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Bitwarden raises $100M

bitwarden.com

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Re: Bitwarden raises $100M

#331

Post by cronofdoom »

nacs wrote: post #226
htrp wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

until they aren't open source anymore and once the FOSS forks are many features behind the product, then they adjust pricing

I switched to Bitwarden after using Lastpass for years and it's pretty feature-complete for me -- it has feature parity with LP and there's a bunch of features that I don't even use. Even the unofficial Rust-based server looks to have more features than I need: https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden/wiki

I self-host the vaultwarden server on my homelab for my family. I love being able to use collections to share passwords with my spouse and the same for each of my kids.

I got tired of Lastpass's janky clients, UI, and data breaches. Now I control the security of my passwords.

Re: Bitwarden raises $100M

#332

Post by candiddevmike »

_verandaguy wrote: post #199
ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #131

I'm not referring to Bitwarden here but isn't this the standard M.O. of any SV startup? 1. Release great product for free 2. Attract as many free users as possible to signal growth to investors 3. Keep running the unprofitable free tier at a loss as long as possible using your massive VC war chest, while locking in your users with various gotchas 4. Once you reach critical scale and gained mass user adoption and you'…

Full disclosure, I'm a paying user of Bitwarden. I think for BW this kind of falls apart at #3. The main draw of this product for me and many others is that it's actually pretty no-frills. It's also broadly compatible with importing and exporting between dozens of other password managers. That said, this could be a blind spot for me. Let me know if there's any gotchas I should know about here.

Out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on Vaultwarden?

Re: Bitwarden raises $100M

#333

Post by pbhjpbhj »

phphphphp wrote: post #183
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1Password is 4x the price and is not open source. Doesn't 1Password's stronger backing provide more risk for Bitwarden investors too (chasing the same customers but with less to spend on acquisition)? Spitballing, $100M, assuming investors want 20% per annum return and Bitwarden do 50% profit ... they need 24M paying customers. Where are they at now?

Venture investments don't typically work that way: the goal isn't incremental returns YoY but rather major returns in the long term. Raise a fund, make a bunch of investments, report growth in valuation YoY (based on increasing valuations of portfolio) and then deliver returns once portfolio companies start to exit. If BitWarden can use that $100m to 10x their valuation and then exit (whether that's an acquisition, g…

Yes, I'm not familiar with expected returns for investments so my back-of-napkin maths was based on approximate housing inflation in the UK. I figured they'd want more than that as a minimum.

Clearly Bitwarden isn't a unicorn, being a smaller entity in a growing market; do VCs really expect a 10x (in couple of years?) from that sort of investment?

So, do you agree with my basic premise that they'll need a whole heap of customers, that they don't seem likely to get, in order to make any dent in the investors hoped for returns?

Re: Bitwarden raises $100M

#334

Post by michaelmior »

asdajksah2123 wrote: post #322
kornhole wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people at Bitwarden and their supporters are familiar with countless examples of this playbook. Those tricks are not as easy to pull anymore. I have seen Bitwarden be very ethical in their business so far. I recommend it to my friends and family and to my company to pay for the service. It is a similar model to Nextcloud who successfully funds their business from governments and companies and provides it free to…

The people at Bitwarden and their supporters need to answer 1 simple question. How do they increase their valuation 10+x without pulling those tricks. Because that's what the VC funding demands. No VC is giving out $100mm for a 20% or even 100% return, which could possibly be achieved by simple growth. They're giving that money because they're expecting exponential return. Maybe there is an enterprise play somewhere…

> Maybe there is an enterprise play somewhere

The post mentions the plan to implement advanced business features, and also "Business users deserve consumer ease-of-use along with advanced integration and deployment features."

Re: Bitwarden raises $100M

#335

Post by latexr »

MaKleSoft wrote: post #285
folkrav wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not gonna lie, I'm having a hard time justifying the 3-4x increase in cost for Padloc vs. Bitwarden. The pricing is only rivaled by 1Password, which makes it a hard sell to me...

Well, there is the problem, isn't it? If people aren't willing to pay what amounts to a cup of coffee a month for a service they rely on daily, how are companies supposed to build a sustainable business without raising money?

I wish we’d stop with the cup of coffee comparison. Not everyone lives in the USA and drinks Starbucks. A cup of coffee costs 0.70€ where I live¹, cheaper than the cheapest (non-free) App Store app. Furthermore, I don’t drink coffee.

For me it’s not about the price but the recurring cost and the lock in. I’d rather pay a larger sum upfront when I’m sure I can afford it and reevaluate when it’s time to upgrade than be sucked dry bit by bit and have to drop everything to scramble to find an alternative when the developer decides to remove features and jack up the price overnight as they keep the data hostage.

¹ Smaller than a Starbucks coffee, but also higher quality.

Re: Bitwarden raises $100M

#336

Post by freeplay »

running101 wrote: post #34

Keypassxc,keypassxc browser plug-in, strongbox app for iPhone. Cloud drive of your choice for syncing. Works well

This is the stack I used before switching to bitwarden/vaultwarden. Couple of reasons why I switched:

- I selfhost it on my NAS so I don't have to depend on a 3rd party to sync all of my password (even though they are encrypted).

- If I need to access my passwords from a new/temp machine, there's a web UI I can access very quickly

- The client is much prettier and nicer to use. The KeyPass clients all felt very dated and clunky.

Re: Bitwarden raises $100M

#337

Post by latchkey »

After posting a simple comment, now I'm getting emails from Bitwarden...

"Additional security has been placed on your Bitwarden account. We've detected several failed attempts to log into your Bitwarden account. Future login attempts for your account will be protected by a captcha."

Thanks HN! =)

Re: Bitwarden raises $100M

#338

Post by mgkimsal »

crazygringo wrote: post #229
bborud wrote: post #152

I switched to Bitwarden when LastPass started using silly tactics to make customers pay. I didn't switch because of the price - the service pricing of Bitwarden was a pleasant surprise. I switched because I lost all trust in LastPass. Managing credentials and sensitive information is all about trust. The second I lose trust in that kind of service, I don't just stop using it, I will most likely never even consider co…

> I don't give second chances to services that are trust based. You might run out of services then at some point. Human beings are fallible, full stop. Also, a company isn't an individual -- management teams change, corporate priorities change, security practices improve. Judging a whole company by what a few employees did or didn't do a decade ago isn't always going to yield an optimal approach. Refusing to give any…

2001-2007, I had multiple bad experiences with Compaq, Lexmark and HP. These were so bad in terms of cost and frustration I vowed I would never buy their products or services again. It's been... 15+ years. The tech world of today is not quite the tech world of 2003. Should I ever bother with a Compaq or HP again? I probably won't, but the 'avoid at all costs' just isn't there with me any more. Perhaps I've mellowed slightly in the past 15-20 years.

Re: Bitwarden raises $100M

#339

Post by jeffalyanak »

sph wrote: post #300
MaKleSoft wrote: post #125

If you're a Bitwarden user and this doesn't worry you, you haven't been paying attention to the history of almost every company that has accepted VC funds. It doesn't matter how well intentioned the founders are - once you accept that kind of money, it's not your product anymore. You are now in the business of making money, nothing else, and those skewed incentives will start bleeding into their product and business…

FFS, changing password manager is a pain in the ass. I've already migrated from 1Password, now I have to do it again? Argh. If only there was a decent cloud-based open source alternative that worked on Windows, Linux, iOS, macOS, Firefox and Chrome.

Vaultwarden is an open-source password management server option that implements the Bitwarden server API which makes it compatible with all the existing client applications and browser plugins.

Since the Bitwarden feature-set is pretty darn good my hope is that some foss "bitwarden-api" client applications come along and that'll offer a more independent solution.

Re: Bitwarden raises $100M

#340

Post by Semaphor »

ingenium wrote: post #326
nacs wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to Bitwarden after using Lastpass for years and it's pretty feature-complete for me -- it has feature parity with LP and there's a bunch of features that I don't even use. Even the unofficial Rust-based server looks to have more features than I need: https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden/wiki

Yup, I switched to Bitwarden and self host my own instance of it using that container. It works great. I was previously using Keepass (and later keepassxc), but it became a hassle to keep the database file in sync between all of my devices (I lost passwords at times as a result). Also the browser extension didn't work that well, nor did it have as nice of Android integration as Bitwarden. Self hosted was a nice middl…

> Also the browser extension didn't work that well, nor did it have as nice of Android integration as Bitwarden.

What were your issues? For the browser, I have some extremely minor complaints (not always detecting the correct subdomain for my selfhosted servers mainly), none for Android with Keepass2Android.

Also, no sync issues at all, but that might be related to having only 2 devices ;)

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