head to head · open source
Passbolt vs Padloc
Passbolt has 6,204 GitHub stars, 406 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped 14 days ago. Padloc has 2,942 stars, 271 forks, 105 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Passbolt leads on adoption by 111% (6,204 vs 2,942 stars). Passbolt is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0; Padloc is written in JavaScript under AGPL-3.0. Passbolt has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Padloc 9%. Padloc was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (password-manager), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Passbolt | Padloc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 6.2K | ★ 2.9K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | PHP | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-10-20 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 406 | ⑂ 271 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Passbolt if
- You weight community size — 6.2K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Padloc if
- You want the Padloc feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and Padloc fits your workflow better
About Passbolt
The open source password manager for teams. Table of Contents Introducing Passbolt Get Started Run it on your own server, natively Available Clients & Apps Browser Extensions Mobile Apps CLI Desktop App Contributing Reporting a security issue License Introducing Passbolt Passbolt is a security first, open source password manager for teams. It helps organizations centralize, organize and share passwords and secrets securely. What makes passbolt different? Security: Passbolt security model features user owned secret keys and end to end encryption. It is audited multiple times annually, and findings are made…
read the full Passbolt overview →
About Padloc
Padloc Simple, secure password and data management for individuals and teams. About This repo is split into multiple packages: How to use As you can see in the About section, there are lots of different components to play with! But at a minimum, in order to set up and use your own instance of Padloc you'll need to install and configure the Server and Web Client. In practice, there a few different ways to do this, but if you just want to install and test Padloc locally, doing so is really quite easy: The web client is now available at In depth guides on how to host your own "productive" version of Padloc and how…
read the full Padloc overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Passbolt or Padloc more popular?
Passbolt has 6,204 GitHub stars and Padloc has 2,942. Passbolt has the larger community by that measure.
Are Passbolt and Padloc free?
Both are open source. Passbolt is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Padloc under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Passbolt and Padloc?
Passbolt is written in PHP and Padloc in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Passbolt or Padloc?
Choose Passbolt if you want the larger community (6,204 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Padloc if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.