I Do Not Recommend Bitwarden
The author details their decision to stop recommending Bitwarden after several years of self-hosting, citing technical inefficiencies and strategic concerns. Despite Bitwarden's open-source roots and popularity, the official server is resource-heavy and complex compared to the community-driven Vaultwarden alternative. The author questions Bitwarden's direction following significant venture funding and its failure to adopt superior community-developed solutions.
- ▪The author used Bitwarden with Vaultwarden for self-hosting over several years but no longer recommends it.
- ▪Bitwarden's official server is built on a heavy C# backend with MSSQL Express, making it less efficient than the lightweight Rust-based Vaultwarden.
- ▪Vaultwarden has three times more GitHub stargazers than the official Bitwarden server, indicating stronger community support.
- ▪Bitwarden hired the main Vaultwarden developer but released 'Bitwarden unified lite,' which still uses more resources than Vaultwarden.
- ▪The company received $100M in funding from PSG and Battery Ventures, raising concerns about its commitment to open-source principles versus investor returns.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at マリウス.