head to head · open source
passforios vs pykeepass
passforios has 1,646 GitHub stars, 114 forks, 176 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. pykeepass has 511 stars, 103 forks, 42 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. passforios leads on adoption by 222% (1,646 vs 511 stars). passforios is written in Swift under MIT; pykeepass is written in Python under GPL-3.0. passforios has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, pykeepass 20%. passforios 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
| passforios | pykeepass | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.6K | ★ 511 |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Swift | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-26 | 2026-08-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 114 | ⑂ 103 |
| 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 pykeepass if
- You want the pykeepass feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and pykeepass 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 pykeepass
pykeepass is a Python library for reading, writing and automating KeePass .kdbx password databases (KDBX3 and KDBX4) for developers and self hosters who want programmatic access to their credentials.
read the full pykeepass overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is passforios or pykeepass more popular?
passforios has 1,646 GitHub stars and pykeepass has 511. passforios has the larger community by that measure.
Are passforios and pykeepass free?
Both are open source. passforios is licensed under MIT and pykeepass under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between passforios and pykeepass?
passforios is written in Swift and pykeepass in Python. 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 pykeepass?
Choose passforios if you want the larger community (1,646 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pykeepass if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.