cross-posted from: https://thelemmy.club/post/57178743
RyanL Bitwarden Employee
Hello everyone!
Starting in the next release, the Bitwarden apps published to the various stores will be the commercially licensed builds. No action is needed, and the apps will work exactly as they do today.
Bitwarden remains committed to open source security and transparency The GPLv3 OSS licensed version continues to be updated and published on GitHub All current features are available in both versions License details are on GitHub Bitwarden remains committed to a robust, free forever plan for everyoneIf you have any questions, please ask them in this thread. Thanks all!
EDIT:
Bitwarden is not going closed-source You can still fork Bitwarden No change to self-hosting, the licensing change affects those who are repackaging and reselling Bitwarden The free plan is here to stay permanently
That was written in the sky…
Open-Source is literally used as marketing tool for the under dogs until they reach a critical mass of users.
People were fighting on social media, defending the product, suggesting it, “it’s open source”, people were doing the marketing for them.
No wonder why people feel like they got raped, after all the hard work they have done for them…
But at least they didn’t contribute code, did you? Not me, because I am old enough to never use such products, it’s a classic rug pull, bait and switch.
Open source doesn’t mean it’s good, it must be hold by a bunch of strangers in T-shirt, not in full suite…
Corpo in disguise…
Goddamnit, enshittification comes for ALL paid services eventually. Looks like I have another service to start self hosting…
It’s still open source
Bitwarden’s front-end (Apps, Extensions) must be hard forked before it is too late.
If you are on Lemmy, theres very high probability that you also have the technical abilities required to self host Vaultwarden and stop relying on a greedy company for your most critical aspect.
I have Vaultwarden, it works with the web app and browser extensions. But is there a vaultwarden specific android app? I know technically I can use the Bitwarden app. But sometimes they update the Bitwarden app too fast for all the changes to translate into Vaultwarden and then im kinda forced to use the web app.
The web app is just a minor inconvenience to me so I continue to use it. Just wondering if there is an easier Vaultwarden specific solution for android.
How often do you update vaultwarden? This has never been an issue for me.
Then we will shit … the enshitification exodus goes on
Yeah, keyguard is pretty good
Then again, if you can do that, why not just use pass
There seems to be only one Android client, and it’s been archived on Github. I kinda need an android client for a password manager to be usable.
Are the clients usable or is the user experience more like KeePass (i.e. bad)?
They only have text on the home page, so I’m not super hopeful about that, but then they do link like 10 different compatible clients
Yes because using a different then normies app also means technical skills. In fact, haven’t your PhD diploma came along when you signed up for your Lemmy account?
It just blows my mind how so many comments use the term ‘purchase’ as if this new enshitification step still allowed for the dictionary meaning of the word.
I used to suggest bitwarden to everyone, now it’s basically ‘start using KeePass, keep a copy of your db in a USB drive in your safe, have fun’.
Yep, have been using KeyPass or KeyPassX for at least a decade now and just syncing across all machines (via syncthing). 100% reliable in my experience.
That’s quite the disappointment. Probably need to prepare to switch away from bitwarden or at least research options for open source clients for my vaultwarden backend.
what is even out there? I pay for proton and bitwarden. but I just dont trust them
Before Bitwarden / Vaultwarden I went with Keepass (it was some fork don’t remember the exact name KeepassXC probably) synced via Nextcloud. It’s not as convenient as Bitwarden plus at least back then it didn’t support passkeys. So yeah, I don’t know what is actually out there. Honestly I don’t think it’s super urgent to start hunting for alternatives but probably we should have at least some ideas in case the Bitwarden team does some weird moves.
Rest in Peace :(
Does this mean I will, or won’t be able to install the FOSS version through GitHub? Trying to stop repackagers from selling your project is one thing, but killing the source available installs would be another.
According to their forum it is to prevent repackers
“bitwarden apps will be the commercially licensed builds.” I don’t understand how this is going to change anything.
I self-host vaultwarden. I use the official Bitwarden app, it works swimmingly. Going the self-hosted route you get enterprise features (I don’t use em).
Doesn’t the licensing stuff connect with the backend not the app?
All current features are available in both versions
They will start making changes exclusively to the propriety app, and eventually the proprietary app will be completely incompatible with the FOSS app. They’re doing what Google did with AOSP.
The commercial licensing is on the clients. You must switch to the Github versions immediately or proprietary code will be installed.
Sigh… I hope this isn’t the first move of enshitifying bitwarden. I read the comments/replies and hope this is benign but I’m now nervous
The first move was when they hired a CEO who comes from private equity. This is the second move.
I think it is the next move (not the first) in enshittifying bitwarden. I think the first move was the leadership change announced in May.
Fantastic. I’m tired of having to change password managers. DashLane, Keepass, LastPass, etc., they all end up shooting their own foot somehow.
What happened to keepass?
It has become Keep Ass.
Cool quip, doesn’t answer the question
Interesting thread I stumbled upon from a few years ago where everyone is praising Bitwarden as essential. Times sure do change.
When Bitwarden got a meh “refresh” of the user interface and started vibe coding stuff (I’m not some super hard-line anti-AI person, but dammit, you absolutely should not vibe code security-critical apps), I switched to KeePassX. It was like coming back home! I used to use KeePass and KeePass 2, switched to Bitwarden for a long while, and while it was neat, KeePassX is just neater. (Doesn’t have cloud sync, but syncing the vault files with LocalSend is easy enough.)
I guess you mean KeepassXC, because the last release of KeepassX apparently was in 2016.
KeepassXC is also using AI, they even made a blog post about it a year ago.
https://keepassxc.org/blog/2025-11-09-about-keepassxcs-code-quality-control/
They never vibe code though:
This process is fully transparent and open for anyone to see, and it does not change with AI. We take no shortcuts. At KeePassXC, we use AI for two main purposes:
As an additional pair of “eyes” in code reviews.
In this function, AI summarises the changes (the least helpful part) and points out implementation errors a human reviewer may have missed. AI reviews don’t replace maintainer code review, nor do they relieve maintainers from their due diligence. AI code reviews complement our existing CI pipelines that perform unit tests, memory checks, and static code analysis (CodeQL). As such, they are a net benefit and make KeePassXC strictly safer. Some examples of AI reviews in action: example 1, example 2.For creating pull requests that solve simple and focused issues, add boilerplate code and test cases.
Unfortunately, some people got the impression that KeePassXC was now being vibe coded. This is wrong. We do not vibe code, and no unreviewed AI code makes it into the code base. Full stop. We have used Copilot agent to draft pull requests, which are then subsequently tweaked in follow-up commits, and reviewed by a maintainer, openly for anyone to see, with the same scrutiny as any other submission. Good pull requests are merged (example), bad pull requests are rejected (example).To be honest, I don’t really know where AI assistance stops and vibe coding starts. It was not my intention to say the KeepassXC team now only produces some half-assed unreviewed garbage.
I use KeepassXC myself, but OP has valid concerns about AI usage in security critical applications and I just wanted to point out that KeepassXC isn’t AI-free either.
Yep, ChiPass is a good replacement: https://codeberg.org/ChiPass/ChiPass
No mobile client 😢
Honestly their description of use and why that use it is not concerning. I’m more concerned with their choice being copilot lol.
Yup, I was supposed to say KeepassXC. (…I mean I probably considered using KeepassX at some point, it’s XC’s predecessor after all. But as I recall Keepass 2 worked well enough on Mono, so I didn’t need to switch.)
Also, whoopsies on XC’s AI use. At least they don’t seem to embrace it as much as Bitwarden, but still makes me go hmm.
