head to head · open source
vaultwarden vs Passbolt
vaultwarden has 67,795 GitHub stars, 3,228 forks, 83 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. Passbolt has 6,127 stars, 400 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. vaultwarden leads on adoption by 1,006% (67,795 vs 6,127 stars). vaultwarden is written in Rust under AGPL-3.0; Passbolt is written in PHP under AGPL-3.0. vaultwarden has attracted 5% as many forks as stars, Passbolt 7%. Passbolt was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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
| vaultwarden | Passbolt | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 68K | ★ 6.1K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Rust | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-09-13 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 400 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick vaultwarden if
- You weight community size — 68K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Passbolt if
- You want the Passbolt feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Passbolt fits your workflow better
About vaultwarden
Vaultwarden is an unofficial, Bitwarden compatible server implementation of the Bitwarden Client API written in Rust, aimed at self hosters who want to run their own vault backend for the official Bitwarden clients without the resource demands of the official service.
read the full vaultwarden overview →
About Passbolt
Passbolt is a security first, open source password manager for teams, published here as the Passbolt Community Edition (CE) JSON API under the AGPL 3.0 licence and built for organizations that need to centralize, organize and share passwords and secrets on infrastructure they control.
read the full Passbolt overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is vaultwarden or Passbolt more popular?
vaultwarden has 67,795 GitHub stars and Passbolt has 6,127. vaultwarden has the larger community by that measure.
Are vaultwarden and Passbolt free?
Both are open source. vaultwarden is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Passbolt under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between vaultwarden and Passbolt?
vaultwarden is written in Rust and Passbolt in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, vaultwarden or Passbolt?
Choose vaultwarden if you want the larger community (67,795 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Passbolt if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.