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Comment by mwexler | Hacker News Reader

Thoughts on comparing this to bitwarden? Pros, cons?

Having used both, Bitwarden has been a better overall experience for me and much better for my friends and family. I still like both of them.

KeePassXC

* [Pro] Excellent desktop app. Fast, easy, polished, powerful (TOTP available by default).

* [Pro] Great data ownership philosophy and data storage flexibility.

* [Con] Poor cross-platform app experience, especially on mobile (iOS in particular).

* [Con] Tinkering required to sync data. This isn't a big deal for many of us on here, but presented a large barrier to entry for my non-tech-savvy friends & family.

Bitwarden

* [Pro] Excellent cross-platform experience.

* [Pro] Low barrier to entry via SaaS, making it a good option for less-than-tech-savvy folks. This is ignoring the nice option to self-host.

* [Pro] Sharing features (haven't actually used them).

* [Pro] Web vault is accessible via web browser (accessibility).

* [Con] Web vault is accessible via web browser (increased attack surface).

* [Con] App is a tad slow (electron), but this is an acceptable price to pay for the good cross-platform experience.

Can Electron really be called a good cross-platform experience? Consistent maybe, but good?

KeePass support on iOS has gotten better in recent years. I like KeePassium, but I’ve also heard good things about Strongbox.

One of the other things I like about KeePass in regards to non-mobile devices is that you can autotype your credentials into things that are not web browsers and even make custom sequences per application.

I've got a sequence that gets me logged into to a mainframe and navigates all the way to the main menu and given how often I hit it I bet it has saved me from an RSI by now.

I self-host Bitwarden and I haven't even bothered to install the desktop app. Since I have a browser open at all times, I just use the browser extension.

Also, I think the Android client is quite a bit better than Keepass2Android.

I tried bitwarden once and didn’t like it (can’t remember why, don’t care, no interest in switching ;) ), so I never tried their mobile client. But I’d be interested in what’s better than K2A, I think the modern Android experience with it is awesome.

A few things I remember: adding new entries was clunkier in k2a because I had to tap multiple times to select things like category/folders that I didn't care about. Bitwarden has better URI matching as I could choose the matching rule. BW has better search, or rather it displays search results in a more useful way. The autofill service also seemed to work more reliably, and I don't think k2a showed the matching logins right in the autofill drop-down menu, but I could be misremembering there.

Ultimately though it was the browser extensions, combined with the self-hosting option, that sold me on BW. None of the Keepass plugins I tried over the years worked that well. BW has extensions for both Firefox on Android and Vivaldi on desktop that are as solid as anything I've tried.

The main difference for me is if you want to use it on multiple devices, for example your computer and your phone.

In bitwarden this is seamless because it always saves to the cloud. With keepass you have to manually set up the file sharing with syncthing/dropbox/etc. One problem I had is that sometimes the file sync I set up wouldn't work properly and I'd add new passwords on the phone before it received the latest file version from the computer. When that happens you end up with some passwords that are only on the computer and some that are only on the phone, which is something that syncthing can't fix by itself.

And it doesn’t offer to synchronize them?

Currently I’m using regular KeePass 2 and Keepass2Android and both offer to sync the changes in case I edit both at the same time… I would’ve thought KeePassXC does the same.

It does? I remember it being a fiddly thing but it is also possible that I messed up somewhere else.

I used to only manually sync several years ago, because of those problems. Then I got a new phone, set up normal sync and it suddenly worked without any problems.

This was the biggest reason I moved from KeePassXC to BitWarden. If I'm only creating new accounts on my phone then sending those credentials to my self via Signal or Wire is no big deal (update on my desktop, synch to iCloud, pull down new KDBX file on my phone for Strongbox which I use in readonly mode). If I'm creating account credentials on a platform where I don't have Signal or Wire installed (a shared Chrimebook, for example) then what... sending to myself by email draft? Add in mobile testing on devices on which a factory reset is regularly executed then it becomes an even easier choice in favor of BitWarden.

My experiences are my own; KeePassXC allows a much higher level of security than anything that's cloud-based but it's also not as convenient to use. For me, that makes Bitwarden the "right" choice. I only used one computer all the time then I would use KeePassXC without a doubt.

The pro is you remain fully in control of your password database and you can host it the way you like. And all features are free since you don't rely on someone else's infrastructure.

I use Syncthing on my devices to keep the database in sync, and I let it deal with the file versioning just in case something happens.

The con is that it doesn't always feel as polished as other password managers, but that's mostly a personal taste thing. I use KeeWeb on my desktop/laptop, and KeePass2Android on my smartphone.

Bitwarden can be self-hosted as well, and there are multiple open-source server implementations. [1][2]

[1] https://github.com/bitwarden/server

[2] https://github.com/dani-garcia/bitwarden_rs

Not every body who wants to have their own ownership of certain items wants to get into the full scale IT business of maintaining a server.

Agreed. Though self-hosting is an option, not a requirement.

For my case I installed Bitwarden-rs on my Synology box at home in a container. I realize most people don't want to do that, but for me it was relatively easy.

I only allow access to it from inside my home-network.

BitWarden is better on the browser for me (it's been a while since I used KeePass*), but Keepass2Android is the best mobile password manager, bar none.

+1 for Keepass2Android.. my setup:

- Keepass db, stored in google drive with a memorized master passphrase - this brings password sync out-of-the-box

- G-Drive pulled down on all my PCs/laptops, with KeepassX used as the client

- Keepass2Android's G-Drive integration used on my phone - now made even more convenient with their "Quick Unlock" feature.

I've gone so far as to keep a separate db for payment info, though that one has a keyfile that I manage offline with a randomly-generated password, the password being stored in my password db.

I have found this setup very convenient over the years, and it offers peace of mind in knowing I'm not beholden to any online third parties to store this sensitive info.

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