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)
if you’re into self-hosting i’ve been using vaultwarden for a while now. it’s an open-source implementation of the Bitwarden server
hello, quit using centralized services
I ran away from Bitwarden a few weeks ago due to other controversies and started using GNOME Secrets and KeePassDX. I couldn’t be happier, it’s slightly less convenient but I’m glad I did that.
I’ve asked this before but does any of this enshittification affect vaultwarden?
Even if it doesn’t affect it directly Vaultwarden is strongly linked to Bitwarden, for example I think you’re using official clients on your devices, Vaultwarden is not self sustainable (for now)
None of the above effects vaultwarden (how could it?), but 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.
Well since most if not all use the Bitwarden client they could lock that down. Which would suck.
you should get a notice no later than 2 weeks before the actual renewal
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.
Can keepass store files?
Yes, you can add multiple files to an entry.
Great, then I will probably switch to that then.
Great to hear. One thing I liked about Bitwarden is that you change choose Aegon2id and its KDF iterations, etc. Is that standard? Can you do that in keepass?
Don’t be evil!!
You’re quitting over some words? All this questionable shit and you’re quitting cause they changed an acronym? Sheesh…
It’s true - apart from the price hike, Nothing really has happened. And yet I ask you, which are you more comfortable with:
- A company with closed communication, and still asks to be trusted at the end
- A company having open, transparent communication
In this case I don’t care. I selfhost. What Bitwarden does doesn’t affect me.
They are quitting becuase they see another lastpass happening. The new CEO is a toxic private equity leech.
Last pass was not Foss though.
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.
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.
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.
The price hike was announced months ago iirc and brings bitwarden in line (still cheaper) with all the other services after being the same price over years and years of inflation.
I got my eyes on em because of the vc money but the price hike isn’t out of line.
VC money is the end of the product. The enshittification has started and will never stop.
I am testing out Syncthing right now and will switch to an offline password manager
As a former subscriber since today, I didn’t get an email about it so it’s wasn’t announced enough imo.
Great resource. However, I remember one of them recommending straight up poor advice (and I think suspected sponsored recommendations), and the community shunned them for it. I just can’t remember if its https://www.privacyguides.org/en/ or https://www.privacytools.io/
The bad one is privacytools.
Bit warden is undergoing enshittifcation in real time. It’s interesting to watch.
That’s it. Thank you for your service until now.
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.
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
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.
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
Well that would make sense. I was actually going to switch to bitwarden back in May after keepassxc decided to corrupt my entire database along with the backup. I had to begin the lengthy process of resetting every single password I have, I was pretty furious and never wanted to touch keepassxc again. But when I went to bitwarden’s website I noticed only paid options, so I decided to continue researching alternatives.
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.
thanks, I haven’t seen this before
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
