Selfhosted

Option 1, with manual copying to mobile. I tried syncthing in the past but had problems with corrupted files

To improve security of option 1 you could use a keyfile, that is either only transferred manually to devices or stored at a second cloud provider.

I've been using option 1 for many many years. It lets me keep control of the encryption, and it's accessible just about anywhere.

I'm currently hosting vaultwarden on my rack, mostly just because I can really. It's easy enough and I have plenty of resources.

Why not Keepass on a webdav server? Both Keepass on the computer and Keepass2Android can open the file directly. If you save it on one it will merge the changes in any other copies you have open.

I do 3 and have encrypted backups to Dropbox so I can easy restore/spin up a cloud server if I need to

Been using option 3 but with Bitwarden for almost 5 years at this point. First started out on a VM in a cloud provider. Now it's in a VM on unraid behind a local HAProxy or Cloudflare tunnel for remote access.

Bitwardens full docker stack provides great daily backups which I've had to restore on occasion or go back to one from months ago to dig out a password for my wife.

Been testing and hoping to move to the unified-container from them soon, assuming I can replicate encrypted backups like their solution.

I switched to proton pass after using bitwarden for a couple years

Lastpass /s

I like LessPass, essentially you choose one password and then it generates secure passwords for each website, since it uses a predefined generation algorithm it's completely offline and doesn't need syncing it's very secure. However it has the inconvenience of needing to remember the way you spelled the website, but if you stick to something like all lowercase it's fine.

Option 2, because once you start thinking about the ways your stuff could be stolen ("threat modelling") you'll see that realistically it's the easiest option.

I like Enpass. $25 lifetime sub via Stack social. Does the trick. If they ever pull the rug out on lifetime folks, I would go to Bitwarden.

I did option 1 for a number of years but now I'm doing option 3 off a proxmox container and some cloud scripted backup. So far so good.

We just started doing option 3 at work and just keep it behind the firewall. It is going well so far.

I'm currently using KeePassXC. The setup that I created below gives me 3-backups of my passwords, but it's a bit to manage.

Computer

On my computer, I have my keepassxc database and key file stored in a veracrypt container. Next to my computer, I have a piece of paper that has the password for my keepassxc database and the password for my veracrypt container.

computer -> veracrypt container -> keepassxc database AND keepassxc key file

paper -> keepassxc database pw AND veracrypt pw

KeePassXC Export File (text file that contains all of my login information)

I store this file inside of a veracrypt container, on my USB LUKS. Next to my USB LUKS, I have a piece of paper that has the associated veracrypt password.

usb luks -> veracrypt container -> keepassxc export file

paper -> veracrypt pw

Cloud

I store my database in cloud service a.

I store my key file in a veracrypt container, in cloud service b.

On a piece of paper, I have the login information to both of these cloud accounts and the password for the veracrypt container.

Having gone through all of these options I have thoughts.

Option 1 sounds awesome but will almost always leave you in a situation where you can’t get your logins when you need them in an emergency. You’re always depending on a chain of things. Depending on your situation it may not be a big deal. But this option sucks, imho.

Option 3 sounds amazing because it gives you the control of option 1 with the ease of option 2. But… unless you’re the kind of person that enjoys hosting their own email server you really don’t want this option. Fun in theory but not so much when you realize you now have a 3rd job.

So that leaves option 2. It’s great but you’re depending on someone else. This is the option that most people should choose too, imo. However it lacks some of control and trust that option 1 and 3 have.

Sooooo, that leaves us with option 4, the onion option. Breaking up your data into layers and using different tools for them.

So first and foremost I want my password storage to always be available. For me that means Bitwarden, (though I’m evaluating protonpass currently.) this is the outer layer. Things that can and should be stored here are stored here. I use it to manage web logins and 2FA tokens for those sites. I also use it for storing autofill data eg credit cards. I don’t use it to hold things like my gpg keys.

Next layer is pass. This layer is mostly things that I need to have logins or other information on headless/remote servers. Think self hosted lab services like a mariadb/postgres or backups. This is easily kept in sync with git. This is the layer where I’ll store things like gpg keys and other VERY sensitive data that I need to sync around.

For other things on this layer I use ansible vault. This is mostly used for anything where I need automation and/or I don’t want too or can’t easily use my yubikey for gpg. This is kept in sync with git as well.

Lastly the inner layer I use AGE or PGP. This is for anything else I can’t use the above for. So my Bitwarden export/backups are in this level too. I also use this layer for things that I need to use to bootstrap a system. Think sensitive dotfiles. This can be kept in sync with git as well.

Git is the best sync solution imo because you can store it anywhere and use anything to sync that repo. Just throw that raw repo on Dropbox, use ssh with it on a vps, rsync it, etc. you’ll always have it somewhere and on something.

My work flow goes like this Bitwarden -> Apple/Google/Firefox -> Pass -> Ansible -> AGE/PGP

This allows for syncing things as needed and how needed. It also gives you the option of having an encrypted text file if/when everything fails.