I personally prefer bitwarden, using a self-hosted vaultwarden. It's free, it syncs, it's easy to use.
this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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Passphrase generator, simplelogin/addy.io integration and sync.
This makes my life so much easier.
I used to use keepassxc for years. Kept it synced with sync thing, though eventually work blocked networking with sync thing so I swapped to vaultwarden and never been happier.
Same, and the apps work great.
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I use KeePassXC on my laptop, KeePassDX on my phone and sync them with Syncthing.
This ia pretty sweet
it's so good, wish I'd found it sooner
Not bothered about the potential for keyloggers or even OS-level snooping on what is presumably your privacy-free Android device? Personally I would never type the master password into anything other than a computer running a FOSS stack that I control, but perhaps that is excessive caution.
Well, there is a limit to my paranoid. It's really hard to find a sweet spot between security and practicality.
I found mine with this settings I said
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I have the same setup. It's really neat.
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I installed KeePass(XC) on Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, Mac, for Firefox and Chrome and it's all synced via encrypted cloud share. It even has OTP functionality so you don't have to manually type 2FA codes.
Whats it called on ios? Keepassium?
There’s also Strongbox available for ios
Yes
I don't have an iPhone but I set it up for a family member. I remember we tried out two apps because the first one didn't have what we needed. One of them was Keepassium, but I don't remember of it was the one we kept.
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Yup, I have been using KeePassXC locally since (one of) the first big LastPass breaches. I thought "password manager company... they know encryption" and then kept some of the most important things stored in my vault including notes of Bitcoin seedphrases etc. Thought "even if they get hacked, they wouldn't let anyone exfil the huge amount of data from the USER VAULT SERVER.... thought "my passphrase is like 25-30 chars long, nobody will crack that"...
5 years after my last login and I find out the breach happened, user vaults were exfil'd, the encryption was absolute shit, and the notes weren't even encrypted.
I don't trust cloud companies to keep promises or know what they're doing today. and anything self-hosted isnt Internet accessable unless it's on dedicated hardware subnetted off and wouldn't matter if it got hacked.
Bitwarden for example does public reports and is pretty cheap at 10€ per year. But the base (free) offering is more than enough. The fee is only to have TOTP and a bit of encrypted cloud storage. https://bitwarden.com/help/is-bitwarden-audited/
The fee is only to have TOTP and a bit of encrypted cloud storage.
And to keep the company alive. It's cheap enough that IMO it's worth paying for if you get a lot of value from it, even if you don't need the paid features.
I prefer the KeePassXC fork as it's written in C++ and not C# so it has better native integration with OSes like Linux, but yeah these are really good solutions with no subscription requirements or necessity to upload to any cloud service.
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Love KeePass. When LastPass enshittened, I went looking for something immune to enshittification. Best money I never spent
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Are there users that have tried both Keepass and Vaultwarden? I enjoy using Vaultwarden on my Synology but I wonder if it's worth switching to Keepass.
I have both set up right now.
Things I like better about KeePass:
KeePass doesn't use the cloud, you don't have to worry about the server getting compromised or going down because there's nothing public-facing to hack. You always know where your password database is.
KeePass lets you encrypt the database with not only the master password but also using the challenge-response from a YubiKey. That means every time you save your DB the encryption key is rotated and the DB is actually encrypted by two authentication factors.
While both can add custom fields to an entry, I like that KeePass has the option to set fields as protected so their contents are hidden like the passwords.
Things I like better about VaultWarden:
Convenience.
You can log in to your VaultWarden account on any device from the browser. KeePass requires some software to access the DB.
The VaultWarden companion software is just better. It just does autofill better. KeePassXC/DX work well but just not as well as the BitWarden software.
Other thoughts:
Syncing passwords between devices with KeePass requires 3rd party software like SyncThing. If you break/lose/etc your VaultWarden server you could lose all your passwords with it.
Always make/test backups.
I like that KeePass has the option to set fields as protected
Vaultwarden can do that, though its quite stiff in some aspects like folders.. subfolders? nonexistant..
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I'm on Bitwarden right now and have been thinking of switching to KeePass. My issue keeping me from actually switching is the convenience factor. Can't imagine making it even more annoying to use for my SO
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I have been using KeePass for eight years. Used to just shuffle the file around with Google Drive, now I have it sync'd with Syncthing across a few devices. I use its notes feature to store associated data like S3 keys and it stores my SSH key and KeePassXC can automatically add it to an SSH agent.
I don't really have any complaints about it.
Been a Keepass user for years and years. Absolutely top notch. There are plugins that can auto fill websites, that can open putty ssh sessions, basically everything you can imagine (or build).
I used to use Keepass (thanks person who said keep ass, I can't not see that now) for many years but started to get frustrated with stuff not syncing properly and a few other reasons I can't remember anymore. But I think I'll have to give it a go again. I've been using Enpass for a number of years and it's been good but I've never liked that it's closed source.
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What's amusing is I am purposely not paying for bitwarden because of the check against darkweb leaks or whatever type feature when you pay. That's seems like an anti privacy thing. I understand it's a good idea albeit seems to expose a lot of information about you. I would like to do vaultwarden but don't think I can trust self hosting myself without paying monthly for a vps which I don't want to do. Home Internet hosting seems to unreliable to me for something that important.
Just random thoughts of mine here.
because of the check against darkweb leaks or whatever type feature when you pay. That's seems like an anti privacy thing. I understand it's a good idea albeit seems to expose a lot of information about you
For the password leak checks, your passwords are never transmitted. They are one-way hashed locally, and then only the first few characters of the hash are checked against the API provided at https://haveibeenpwned.com which is run and designed by Troy Hunt, one of the most respected people in the cybersecurity industry. He collects major password breaches and makes them available to check against without actually exposing the data. It's perfectly safe and secure.
The bitwarden clients also work when there's no connection to the server, since they sync the vault. You just can't add any new entries. That means spotty internet is not that much of an issue in terms of using it. It also means, that every device that has a client installed and gets used regularly (to give the client a chance of syncing) is automatically a backup device.
I host vaultwarden at home. No real need for a vps since your passwords are synced to your phone or laptop(whatever client you're using) and you can just sync it when you're home if you make changes, or setup a VPN (I use wireguard) and sync on demand when needed.
That said, I do sync my database to a vps for dr purposes incase my home server suddenly vanishes... for critical services I follow a 3-2-1 backup rule but it's not absolutely essential.
Love KeePass, I use it to store all my passwords including to SyncThing, then I keep my KeePass file in my SyncThing instance so I can recover from a disaster. Definitely nothing could go wrong with that ;-)
Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:
| Fewer Letters | More Letters |
|---|---|
| NAS | Network-Attached Storage |
| SSH | Secure Shell for remote terminal access |
| VPN | Virtual Private Network |
[Thread #215 for this sub, first seen 13th Oct 2023, 19:05] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]
Are there advantages to this over self hosting Vaultwarden?
No in my opinion its worse in every way
Main thing I prefer about KeePass is that it's a straightforward app that creates a file. Self-hosting a database seems just that much more complicated.
I don't know if they fixed it, I hope so, but not long ago there was a very dangerous vulnerability that allowed an attacker to bring able to access the master password.
I was using it long time ago, then I discovered Bitwarden and I'm really happy with it. I suggest you to have a look, in terms of UI is better and can be self hosted too.
For decent privacy oriented tool recommendations, here's a list.
https://www.privacyguides.org/en/tools/
There was some drama about the webpages so I'll link both to avoid angry users. Anyway, KeePassXC is on there, which it seems like it's a fork of KeePass, you might want to check it out.
Maybe a silly question, but since I am considering making the jump to a password manager too, I am curious:
If I have a selfhosted server at home that is not connected to the public internet, can I still ise Keepass? Does it have to constantly sync with the server or is it enough that when I get home my passwords are syncing? Could that be a problem?
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Mine is a 3-lines-script that gpg-decrypts to runtime-dir, opens editor, encrypts back, deletes in runtime-dir. Password done via zenity/yad.
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