An alternative server implementation of the Bitwarden Client API, written in Rust and compatible with official Bitwarden clients [disclaimer], perfect for self-hosted deployment where running the official resource-heavy service might not be ideal.

---

[!IMPORTANT] When using this server, please report any bugs or suggestions directly to us (see Get in touch), regardless of whatever clients you are using (mobile, desktop, browser...). DO NOT use the official Bitwarden support channels.

Features

A nearly complete implementation of the Bitwarden Client API is provided, including:

• Personal Vault
• Send
• Attachments
• Website icons
• Personal API Key
• Organizations
  • Collections, Password Sharing, Member Roles, Groups, Event Logs, Admin Password Reset, Directory Connector, Policies
• Multi/Two Factor Authentication
  • Authenticator, Email, FIDO2 WebAuthn, YubiKey, Duo
• Emergency Access
• Vaultwarden Admin Backend
• Prometheus Metrics - Optional monitoring and observability with secure endpoint
• Modified Web Vault client (Bundled within our containers)

Usage

[!IMPORTANT] The web-vault requires the use a secure context for the Web Crypto API. That means it will only work via http://localhost:8000 (using the port from the example below) or if you enable HTTPS.

The recommended way to install and use Vaultwarden is via our container images which are published to ghcr.io, docker.io and quay.io. See which container image to use for an explanation of the provided tags.

There are also community driven packages which can be used, but those might be lagging behind the latest version or might deviate in the way Vaultwarden is configured, as described in our Wiki.

Alternatively, you can also build Vaultwarden yourself.

While Vaultwarden is based upon the Rocket web framework which has built-in support for TLS our recommendation would be that you setup a reverse proxy (see proxy examples).

[!TIP] For more detailed examples on how to install, use and configure Vaultwarden you can check our Wiki.

Metrics and Monitoring

Vaultwarden supports optional Prometheus metrics for monitoring and observability. This feature is disabled by default and must be explicitly enabled.

Quick Start

# 1. Build with metrics support
cargo build --features enable_metrics --release

# 2. Enable metrics with environment variables
export ENABLE_METRICS=true
export METRICS_TOKEN="your-secret-token"

# 3. Access metrics endpoint
curl -H "Authorization: Bearer your-secret-token" http://localhost:8080/metrics

Available Metrics

• HTTP Metrics: Request rates, response times, status codes
• Database Metrics: Connection pool utilization, query performance
• Authentication Metrics: Login attempts, session counts
• Business Metrics: User counts, vault items, organization data
• System Metrics: Uptime, build information

Security

• Disabled by default - metrics must be explicitly enabled
• Token authentication - supports both plain text and Argon2 hashed tokens
• Path normalization - prevents high cardinality metric explosion
• Network isolation - recommend restricting access to monitoring systems only

See METRICS.md for complete configuration guide, Prometheus setup, Grafana dashboards, and alerting rules.

Docker/Podman CLI

Pull the container image and mount a volume from the host for persistent storage.
You can replace docker with podman if you prefer to use podman.

docker pull vaultwarden/server:latest
docker run --detach --name vaultwarden \
  --env DOMAIN="https://vw.domain.tld" \
  --volume /vw-data/:/data/ \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  --publish 127.0.0.1:8000:80 \
  vaultwarden/server:latest

This will preserve any persistent data under /vw-data/, you can adapt the path to whatever suits you.

Docker Compose

To use Docker compose you need to create a compose.yaml which will hold the configuration to run the Vaultwarden container.

services:
  vaultwarden:
    image: vaultwarden/server:latest
    container_name: vaultwarden
    restart: unless-stopped
    environment:
      DOMAIN: "https://vw.domain.tld"
    volumes:
      - ./vw-data/:/data/
    ports:
      - 127.0.0.1:8000:80

Get in touch

Have a question, suggestion or need help? Join our community on Matrix, GitHub Discussions or Discourse Forums.

Encountered a bug or crash? Please search our issue tracker and discussions to see if it's already been reported. If not, please start a new discussion or create a new issue. Ensure you're using the latest version of Vaultwarden and there aren't any similar issues open or closed!

Contributors

Thanks for your contribution to the project!

Disclaimer

This project is not associated with Bitwarden or Bitwarden, Inc.

However, one of the active maintainers for Vaultwarden is employed by Bitwarden and is allowed to contribute to the project on their own time. These contributions are independent of Bitwarden and are reviewed by other maintainers.

The maintainers work together to set the direction for the project, focusing on serving the self-hosting community, including individuals, families, and small organizations, while ensuring the project's sustainability.

Please note: We cannot be held liable for any data loss that may occur while using Vaultwarden. This includes passwords, attachments, and other information handled by the application. We highly recommend performing regular backups of your files and database. However, should you experience data loss, we encourage you to contact us immediately.

Bitwarden_RS

This project was known as Bitwarden_RS and has been renamed to separate itself from the official Bitwarden server in the hopes of avoiding confusion and trademark/branding issues.
Please see #1642 - v1.21.0 release and project rename to Vaultwarden for more explanation.