head to head · open source
passforios vs pwd.sh
passforios has 1,645 GitHub stars, 114 forks, 176 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. pwd.sh has 1,563 stars, 136 forks, 0 open issues and last shipped 29 days ago. passforios leads on adoption by 5% (1,645 vs 1,563 stars). passforios is written in Swift under MIT; pwd.sh is written in Shell under MIT. passforios has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, pwd.sh 9%. pwd.sh 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| passforios | pwd.sh | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.6K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Swift | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-08-19 | 2026-08-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 114 | ⑂ 136 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick passforios if
- You weight community size — 1.6K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick pwd.sh if
- You want the pwd.sh feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and pwd.sh fits your workflow better
About passforios
Pass for iOS is an open source iOS client for ZX2C4's Pass command line password manager, built for people who already keep credentials in a GPG encrypted, Git versioned password store and want to view, copy, or edit them from an iPhone or iPad.
read the full passforios overview →
About pwd.sh
pwd.sh is a Bash script that manages text secrets such as passwords by storing each one in a GnuPG symmetric encrypted file, and it is for people who work in a terminal and prefer to keep their own encrypted store rather than hand it to a hosted password service.
read the full pwd.sh overview →
More in Security & Privacy
Related comparisons
More Identity & Access Management (IAM) projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Identity & Access Management (IAM) field.
Frequently asked questions
Is passforios or pwd.sh more popular?
passforios has 1,645 GitHub stars and pwd.sh has 1,563. passforios has the larger community by that measure.
Are passforios and pwd.sh free?
Both are open source. passforios is licensed under MIT and pwd.sh under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between passforios and pwd.sh?
passforios is written in Swift and pwd.sh in Shell. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, passforios or pwd.sh?
Choose passforios if you want the larger community (1,645 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pwd.sh if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.