Not sure I understand why you’d want to self host a password manager. Bitwarden has never been breached AFAIK. How is it better or safer to keep if self hosted?
The web version is most definitely safer. Most of the people here probably don’t penetration test their servers, conduct security audits or use best practices. Unless you are a cyber security guru on par with a dedicated team, the web version will be much safer for you.
It’s good if you like self-hosting stuff.
However, what I tell people is this:
If you know jack about security and how to lock down a machine that is running Vaultwarden, then it’s useless. You should go with Bitwarden.
If you’re looking to install it just to play around with, I would be very cautious about what you store there, unless you can lock the system down to where it’s not accessible by the outside internet and localized only to your network.
And I have redundant backups in place in case one decides to fail, which are all encrypted with GPG and a few other measures.
If you have it installed and not accessible to anyone else but you, it’s a fun project. I like using VW and BW.
The other bonus would be no one is going to look to target you specifically unless you’re turned into a target.
Whereas if BW were to be breached, it wouldn’t have anything to do with you.
However, BW utilizes encryption, so even if they did somehow manage to get in, they can’t read your passwords.
Alright, what minimal security do you need to lock down your vaultwarden? Wireguard, firewall, fail2ban? I’m trying to learn good security practices for my server
I don’t self host anything where it would impact me unduly if it went down while I was on holiday to the point where I’d have to break state and fix stuff.
A password manager falls in that camp so it’s paid-for Bitwarden every night every day every possible way for me.
Sure Vaultwarden suits others - generally those who either want control of their data, smaller target on their back than a public instance user, watching their pennies etc.
I literally just had the exact opposite question! I’ve been wondering why you’d want to pay for a password manager service when you could self host it. The only reason I could think of is guaranteed high uptime, but to me (and at least in my personal use case) that seems a bit pointless, since you can have a copy of your password manager on each device, which is being synced through your server
Regulatory requirements and management decisions.
Oh, you thought self-hosting was only for hobbyists? 🫠