Vaultwarden: a self-hosted Bitwarden password manager
Vaultwarden is a lightweight, self-hosted server compatible with the Bitwarden apps — your passwords, on your hardware, for free.
Vaultwarden is an unofficial, lightweight server that speaks the Bitwarden protocol. You run it yourself; you keep using the official Bitwarden browser extensions, mobile apps and desktop apps — they just point at your server instead of bitwarden.com.
Why people self-host it
Your vault lives on your hardware. Even Bitwarden's own cloud is zero-knowledge encrypted, but many people prefer the server to be theirs.
It is tiny. Vaultwarden is written in Rust and happily runs in 256–512 MB of RAM — a €3 VPS is enough for a family.
Organisations and sharing are free. Vaultwarden includes Bitwarden's organisation/sharing features (used to be a paid Bitwarden feature) at no cost.
Full client compatibility. Because it implements the real protocol, the official apps work; you are not locked into a worse client.
What it does
Stores logins, secure notes, cards and identities, all encrypted client-side.
Syncs across all your devices via the official Bitwarden apps.
Supports TOTP (so it can also generate your 2FA codes), passkeys, file attachments, and Send for sharing secrets that expire.
Lets you create organisations to share selected items with a partner or team.
Where to use it
Anywhere you want a password manager you control: a household, a small team, or a solo operator. Because it is so light, a 1 vCPU / 1 GB VPS is plenty for personal use; give it 2 GB and a bit more CPU for a team. You will want a domain and TLS, because the Bitwarden clients refuse to connect to anything that is not HTTPS.
When NOT to use it
If you want official support and a company on the hook for uptime, use Bitwarden's hosted service — Vaultwarden is community maintained.
If you cannot reliably back up a server, think hard: a password vault you lose access to is worse than no vault. Back it up, and keep an emergency copy of your master password somewhere safe and offline.
How to get running
Small VPS, a domain (e.g.
vault.example.com), TLS certificate.Deploy Vaultwarden — the official Docker image is the easiest route.
Register your account immediately after first boot and disable further signups (Vaultwarden has a setting for this) so no one else can register on your instance.
Point the Bitwarden apps at your domain (on mobile: "self-hosted environment", enter the server URL).
Set up backups of the Vaultwarden data directory and database, and test a restore.
Detail: Password manager self-hosting (Vaultwarden), or the spec sheet at /app-hosting/vaultwarden. Vaultwarden is AGPL-3.0.