In the latest episode of “they will always sell you out” - they sold you out! Who would’ve thought.
Hoping for a good alternative client to appear, the writing is on the wall. Vaultwarden can’t exist without “leeching” off of Bitwarden.
Has Vaultwarden said anything yet? I imagine that, if necessary, given that bitwarden’s client is still open, at the point they choose to try and close it, we, the users, can fork it and establish it for vaultwarden, correct? Or, maybe even the vaultwarden team will think about forking it themselves and making a light client as well to pair with the current server.
But Vaultwarden can exist without “leeching” they just haven’t needed to yet. That’s more symbiotic than parasitic. The parasite class just took over Bitwarden after all.
Not to my knowledge. As far as forks go, that’s true. However, Vaultwarden would need to become an independent team, and even if they don’t take over maintaining the client, someone else would need to become independent. While it can work, it can also lead to very nasty, longstanding bugs or security issues due to scale, budget, and effort. I see this a lot with Apple apps for example - smaller developers understandably don’t want to deal with Apple’s crap and costs, and everyone suffers in the end.
If you look at the current state of the cybersecurity world, it’s not kind to open-source developers. AI-generated BS is dredging up vulnerabilities on all sides. So security is also a big concern. Someone like Bitwarden has a lot of budget to swing.
Vaultwarden itself is incredibly good, but not perfect:
~~https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2026-26012.~~
Edit: Bad example, point is security is a concern with a smaller team.
You’re right. And that’s why more of us need to contribute and spread the word of projects to support them.
Honestly, FOSS is our last bastion against this consumerist hellscape. I’m working on learning to build my own discord-like front end on matrix specifically for gaming. But I’m just one guy. We’ve all gotta pick where we place our effort and support those around us similarly.
Vaultwarden taking over bitwarden, should they shut doen as open source, I think would be entirely worthy. But it might need more people to either help vaultwarden or maintain it on their own, you’re right.
To me, seeing and learning about all of these projects gives me hope. All of these people and communities working to build things out of passion and dedication, because they care and want to provide value to others. No profit motive necessary. We just need to be there to support them as we’ve tied capital to our survival currently.
The year of keepass and syncthing!.
This is why corporate promises can never be trusted, because a new CEO can change those promises on a whim.
It’s part of why despite being interested in Beeper, I never signed up for it because I had questions about if those privacy promises they made would be kept if they sold to a bigger company… which they eventually did.
On the plus side Bitwarden already made an official open source self-hosted version, which can be forked and/or return to the community developed Vaultwarden roots.
Meanwhile KeepassXC keeps on chugging along.
FYI beeper is really just matrix with bridges. Once I realized that I set up my own and now I have the same functionalities as beeper, self hosted, with a choice of clients.
Every company is basically evil at this point.
Since Dodge v. Ford Motor Co (1919), if not earlier.
See also: https://reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate-accountability-history-corporations-us/
They responded on reddit and walked some of it back as an “oversight”: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bitwarden/comments/1tdvnh7/comment/olznwcv/. Allegedly, I’m too lazy to verify.
A change that would require intent to make is not a mistake or oversight.
This sucks. I committed to Bitwarden years ago and now am going to have to switch before they lock me in the garden.
They also haven’t addressed the removal of inclusion and transparency from their goals.
EDIT: They did. They said it’s “less of a priority”. The article I shared has been updated. I smell corporate bullshit though. “Oversight” this, “priority shift” that, they’d have to work hard to gain any trust back.
Jesus, I’m tired of switching password managers.
KeePassXC + KeePassDX is probably the best option, with the downside of no way to sync easily (syncthing is probably the best option there)
I might switch back at some point, been getting frustrated with the bitwarden extension performance always being so poor.
Merge conflicts are a concern for KeePass, especially for those that don’t want to resolve them. Sync is difficult. AFAIK this is a very common issue with Syncthing setups.
Also, the portability from Bitwarden to KP leaves a bit to be desired, though that’s probably 90% on BW.
I’ve been using KeePass with Syncthing for 5+ years now and I think I’ve only had a sync issue once in all this time.
Granted I do make sure I only use the database on one device at a time (so not making edits on desktop and my phone at the same time) and I’m using XC and DX clients not the OG KeePass program.
I’m curious what is causing sync issues to make it “common”, I use my db every day.
I think the original title was more helpful because it shows that this is a recent development. Maybe you can add “new CEO”?
Bitwarden scrubs ‘Always free’ and ‘Inclusion’ values from its website as longtime execs step down
In February, longtime CEO Michael Crandell moved to an advisory role, according to LinkedIn, with no announcement from the company. His replacement, Michael Sullivan, former CEO of both Acquia and Insightsoftware, touts his experience with “all facets of mergers and acquisitions” on his own LinkedIn page, including experience working with leading private equity firms.
CFO Stephen Morrison also left Bitwarden in April, replaced by former InVision CEO Michael Shenkman. Both Crandell and Morrison joined the company in 2019. Kyle Spearrin, who started Bitwarden as a fun hobby project in 2015, remains the company’s CTO.
