What do you use for syncing your password manager between your Android phone and your PC? Apparently Nextcloud doesn’t support two-way syncing on Android for some reason, and Syncthing-Fork is still untrustworthy since the disastrous handover. The AI generated profile picture of researchxxl doesn’t exactly inspire confidence either, neither does his GitHub bio:
Hi! My name is Jonas and I like to use my coding skills from games and modding to continue work on the Syncthing for Android wrapper.
Everything about this person screams vibe coder.
Bitwarden is an alternative, but I don’t like how non-standard it is. It’s cumbersome to manage and backup, meanwhile the KeePass format is just a file that I can backup wherever and however I want and there are many frontends to choose from.
Have you solved this?
Vaultwarden, no question. When I used KeePass, I had Synology Drive which worked well to sync.
@clifmo @versionc not on android but vaultwarden syncs across basically everything. Mac, Linux, Windows, ios, and should hit the bitwarden app and extensions on android too. my only extras catch is I put it behind my tailnet. so I have to have the device on it to see it. Though if you are trying to stay away from bitwarden/vaultwarden I’m not sure.
Works perfectly on android. Push notifications, sync, passkeys, everything
KeepassXC and Nextcloud. Been working fine for years.
Same setup here. Worked for years and I’ve no plans to switch. As long as Nextcloud is up, bidirectional editing is simple. Trouble comes when one of the clients edited the KeePass file and can’t sync.
I’ve had that happen though rarely. In those cases it’s been easy to manually merge the one or two entries if necessary.
Bitwarden.
Paid. Not because I need the added paid features, but because I value it and want to show my appreciation for the developers.
I’ve been using KeePass for almost 20 years now, used to host the database on Google Drive. I started using Syncthing about a year or so ago, including Syncthing-Fork on my Android devices. It’s nearly flawless - I sync the database across 6 devices (two phones, two laptops, gaming PC, NAS [which is backed up regularly]), so there is the occasional conflict maybe once every few months, but I think that’s more user error than anything else. It’s fairly easy to resolve since Syncthing clearly labels the affected file.
It’s very important to remember that “Syncthing-Fork” IS NOT the official Syncthing project. Syncthing-Fork uses Syncthing under the hood while providing a mobile-friendly wrapper.
Edit - Re: Syncthing Fork “drama”:
Catfriend1 (the original maintainer of Syncthing-fork) recently put in their 2 cents.
TL;DR - The new dev is fine.
For me personally, the fact that 1) devs from both F-Droid and Syncthing itself have reviewed and confirmed that the code is safe, and 2) the original maintainer vouched for the new guy, is good enough for me. There will always be those who refuse to trust anything, even from the original developer, and they are often the most vocal about it - i.e. the “vocal minority”. Whether or not you want to listen to their criticisms is up to you. IMO, they’re just beating a dead horse.
Paid bitwarden.
I use Bitwarden too. I now use the paid version (which is incredibly cheap) but I was able to sync between Android and PC without the paid for version iirc
The only (known to me) perk of the paid version is the encrypted storage (and probably the org feature).
So yeah. I see it more of a donation/appreciation than a service fee.
But the recent peice increase stung a bit.Paid also helps if you share passwords with multiple people.
Keepass + syncthing = win
OpenCloud seems promising. It’s a fork of ownCloud from former developers of ownCloud, lighter weight than NextCloud, it uses flat files to store data rather than a DB, and it has an Android client on F-Droid (and Google Play).
I’m hesitant about OpenCloud. Their parent company is Heinlein Group, whom I know nothing about, nor can I find anything about their reputation. The website uses a lot of marketing fluff, which puts me off already.
If you’re curious, their GitHib issues and website have a bit more about them: https://github.com/opencloud-eu/opencloud/issues/231
The Heinlein Group, to which OpenCloud belongs, is probably best known as the operator of the email provider mailbox.org, but also develops OpenTalk, an open source video conferencing solution.
from heise.de.
Being the owner of mailbox.org doesn’t mean anything to me, but it’s context. And there’s more info in that GitHub issue’s links.
My impression is that they know what they’re doing when it comes to production ready software–I share the OPs concerns about the syncthing-fork maintainer–and they have the funding and acumen to stay in business, meaning their software will be maintained.
I can’t endorse them beyond my own personal opinion though. I don’t have any info beyond what a few hours of digging turned up last time I looked into them.
This bit from the heise.de article stood out:
Kiteworks, on the other hand, is less than enthusiastic about – a closed group of developers who are now using the same code in their own company that they already developed under Kiteworks or ownCloud? For Kiteworks, this smells like poaching, so the company is going on the offensive: in an interview with heise online, Kiteworks CEO Jonathan Yaron stated that he intends to sue Peer Heinlein under German and US law: “We love open source, but we won’t let anyone steal from us”.
facepalm
Personally, I use Keepass with syncthing and it works fine enough. If you don’t really trust the new person behind Syncthing-Fork, you could always install the older version before the handover (I think before v3.4?).
If you really don’t trust syncthing at all, you could just manually back it up. New passwords aren’t made every day, so you could just copy the passwords database over between your devices whenever there’s a change. That’s what I did before I heard about syncthing, and is what I do with my music still, since I don’t regularly update what music I listen to.
Keypass with the vault loaded onto a free OneDrive account.
Just back it up occasionally.
If you’re using a keepass database, Keepass2Android can natively sync with many cloud options including self hosted and generic ones, even without specific “companion” apps. That’s what I use. In my case, it’s backed by my NextCloud, but it used to be Google drive before.
Just also sync the file on your PC, merging changes from different clients is part of the keepass database format and “just works”.
Also VaultWarden works great if your can self host it, but I prefer keepass for a variety of features and integrations.
KeePass2Android is a fantastic project. I’ve been using it for 10+ years on my Android devices. Every once in a while I’ll try a different variant, like KeePassDX, but I always return to the spartan look of KP2A. It “just works”, with no extra fluff.
merging changes from different clients is part of the keepass database format and “just works”.
This is the best thing about KeePass in general.
Vaultwarden with the Bitwarden Android app and browser extension for my desktop. I already have a solid system for backing up the important data for all my docker containers. As soon as I added it, it was automatically added to that process.
My spouse has an account so if I die she can gain access to my passwords with a simple request. That’s function is important to me.
My exact answer as well. Saved me some typing - thanks :)
I use Vaultwarden. Each synced device is a backup, so there’s no real need to keep anything further than that, but I do keep one backup of the server files anyway.
Yeah, that’s a good point. There are still a few cons though:
- If the server goes down (or your internet connection goes down), you can’t add entries to your database. Local changes aren’t allowed.
- Bitwarden doesn’t support supplementing your passphrase with a key file.
- The Bitwarden clients aren’t enitrely FOSS as far as I understand, the SDK used has a non-free license.
There are pros and cons in both alternatives, and there is unfortunately not a perfect solution. I like the idea and philosophy behind the KeePass format, so the increase in syncing complexity is worth it (for now at least).
It’s true re adding passwords while the server is offline, but my server runs 24x7 and it’s never down for more than a few minutes. If it goes down, I fix it. I also backup the encrypted DB regularly to cloud, so there is little risk of data loss. I am a very satisfied Vaultwarden user. Especially because it allows password sharing with my family. Everyone has an account.
Nextcloud and favorite the file. It’s worked reliably forms for years. I don’t need to create new passwords on my phone, though.
Vaultwarden handles the syncing for me.
However I do export backups on both my phone and laptop just in case.
Do you do it manually into e.g. protected json, or to a normal zip (the former doesn’t support attachments as far as I know)? Or have you found a way to do it automatically? One con that I’ve read about this is that backups from one version is not guaranteed to work on another version. Thanks.
Well with Vaultwarden any synced device is a complete backup. So you don’t need to worry about version issues.
In the event of a server fail, can you export from any device?
Yes, but do not log out. If you do, you can’t log back in, and you can’t export. I’m paranoid so I still back up my encrypted db to cloud on a schedule.
Syncthing-Fork is still untrustworthy since the disastrous handover
Maybe I’m OOTL on this?
I thought everyone concluded that it was poorly communicated but ultimately no indication of any foul play.
Correct.
That conversation has finished, the dust has settled and syncthing-fork is fine.
