I’ve been using the Keepass password vault for years. I don’t remember when I started to keep my secrets in it, but it can be easily a decade ago. Though I always liked Keepass, and its features are strong, times have changed and I looked for something fresher and more elegant. My choice is KeepassXC. Read more to see why!
Every time I start a project, being it a quick decision or a multiple months long software implementation the first thing I do is to look at the reasons. Why is it? What is the problem it must solve? Is it a real problem? What is the proper justification of executing a plan on it?
Answering myself the most important questions it was evident:
- I want to use my password vault on Windows, Linux and Android
- I want to use grouping, especially a system that supports groups of groups
- I want faster searching of items
There were some “nice to have” features on my list like:
- Support the .kdbx files or a simple import from them
- Support some self hosted version
- Be Open Source
With the above thoughts and with the luck that I reviewed a lot of password manager tools for one of my previous posts the decision was easy.
- I already had .kdbx files on my cloud storage
- I already had a backup and archive strategy for the system
- A basic grouping was already in place
KeepassXC supports 100% the .kdbx Keepass databases, so it is a drop-in replacement of Keepass. As Keepass is written in C# it was optimized for the Windows ecosystem, and it had issues sometimes on Linux. In contrast KeepassXC is developed in C++ thus it has a great performance on Linux and Windows. On Android I recently found KeepassDX thanks to a friend, and it functions well with my database file in the cloud.
Another great integration I like in KeepassXC is that after unlocking the database it requires a Windows authentication as well, and after that it is enough to authenticate with my Windows credentials to unlock it instead of typing the very long and difficult master password.
I started to use KeepassXC on a daily basis and I will see if it fits perfectly to my routine. What is your opinion? What do you use?
If you have a comment or other opinion, visit Tom’s IT Cafe Discord Server and share it!
Tom's IT Cafe 