to implement SSO on the self-hosted version?

At that point, is it really easier than NextCloud? I don't have to worry about forgetting to disconnect and wasting my VPS's bandwidth or ruining my ping for games. On PCs and laptops, the file is immediately local, and on mobile, it's easier to download an updated version of the database than it is to mess with the VPN.

keepassXC supports passkeys though.

I use vaultwarden in my company - need to share some passwords/group with specific other users etc.

Just learned about KeyGuard. But I dislike their LICENSE:

All Rights Reserved

Can you explain the issues with KeePass? Or is there another thread?

You still have some time to decide which route to go. If you're on the free version, stay there, but start looking for alternatives.

Proton Pass is an option. KeePass with Syncthing works great, but it is a dramatically different and more involved workflow.

I am using both, and deleted my Bitwarden account yesterday the moment I heard about this.

Also, I can't suggest enough that you export all your credentials to an encrypted json file every now and then, and store it on an offline storage device. This is important.

I guess I need to go back to a handy notebook.

Is it time block headlines with "quiet"?
Its like AI decided that word gets the most clicks and its showing up everywhere.

This is my unverified understanding of the situation.

KeepassXC team added Copilot to their workflow to manage PRs and code some basic (according to KeepassXC) stuff.

We really need a VaultWarden paid service, if there isn't anything against doing so in the license.

I don't know why the server needs any specialized software at all though. In the end, if it's just some password history, why not just have a client that allows generic storage backends and you can upload to Filen or S3 or whatever else you use?

I've been using it for years. But I have been waiting for this day to come. Because it always comes at some point without fail.

OOP is AI writing about AI

As soon as VC money comes in, the founders cash out and the enshittification begins as the VC will be expecting returns on their money.

Yup, it is. On one hand, I would have wireguard configured regardless beacause I don't like publicly exposing my server. On the other, if you had to do it just for this and don't want to configure wireguard manually, just use zerotier, tailscale or netbird. They can be set up in like 15 minutes and after you get it working you don't need to touch it again.

I use both same products, just manually copy to phone periodic as my vault is pretty static

Made the move from bitwarden not that long ago, actually a bit before their price increase (just timing not because of it). Nothing bad about BW to say, it worked great for me for years.

My motivation was wanting my password manager fully offline.

Keepass are fantastic programs, and actually now more pleased with my move after seeing some negative moves from BW I needn't be concerned with

+1 for Keepass!

the dev vibecodes; I make a distinction between using the crap as a boilerplate helper and a full-blown agentic "hey computer, do this but do it super-good!". not only that, they got a super-asshole vibe as they removed claude traces from the repo and then flaunted that it's so people won't know what parts were vibeshat. "good luck finding the cutoff point", I'm paraphrasing here.

to each their own, but that's a hard pass for that fork from me.