Hi everyone,
I wanted to share a quick summary of a recent article making the rounds (“The Quiet Renovation at Bitwarden” on ByteHaven) detailing some unannounced, under-the-radar corporate shifts over at Bitwarden.
https://blog.ppb1701.com/the-quiet-renovation-at-bitwarden
Here are the main takeaways from the piece:
Executive Restructuring: Longtime CEO Michael Crandell was replaced by Michael Sullivan, an executive whose background is heavily rooted in Private Equity (PE), mergers and acquisitions (M&A), and corporate exits. The CFO also departed around the same time.
Value Shift: Bitwarden quietly removed “Inclusion” and “Transparency” from its core corporate values, replacing them with “Innovation” and “Trust”. They silently edited a 2022 blog post to scrub the old terms without an official announcement.
Pricing Page Tweaks: The “Always Free” badge was briefly removed from their personal plan pricing page before being restored after users noticed.
API Uncertainties: The author warns that self-hosters relying on community-driven backends (like Vaultwarden) face potential future risks if new management decides to lock down or alter client APIs to drive monetization.
Why it matters to us: This is a textbook example of what happens when a security product pivots from community-driven development to maximizing value for a corporate exit. It highlights exactly why Passbolt’s strict commitment to verifiable open-source transparency, self-hosting, and community integrity is so crucial.
Curious to hear your thoughts on this!