I have been using Bitwarden for around 7~ years. Subscription for this long too, at 10USD p/year. I will be switching due to lack of transparency, and would love to hear others thoughts on this.
The linked article goes into further detail, but here is a small summary that very much concern me / are sus:
- that 10USD per year has gone up quietly . I just checked and I have no email telling me it’s increased. It renews in like 2 months, so this is good timing for me
- Originally Bitwarden had values as apart of the acronym “GRIT”. Gratitude, Responsibility, Inclusion, and Transparency. They have changed the last two words to “Innovation, Trust”
- There is now a new CEO, this was not announced and the only reason people outside of Bitwarden know is that someone saw this change on LinkedIn
- The free tier momentarily disappeared from their product page for about a month (april14-may14). People were likely still able to make free accounts during this period. Bitwarden says it was a marketing mistake
The price hike is one thing, but for me the acronym change is most concerning, which is why I will be looking at another password manger (probably keepassxc)
I got the same email with 25% discount for this year. Can’t argue with lack of transparency on that and it’s a bit unreasonable to expect no price increases ever
Yeah. If you’re using the services that might required a paid subscription, it’s not out of the realm of possibilities for there to be a price increase eventually.
I’m not discounting that there’s the potential for a pivot to less transparency and auditability going forward, I just wanted to point out that this wasn’t done with no warning.
I don’t trust the company that bought them. Private equity is almost always a bad time for consumers/users.