Vaultwarden: a drop-in replacement for Bitwarden

I have been a long-time free-tier user of Bitwarden.

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The reason I choose this over other alternatives is that, it might be the only option that actually has a generous free-tier that can satisfy my day-to-day needs.

Features include:

• unlimited passwords
• mobile apps on both iOS and Android
  • the iOS app plays nicely with the password autofill feature of iPhone
• Web UI
• browser extensions in almost any major browser

However, have you ever imagined that, you can self-host your own Bitwarden with ease, unlock some premium features that only paid users of Bitwarden have, and still have all the Bitwarden clients work the same as always?

Introducing Vaultwarden, a self-hostable, open-source Bitwarden alternative written in Rust.

GitHub - dani-garcia/vaultwarden: Unofficial Bitwarden compatible server written in Rust, formerly known as bitwarden_rs

Unofficial Bitwarden compatible server written in Rust, formerly known as bitwarden_rs - dani-garcia/vaultwarden

GitHubdani-garcia

Being one of the most popular self-hosting projects, it is just such a nice piece of tool that you are likely going to love.

Installation

It's very easy to install with Docker, with some commands like this.

docker pull vaultwarden/server:latest

docker run -d --name vaultwarden -v /vw-data/:/data/ --restart unless-stopped -p 80:80 vaultwarden/server:latest

What's even better is that, it's one of the one-click-deployment services offered by Coolify (which we discussed in Journey of Self-Hosting (4): Coolify).

Coolify Documentation

Self-hosting with superpowers.

Coolify Documentation

That means, you don't even need to know how to deploy Vaultwarden with Docker. Just click click click in Coolify and it will handle the rest. You will be having a running instance within 2 minutes.

Usage

What's great about Vaultwarden is that, it's compatible with all the existing Bitwarden clients! That means, you can access your own Vaultwarden with the apps and browser extensions of Bitwarden. This makes Vaultwarden a drop-in replacement for Bitwarden.

Also, some premium features that were only accessible to paid Bitwarden customers are also available to use in Vaultwarden. The one I like most is being able to use it as a TOTP authenticator.

Integrated Authenticator | Bitwarden Help Center

Password Manager integrated authentication is an alternative to dedicated authentication apps which you can use to verify your identity for websites and apps that use two-step login and offers greater convenience.

Bitwarden

With this, you can easily replace your authenticator app like Microsoft Authenticator.

Conclusion

So far, Vaultwarden has made one of the favourite app I am self-hosting. And I highly recommend you to add it to your toolbox too!