this post was submitted on 13 Jun 2026
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I have been using Bitwarden for around 7~ years. Subscription for this long too, at 10USD p/year. I will be switching due to lack of transparency, and would love to hear others thoughts on this.

The linked article goes into further detail, but here is a small summary that very much concern me / are sus:

  • that 10USD per year has gone up quietly . I just checked and I have no email telling me it's increased. It renews in like 2 months, so this is good timing for me
  • Originally Bitwarden had values as apart of the acronym "GRIT". Gratitude, Responsibility, Inclusion, and Transparency. They have changed the last two words to "Innovation, Trust"
  • There is now a new CEO, this was not announced and the only reason people outside of Bitwarden know is that someone saw this change on LinkedIn
  • The free tier momentarily disappeared from their product page for about a month (april14-may14). People were likely still able to make free accounts during this period. Bitwarden says it was a marketing mistake

The price hike is one thing, but for me the acronym change is most concerning, which is why I will be looking at another password manger (probably keepassxc)

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[–] Lettuceeatlettuce@lemmy.ml 150 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

The CEO apparently is a big private equity guy, and those bloodsucking ticks only know how to do one thing: Suck every last drop of money and goodwill from the company and its customers as quickly as possible.

Breaks my heart, I've been a massive Bitwarden advocate for years. Been happily paying for the individual paid plan. I'm now working on setting up KeyPassXC with syncthing.

[–] CorrectAlias@piefed.blahaj.zone 19 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Does KeyPassXC have passkey and TOTP support?

[–] Futurama@lemmy.zip 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Yes. For passkey, you need to install the browser plugin and enable support in the preferences.

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[–] JohnHammerSky@lemmy.today 9 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Do you know if I can get KeePass working on both PC and Android in sync with Syncthing?

[–] dieTasse@feddit.org 7 points 3 weeks ago

I have been using it that way for years and it works well (for this scenario no problem). Only recently I switched from Syncthing to using mounted SMB share. I switched partly because of the Syncthing for Android maintainer switch (though I still think its safe) and because Syncthing sometimes didn't sync on my Iodé custom rom and I got tired of having to open the app to sync.

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[–] iturnedintoanewt@lemmy.world 93 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Lol.. From Transparency to "Just Trust Me Bro".

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[–] StumblingWasabi@lemmy.today 74 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yeah, I switched to KeePass for the same reason. The only way I trust software is if they'll show me the code, and the only reason to replace "transparency" with "trust" IMHO is because they want to go closed source. Innovation also tends to just mean 'we're going to be charging you for features that used to be free '

[–] ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It much work to get all the names and passwords and stuff from BW moved over to keepass?

[–] StumblingWasabi@lemmy.today 5 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

Not really, just had to install KeePass on my computer and export my bitwarden passwords BW makes that easy to do) and import them to KeePass. I haven't set up the browser extension yet, as at a glance it says it doesn't work with browsers installed with flatpak and that's how I have LibreWolf installed. Setting up syncthing was also pretty straightforward.

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[–] undu@discuss.tchncs.de 64 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It got bought by a company owned by Vista Equity partners, a private equity firm.

The loss of values happened at Citrix when it was Vought by Vista. They installed Tom Krauseasthe CEO to gut it from the inside out.

Everybody should have an exit plan ready to be able to leave bitwarden

[–] redparadise@hexbear.net 9 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Bitwarden got bought by private equity?

[–] Allero@lemmy.today 55 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (5 children)

If you or someone you trust happen to have a home server, just install Vaultwarden, which is the community fork of Bitwarden without any fees, shady stuff or reliance on Bitwarden infrastructure.

[–] zebidiah@lemmy.ca 44 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

If you look real close side by side there is a subtle difference....

Suuuper easy to stand up, took me about 20 minutes to get it up and running

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[–] KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I know this options exists, but honestly I don’t think I have reliable enough infrastructure. It’s hardly ever offline, but my backup game is super weak, and I have had to rebuild from scratch once in the past three years.

What happens if I fuck up again and have to rebuild? Just feels like a massive potential failure point.

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[–] myrmidex@belgae.social 51 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (9 children)

Totally agree. I've been a multi-year paying customer of bitwarden for the family, always happy with their service, especially when compared with the 1pass I use at work. But that CEO avatar picture alone gives me enough bad vibes, let alone his credentials, the acronym change, so yea I too reckon I've been putting off the switch long enough now.

I came from keepass, can't go back there, even if I now have syncthing set up everywhere. Also, how would that work for the family, you force everyone to set up their own file and hope they manage it well? Highly doubtful.

I saw aliasvault pop up too, this last week. Haven't looked into it yet, and although a great contender, it's probably too young to seriously consider.

These are the alternatives according to selfh.st/apps :

  • Vaultwarden
  • Password Pusher
  • KeePassXC
  • Passbolt
  • Infisical
  • OpenBao
  • YeetFile
  • AliasVault
  • OrigamiVault

Anyone here had some bad experiences with any of these?

[–] lime@feddit.nu 21 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

vaultwarden allows you to keep using the bitwarden client i think, just with your own server. should be the most seamless for the family.

[–] lazynooblet@lazysoci.al 7 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

If bitwarden went completely rotten could they cease and desist vault warden?

[–] LedgeDrop@lemmy.zip 23 points 3 weeks ago

I'd asked a similar question. Basically, the response I got was: if the something goes sideways, the community can hard fork all their clients and use vaultwarden as a server (their current licenses would allow that).

Another suggestion was that you can always use the web ui bundled with vaultwarden directly (heh, I've been using vaultwarden for years and I don't think I ever used the web ui - just the applications, CLI, browser extension).

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[–] oats@piefed.zip 9 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Switched from keepassxc to vaultwarden a while ago (mostly due to the horrible syncing experience, and to use the same password manager as my family so I could help out better).

It's a selfhosted and open source version of the Bitwarden server, you'll use the (open source) Bitwarden clients. So its all features of Bitwarden plus full transparency

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[–] EntropyPure@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago (5 children)

Password Pusher is no password manager, only for securely sharing information.

Running on Vaultwarden, though that still depends on the official BitWarden Clients. Works great though, and can be selfhosted on pretty small machines. Very satisfied with it.

Passbolt was not on my radar when I was in the market for a new password manager, but would be a serious consideration today.

If considering a self hosted alternative, remember that backups are your responsibility then as well.

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[–] atrielienz@lemmy.world 41 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

This is the email I received at the begining of the year when there were multiple articles about the price increase.

I think it's important to note that you may have missed or deleted the email, or it potentially could have gone to your junk folder, but they did send out emails letting people know.

[–] Buckshot@programming.dev 19 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I got the same email with 25% discount for this year. Can't argue with lack of transparency on that and it's a bit unreasonable to expect no price increases ever

[–] atrielienz@lemmy.world 7 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Yeah. If you're using the services that might required a paid subscription, it's not out of the realm of possibilities for there to be a price increase eventually.

I'm not discounting that there's the potential for a pivot to less transparency and auditability going forward, I just wanted to point out that this wasn't done with no warning.

I don't trust the company that bought them. Private equity is almost always a bad time for consumers/users.

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[–] Fmstrat@lemmy.world 18 points 3 weeks ago

I will conti UE to self-host Vaultwarden and use the BitWarden clients until I feel the clients are not trustworthy or they are forked.

[–] Nukitashi@lemmy.world 17 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Sure, Go for it. I've been using KeePass for a long time now and I am very satisfied with it. Aside from the security and privacy (Which you know is BEST out there), It comes with many customizations too. I used to use BitWarden but now I use KeePass.

[–] Croquette@sh.itjust.works 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)
[–] someonesmall@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Yes, you can add multiple files to an entry.

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[–] diabetic_porcupine@lemmy.world 13 points 3 weeks ago

Don’t be evil!!

[–] overload@sopuli.xyz 12 points 3 weeks ago

Disappointing, but I'm still going to be running the free tier of Bitwarden for the time being. Thanks for the heads up.

[–] Libb@piefed.social 12 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

In the same boat as you.

I don't like how it's changing, I also don't like how the UI is changing and, sadly, as a EU citizen I can't trust it any longer since it is made in the USA.

But I'm no hurry to switch. I mean, I won't rush or worry about paying one more year subscription if I have to. I'll try alternatives as long as I have too. So far, there is

  • the Canadian 1Password and
  • the non-synced/local but free to use KeepassXC that are standing out.

Both work with Linux.

[–] helix@feddit.org 7 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

non-synced/local but free to use KeepassXC

I sync it with Synching with no issues.

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[–] BrilliantBadger@piefed.ca 11 points 3 weeks ago

Migrated to Keepass shortly before the price increase ( not because of it) just for the reason of wanting my vault fully offline. Seeing these changes at BW still makes me sad, was a long time paying user & truly enjoyed it

Keepass is fantastiic, my vault is pretty static so just manually copy to other device as needed. And of course, have your full backup plan in place as with all things

[–] kazerniel@lemmy.world 10 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (3 children)

didn't KeepassXC go full into vibe coding?

https://lemmy.world/post/47036606/23815574

otherwise that would be the most appealing alternative to me too

[–] CrumblyLiquid@lemmy.ml 15 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I mean they recently posted a pretty reasonable explanation about their usage of AI (https://keepassxc.org/blog/2025-11-09-about-keepassxcs-code-quality-control/ ).

I'm not sure what the guy in your link is referring to since he didn't provide any additional context.

[–] kazerniel@lemmy.world 6 points 3 weeks ago

thanks, I haven't seen this before

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[–] RiQuY@lemmy.zip 10 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

I guess it's time to move on, I'll check PrivacyGuides for a better alternative while I compare by myself too.

I'm not gonna allow a quiet price hike, this is scummy and anti-consumer.

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[–] billwashere@lemmy.world 9 points 3 weeks ago (4 children)

I’ve asked this before but does any of this enshittification affect vaultwarden?

[–] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

None of the above effects vaultwarden (how could it?), buy it does raise concerns about long term FLOSS-friendlyness. I got bit by the sudden price increase earlier this year and decided that is the 1 year warning to migrate to either self hosted vaultwarden or something else. I move slow, so need some time anyway.

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[–] RainbowBlite@piefed.ca 9 points 3 weeks ago

The price is still reasonable for me. I don't want to switch services because they might enshitrify someday.

[–] kitkat_new@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

you should get a notice no later than 2 weeks before the actual renewal

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[–] wuphysics87@lemmy.ml 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Out of a desire not to switch, I'm going to ask what I know to be a naive/dumb question: what's the worst that can happen? It's a mature gpl codebase

[–] crunchy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

They become another LastPass.

[–] clb92@feddit.dk 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (4 children)

Was LastPass open source to the same degree that Bitwarden is? It's super easy to run your own Vaultwarden server already, and it shouldn't be a problem for the community to fork and maintain unofficial clients either. Doesn't seem like there's much Bitwarden as a company can do about that, even if they wanted to.

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[–] kittenroar@beehaw.org 6 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Bitwarden was taken over by private equity just before these changes btw

price almost doubled; it's $19.80 a year now. Still cheaper than 1pass or lastpass, which are $3/month. I don't think they would increase to that much, because 1pass is objectively better.

[–] chris@links.openriver.net 6 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I’ve been very happy and impressed with Proton Pass.

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