head to head · open source
passforios vs rowel
passforios has 1,644 GitHub stars, 115 forks, 176 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. rowel has 944 stars, 80 forks, 24 open issues and last shipped today. passforios leads on adoption by 74% (1,644 vs 944 stars). passforios is written in Swift under MIT; rowel is written in TypeScript under GPL-3.0. passforios has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, rowel 8%. rowel 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 | rowel | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.6K | ★ 944 |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Swift | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-08-19 | 2026-09-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 115 | ⑂ 80 |
| 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 rowel if
- You want the rowel feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and rowel 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 rowel
Rowel is a free, offline first password manager for macOS, Windows and Linux that keeps logins, credit card details and secure notes in a locally stored, encrypted SQLite vault, built for individuals who would rather own their secrets than store them in a hosted service.
read the full rowel overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is passforios or rowel more popular?
passforios has 1,644 GitHub stars and rowel has 944. passforios has the larger community by that measure.
Are passforios and rowel free?
Both are open source. passforios is licensed under MIT and rowel under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between passforios and rowel?
passforios is written in Swift and rowel in TypeScript. 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 rowel?
Choose passforios if you want the larger community (1,644 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose rowel if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.