What is a really smart choice for password manager apps? Concerned about privacy and politically involved CEOs.
I’ve used:
- LastPass
- 1Password
- ProtonPass (Now using)
I thought ProtonPass was a good choice but I’m starting to read more about it. What’s just a really solid choice all around, that you can feel good about? Free or paid.
Update: I decided to go with Bitwarden and Bitwarden Authenticator. The features and the experience are better than the three listed above that I’ve used before. Awesome advice here, thanks everyone.
KeepassXC + webdav
No one has mentioned pwsafe, which was originally created by Bruce Schneier and is still maintained.
Also voting for bitwarden
I use and like Bitwarden and afaik you can self host a fork(?) too
Bitwarden paid version also lets you set emergency access for others in the case of your death or inability to access
You can self-host Bitwarden, too. My understanding is that VaultWarden is much simpler to self-host, though. Note that VaultWarden isn’t a “fork”; it’s a compatible rewrite in Rust (Bitwarden’s codebase, by contrast, is primarily C#).
I also use Bitwarden and strongly prefer it over every other password manager I’ve tried or investigated, for what that’s worth. I’d recommend it to 99% of non-enterprise users (it’s probably great for enterprise use as well, TBF).
The only use case I wouldn’t recommend it for is when you don’t want your passwords stored in the cloud, in which case KeePass is the way to go. To be clear, that recommendation does not apply if you’re syncing your vault with a cloud storage provider - even one you’re hosting, like SyncThing - even if your vault is encrypted. At that point just use Bitwarden or VaultWarden, because they’re at least audited with your use case in mind (Vaultwarden has only been audited once afaik, though).
Can confirm it’s super easy to self host.
You can self host vaultwarden and use the bitwarden clients
I’m happy with Bitwarden, the iPhone app and windows software / Firefox extension all work seamlessly and easily
+1 for bitwarden as well
I use KeepassXC which is free and open-source. The passwords are stored as an encrypted file on your own system. No servers or businesses involved.
Personally I put mine in onedrive so it is synced between all of my devices though, so I guess there is still a server involved in that case
+1 for keepassxc + syncthing
Also generally recommebd syncthing as a replacement for cloud storage for you phone pics and music and stuff.
Samesies!
One very important word of caution (unfortunately coming from experience): Syncthing, as the name suggests, makes it so the content of one device is the same as that of another device. So, even if you have one device set to only receive data, it means that if you delete a file from the sending device, the receiving device will also delete that file to stay in sync with the sending device.
There is a way to use Syncthing as a simple backup storage program (not necessarily the best solution but much better than manually backing up your files every few months and just hoping for the best). But it means that you have to use the advanced folder option “ignoreDelete”. I also use the file versioning system, so even if something is automatically deleted by mistake, it’s still versioned in a special subfolder and accessible to me.
Yeah i basically view it like a network drive in its default configuration. As if you were carrying around a USB drive.
noted, ty
Samesies. KeePass works great for me as well, storing it on a server so it’s accessible for both phones (using KeePassXC), and desktop using the web app for keeweb.info (app.keeweb.info).
KeePass on sandstorm
One virtual server hosts all my open source apps, including my pw manager. It’s insanely great.
Try the one click demo
https://apps.sandstorm.io/app/rq41p170hcs5rzg66axggv8r90fjcssdky8891kq5s7jcpm1813h
KeepassXC is great, but I realised very late in the process of setting it up, that the browser extension does not support Flatpak based browsers: “Please note that in general Flatpak and Snap based browsers are not supported, Ubuntu’s Firefox Snap being an exception.” (https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc-browser/wiki/Troubleshooting-guide)
I hope this might change at some point.
There’s a workaround, at least for Firefox
Where would one find that?
https://github.com/keepassxreboot/keepassxc-browser/issues/1631#issuecomment-2464608760
I think that was the method that worked for me
I think I ran into that exact issue myself when I tried out fedora silverblue. I believe there was a workaround but it was quite involved from what I remember…
Use KeepassXC with Syncthing for maximum autonomy or Bitwarden for maximum ease. Both are FOSS. That’s my recommendation and also seems to be the consensus among those who share your needs.
Bitwarden
I’ll second bitwarden. I also have proton-pass but use bitwarden.
Unfortunately LastPass had some issues over the past years with hacking where encrypted vaults were stolen. Between myself and my friends in tech, I know of a few conpanies that ditched it after that.
For individual/personal use, I’d reccomend KeePass (whatever fork of it is up to date and maintained lately) and using somethung like syncthing to sync it across devices. That may not be super user friendly for non-technical users though, and I’m not sure how well it works with iPhones.
For iOS devices the most up to date client is “Strongbox”. I don’t think it is FOSS, but is compliant with the standard. It’s sadly a freemium app, but is quite well made in my testing. It cannot sync with syncthing, but does support several cloud services, its own service (which uses iCloud), and local file transfer over LAN. They also have a version of the app with all network connectivity removed for security (if you prefer)
I understand there’s a bit of of bias here, but I’ve been using 1Password for probably 10+ years and have literally never had a problem. Transferred between multiple devices, added family, etc.
Solid as hell and super reliable.
Selfhost if you want, but I’ll take the reliability.
I do selfhost everything I can, but have chosen not to do that with my passwords. It feels to much all-eggs-in-one-basket-y.
1Password also holds my SSH keys and acts as an ssh-agent on most systems, and I also just found out that you can get secrets from your 1Password vault in Python, which means my PyInfra scripts can use it as well.
Yeah, totally agree. I do backups in a similar way. Do I have cloud backups? Yes. Do I also have local? Hell yes.
A combination of the two is likely the best bet but I will say 1Password feels like one of those “oft imitated, rarely replicated” solutions.
Although I’ve also been using Apple’s solution for similar reasons. Works great, too.
I use bitwarden for unimportant ones and an offline one for important ones. specifically KeepassXC that was already mentioned.
I’d used KeepassXC + Nextcloud to sync for ~4 years.
Then I switched to Bitwarden client + self-hosted Bitwarden Server/Vaultwarden for ~2 years and I haven’t looked back.
The problem you’ll face with KeepassXC + any syncing mechanism is that conflicts will happen. Meaning, you’ll make a change on your cellphone, your internet has a hiccup or stops working. Then you make a different change on you desktop. When everything is synced, you’ll be left with a KeePass conflict file that you need to fix. This might be fine if you immediately notice it, but if you stumble upon a conflict file from a month ago - good luck merging the differences.
Bitwarden client + Vaultwarden has improved my password experience radically. I have phones, laptops, browsers, etc all talking to Vaultwarden. Any conflicts are handled automagically by the clients. Everything “just works” in offline mode (meaning I can add/update credentials while offline and it’ll update the server whenever it can - without needing to do any mental gymnastics).
I can share passwords with friends and family without needing to share everything. Plus, as my instance is self-hosted, my family can get “emergency access” (would be a “premium feature”) to my passwords if something unfortunate happens to me. Plus, requesting emergency access is pretty easy to do, for non-tech people.
edit: a word
The struggle with KeePass conflicts is real. Put basically the problem occurs when you change a DB on device A, change the same DB on device B, and then you sync them using Syncthing. That might happen for me once a month.
I think I found a process that can reduce the occurrence of conflicts, mostly, not entirely. Instead of one DB that every device shares I have one DB per device (i.e. the KeePass file includes the name of the device). Most of the time this can’t possibly cause a conflict because device A only saves to its own DB. The only time it could create a conflict is if I need to pull in an entry that I made on another device. That’s a manual process for me and it makes me more aware that a conflict could happen. I make sure the device I’m syncing from is active in Syncthing, and if it is there’s almost no chance of a conflict.
A one-way sync option for KeePass would make conflicts almost impossible so I think I’ll propose that or work on a plugin for it.
That’s a very clever solution. But it’s really convient to create a login in your phone and immediate switch to your laptop and login.
Great thread and good recommendations from folks. I use RoboForm for personal and happy with that for many years now, and Bitwarden for my company and happy with it.
iOS users, i guess the best option available is self hosted Bitwarden
