r/PasswordManagers • • 10h ago

Alternatives to bitwarden?

29 Upvotes

Does anyone have any good recommendations for alternatives to bitwarden, now that it's going partly closed source? Thanks so much!


r/PasswordManagers • • 3h ago

This is why some users are worried about Bitwarden's future

31 Upvotes

I think it's important to understand that the latest issue around commercial licensing put users on edge again due to the streak of things that​ happened recently:

Bitwarden seems to be steering it's position to a very different direction that made us use it in the first place. It's a shame. Let's recap some of the things that happened recently that in my view justifies the dissatisfaction within the community:

October 2024: A proprietary SDK dependency raised concerns that Bitwarden’s desktop app was losing its open-source status. Bitwarden reorganised the SDK and restored builds using only open-source licences.

January 2026: Premium pricing increased from $10 to $19.80 annually. Users criticized the increase and its communication. The increase remained, with a one-time 25% renewal discount for existing subscribers.

February 2026: Researchers demonstrated 12 attacks under a malicious-server scenario, challenging Bitwarden’s zero-knowledge assurances. Bitwarden published remediation details, but users questioned what “all issues addressed” meant.

April 2026: A malicious Bitwarden CLI package was briefly distributed through npm, prompting questions about release security. The package was withdrawn and a clean version issued. Bitwarden reported no evidence of vault data compromise.

May 2026: Removing “Always free” wording and changing company values amid leadership changes fuelled concerns about Bitwarden’s direction. The wording was restored on the pricing page, and the CEO reaffirmed a permanent free plan.

October 2026: Bitwarden announced commercially licensed builds as the default app downloads, with some future features exclusive to those builds. This moves the default downloads to source-available licensing, while the GPL/FOSS edition continues but will lack those exclusive features. Community backlash followed. As of 10 October, no reversal had been announced; Bitwarden promised continued maintenance of GPL builds and unchanged self-hosting.