Are you looking for a password manager? Password managers abound and many are open source. Which one will you choose? I was letting a browser store my passwords until an upgrade to my system left my browser based solution wanting. That’s when I started looking for a password manager. I looked in the software store of my Linux distribution. I downloaded and tried out a number of them. That list included Keepassx, Keepass2.and Bitwarden. Then I opted for a free proprietary solution. That worked until recently when the free solution put some conditions on the use of their product.
Last week while listening to Linux Unplugged I heard Chris Fisher recommend Bitwarden. Hindsight is 20/20 and now I wonder why I didn’t choose Bitwarden in the first place. There is value in making mistakes and learning from them. I like that I can install Bitwarden on my computer and have it backed up in the cloud or in my own self hosted solution.
The software runs on Windows, MacOS and Linux. You can integrate Bitwarden into your favorite web browser and that list includes Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Microsoft Edge and others. Bitwarden is mobile too. You can download it for iOS and Android. You can opt to install the software from the command line too. I like that I can access Bitwarden from any computer via the web vault too. I love that the data is fully encrypted end to end with AES-256. Learn more about Bitwarden’s security resources.
You can create a Bitwarden account for free. Bitwarden is open source and released under GPL v. 3.0. You can easily inspect the code. The Bitwarden community is vibrant and it is easy to become a part of that by visiting their forum to learn more about the software and pose questions. You can follow Bitwarden on Twitter and Reddit. The project maintains excellent documentation to help you use it well.
What is your favorite open source password management solution?