r/PasswordManagers

I think it's important to understand that the latest issue around commercial licensing put users on edge again due to the streak of things that​ happened recently:

Bitwarden seems to be steering it's position to a very different direction that made us use it in the first place. It's a shame. Let's recap some of the things that happened recently that in my view justifies the dissatisfaction within the community:

October 2024: A proprietary SDK dependency raised concerns that Bitwarden’s desktop app was losing its open-source status. Bitwarden reorganised the SDK and restored builds using only open-source licences.

January 2026: Premium pricing increased from $10 to $19.80 annually. Users criticized the increase and its communication. The increase remained, with a one-time 25% renewal discount for existing subscribers.

February 2026: Researchers demonstrated 12 attacks under a malicious-server scenario, challenging Bitwarden’s zero-knowledge assurances. Bitwarden published remediation details, but users questioned what “all issues addressed” meant.

April 2026: A malicious Bitwarden CLI package was briefly distributed through npm, prompting questions about release security. The package was withdrawn and a clean version issued. Bitwarden reported no evidence of vault data compromise.

May 2026: Removing “Always free” wording and changing company values amid leadership changes fuelled concerns about Bitwarden’s direction. The wording was restored on the pricing page, and the CEO reaffirmed a permanent free plan.

October 2026: Bitwarden announced commercially licensed builds as the default app downloads, with some future features exclusive to those builds. This moves the default downloads to source-available licensing, while the GPL/FOSS edition continues but will lack those exclusive features. Community backlash followed. As of 10 October, no reversal had been announced; Bitwarden promised continued maintenance of GPL builds and unchanged self-hosting.

I've been using 1 password manager for the past 5 years. Recently I just exported all the contents to a back-up drive because I suddenly thought 'what if someone gets control of my browser?'

The tagline in my head 'Use Password Manager and Passkeys, all is safe!'

Then I realized I may have been taking having a Password Manager for granted.

I'm not knowledgeable on cybersecurity happenings, that is if this is as much of a thing to worry about compared to 10 years ago.

Any thoughts? Safety/Hygeine tips?

Passkeys - still new to me. But if I have a shared computer in my house, I should NOT use Passkeys? Won't this potentially give people access to my stuff? Or is a password still required PLUS a Passkey?

I'm lost here.

I am a happy Roboform user in my own life. But I need to teach a class to adults, mostly older adults on passwords, etc, and I would like to be able to demo setting up a password manager and adding some entries in real time. Of the free options, which do you all think would make the easiest to use for a demo? Thanks!

I was doing some window shopping, considering a potential password manager from Ironvest, namely to see what all is out there, and I am coming up short on exactly what I'm looking for.

Ironvest provides the following services (potentially more but these are all I care about):

• Email masking (aliases)
• Password production
  • And the saving of accounts wherein
• They also use some sort of "AI" thing that tells you when your account was in a breach

Due to Ironvest being mostly an extension, I don't use it on mobile, and things have been fine. I dunno how good Ironvest actually is, but its served me well for a decade+. It does all this for free but offers a subscription. If I was to pay for something, I'd prefer it be a one-time payment. This is where my search becomes a unicorn hunt\delusional.

Far as I know, nothing exists that provides these two services whilst also providing a lifetime license.

• Sticky Password comes the closest but they don't provide email masking
• Basically any other service from Bitwarden, to 1password, and potentially other commonly-referenced services, provide both; but with a subscription.
• I am aware that aliasvault exists and they operate for free for now
  • Eventually the devs will want to make money off it (as they should) and at that time, they'll probably also become a subscription service

Is anyone aware of a service that provides masking and password generation for a lifetime license or can I hang up my spear for good.

Following responses; I clearly didn't do enough research. Thank you all.

All my devices are Apple (MacBook, iPhone, iPad) but I use Chrome, Gmail, Drive, and other Google products more than anything. I never use Safari, for example.

Right now, I’m prioritizing Google Password Manager over Apple Password, and I think I’ve got all my settings correct (although I could be wrong), but I still get conflicts.

For example, when I need to sign into one of my Google accounts on my MacBook, I get a pop-up asking about managing how passkeys work and directing me to system settings - the passkey I have set up in Google Password Manager doesn’t come up.

Is it common that Apple and Google systems have hiccups like this?

Would a third-party password manager eliminate these problems?

Or would Apple Passwords be better to prioritize than Google Password Manager?