I did this last year. It wasn't so much "a couple hours" so much as it was "all free time for three months then dealing with the mental equivalent of getting off a treadmill after an hour".

It's worth it, but it isn't for the faint of heart.

Does anyone have a recommendation for a good and secure and preferably free password manager?

Bitwarden if you want a cloud service

KeePass or KeePassXC if you want to control your own data and use something like Syncthing to sync

There is vaultwarden which is self hosted version of bitwarden.

Yep! I run it myself and it works fantastic.

And my contingency plan if I can no longer self host, is export from one of my devices and import into the cloud version of Bitwarden. I don't see myself needing to do that, but you never know.

I keep it simple too. Just keep the json export on an offline encrypted USB stick.

If something happens I’ll use my eyeballs until I figure something else out.

I might be an heretic but I use the one from Microsoft!

My password are available everywhere on Android via the Authenticator app and on any browser that have the Microsoft autofill extension on whatever OS I happen to be currently using.

I have a 1Password account provided by my employer but I don't want to tie access to my password to my employment. Also I don't like that 1Passowrd required to enter a really long key to enroll a new device. And I figured that I might use the MS account I created for Windows 10 for something usefull.

As far ass I know there are no equivalent way of using the Chrome password manager outside of Chrome and Android.

Depending on the ecosystem you live in, your browser’s or your OS’ password managers are the most straightforward to use. I switched to Safari on Mac because I was tired of subpar experience with all the password managers and now my phone is able to store and recall all of my passwords. Super simple to use.

1pass is my choice because I pay for it. I also like KeePassXC, but the problem I have with the free things is there aren’t quite as many features and development can just stop at any time. KeePassXC for example got started because KeePass devs just abandoned the project effectively. By fewer features I mean like iOS and android apps (though I know KeePassXC has unofficial apps not managed by them).

I just have used 1Pass for a while, maybe 5-6 years, it’s seamless with apps across everything and lots of support and because I pay for it I know there’s a business behind it which for me feels more stable with respect to longer term support.

Bitwarden

How much is their bug bounty? It’s not written on this page: https://hackerone.com/bitwarden?type=team

Besides, how much should the bug bounty of a password manager be?

I dunno, looks like they're active though unlike the competition.

1Pass is delightful to use. Although, a bit expensive.

1password. Not free but absolutely worth the money.

You have better alternatives: bitwarden for those looking for a cloud solution, keepassXC who prefer to keep the data under their own control. Plus, they are both free/libre.

I always had issues with KeepassXC. mostly as a concept, I'm not sure if it made sense, but since we're talking about it, how do you cope with the concept that if you lose your phone with the database on it, an attacker can just keep a perpetual copy of your passwords free to brute force and do whatever they wanted? I can revoke access to things with cloud services or self-hosted services, but with all the database in the hand of an attacker he can try to break it indefinitely and undisturbed.. I think KeepassXC for this reason is the worst among cloud hosted and self-hosted solutions

AFAIK, the filesystem is encrypted on any modern device. An attacker would have to first break into the device and then break into the password database. And if they can break into the device it is game over already.

Also, the attacker would have to be really motivated to brute force into it, and if it happened that my phone got stolen and I was worried about your scenario, I'd be just rotating all the high-value passwords I have, which is something that I think can be done quickly.

I've tried Bitwarden, pass, and KeepassXC in the past. 1password is by far the most polished. If you consider how big the problem space is (interoperating with every possible broken website out there), support for TouchID/Apple Watch unlock, etc I think I'll take it over having access to the source I will never read.

It's not about what you reading it, it's about ensuring that someone else can do it.

Anyway, I hate to be Cassandra, I just lost count of how many stories I heard of people regretting taking "convenience over freedom" with critical software.

> It's not about what you reading it, it's about ensuring that someone else can do it.

I fully agree with you on this one. However being free/libre doesn't mean that that "someone" will actually fix your problem. I've been a software developer/hacker/OSS enthusiast for close to two decades, but I'm mighty tired of 1. software that's impossible for me to fix myself, 2. its authors who don't care enough about my problem.

I've had one minor issue with 1password and I was blown away with how good their support was. They followed very good OpSec while not appearing intimidating to what they didn't know wasn't a non-technical user, they solved the problem on the spot, and they gave me a few months free to compensate for the inconvenience. At the same time, I've currently lost track of how many random Github issues I'm subscribed to, with some going on unsolved for years.

Being free/libre is just one dimension, orthogonal to other qualities software might have. These other qualities include simplicity/hackability, cost, usability, convenience, support, security, accessibility, respect for your time, ethical/mindful design, and many others. It's OK to choose your own trade-offs.

> I just lost count of how many stories I heard of people regretting taking "convenience over freedom" with critical software.

All online vaults remain available offline; the client allows a full export, including in plain old CSV. Bitwarden has builtin import functionality; or I can write a few lines of code and put it in pass. Worst case scenario, 1password going fully evil and pushing a silent client update to lock me out? I go offline, restore the app+vault from a backup, and export. It very firmly fits into the category of "problems I can fix myself".

> 2. its authors who don't care enough about my problem.

Have you offered to pay them anything? At least a good fraction of what you pay to the proprietary alternative?

Fair point. I feel like adequately funding free software development is a larger unsolved problem, that's a bit beyond the scope of a forum thread.

Anecdotally, I like what the developer of Blink Shell[0] has done. The app is 100% free software[1] under GPL3, so you can easily build it yourself with XCode, upload to your phone, and use as usual from there, which isn't a big hurdle for the target audience. But I bought it. At the time IIRC it costed 20 bucks on the App Store. I bought it because it was incredibly frictionless to pay the money (Apple is good at that), and it felt good to support the developer of a tool I liked and used.

So it leaves me wondering, where are the big obstacles. All other things being equal, I will choose a free/libre solution, but we know things are far from equal.

[0]: https://blink.sh [1]: https://github.com/blinksh/blink

Would you please take a look at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31296803 and share your thoughts?

I have a lot of thoughts on this but I'm not comfortable sharing some of it in public. Can you shoot me an email? [email protected]

1Password for me. Not free, but worth every cent. Very robust, super polished interface, cloud sync, native client for all platforms (including Linux), robust for use across family members (and you can specify which vaults you want to share with whom), well integrated with iOS/Android.

Surprised this one hasn't been pointed out yet; "Passman" which is part of nextcloud and has plugins for all major browsers.

open source, encrypted-while-at-rest and a cloud service allowing you to use it from all your machines and even while traveling on public machines.

The Wikipedia has this list of password managers with feature comparison:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_password_managers

KeePassXC and combine it with cloud storage and you have a semi-self-hosted or host it on a storage attached to a network you can VPN in to and you have fully self-hosted password manager accessible from anywhere.

This - and combine it with key+paraphrase, keep the key local to your devices and your keepass file in the cloud. I've used this setup for years backed by a webdav share on multiple platforms. It's incredibly robust especially synchronizing changes

KeepassXC + syncthing if you don't use iOS.

Nextcloud works well if you do use iOS.

No need for a VPN with either.

Password safe on windows and android. I like better than keepass. In theory you can transfer between them but i always lost datawhen doing that.

The built in Mac/Safari one works great and works with Windows too via the iCloud app and browser extension.

for a team who have shared password folders, I've not found a better solution than LastPass

Password Store is pretty good.

KeePassXC

KeePass 2

bitwarden

KeePassXC