In many companies, password managers secure the “keys to the kingdom”. Generally, provided you know what you are doing, self-hosting can have multiple advantages over vendor-hosting. However, self-hosting can also give you more control over your data, make it easier to comply with industry privacy and security regulations, and – when the software is built on open source code – increase the opportunities for customization. You also have to ensure you are not allocating more capacity than necessary to optimize costs and have plans in place to recover data in an emergency. You need to have the skills to install, maintain, update, and monitor the software, and – in a company – make sure more than one person has these skills. Self-hosting can sometimes be considered more trouble than it is worth. Earlier this month, the company announced a new “lightweight” deployment option that is less resource intensive and that will ultimately work across multiple databases and architectures. Bitwarden is one of just a handful of vault-based password managers that offers the option of self-hosting its software on a local device or network server.

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