1Password 8 will be electron, subscription only, and no longer support local vaults

Have provided a follow-up (admittedly opinionated) to my earlier article, given the wide interest in this subject:

3 Likes

Although it often seems to get “poo-pooed” when I mention it in forums (!), I’ll simply say that I’ve been a happy user of Enpass and it’s worth considering.

Sadly, they did implement a subscription a few years ago, however, you still can buy the standalone version, which is kept up-to-date with the subscription version. It’s cross-platform and the Mac version is native. (There are a few places where its cross-platform nature means it doesn’t look completely Mac- native. Specifically, I’m thinking of its preferences window.) Lastly, you can have multiple vaults and vaults can be stored locally or in cloud storage.

Just adding my two cents to an already complicated discussion!!

4 Likes

I might be an outlier, but I use multiple computers running a variety of operating systems ( Mac, Windows, Linux ) . I also use both personally owned and corporate-owned computers. Finding a password manager that I can use in all of these “use cases” has been a challenge.

1Password is what I currently use, but I’d love a non-subscription solution, say, a password manager that lets me self host the password storage via a webdav or similar technology. That way they only have the cost of development and don’t need to worry about hosting and supporting the data storage part.

My corporate laptop is limit is sharing options. Due to the confidentiality of the data, any form of cloud syncing is off of the table.

Anyway, I’ll keep looking but I will stick with 1Password in the meantime.

1 Like

KeePassXC works on Mac, Windows, and Linux. The DB file is on the cloud only if you want it to be.

1 Like

The irony of Watchtower in 1P is that it highlights just how many passwords are potentially compromised in a given time frame which only makes me more skeptical of the idea that I can happily rely upon cloud only infrastructure.

Even Remote Access apps have central management features for Enterprise customers who keep cloud infrastructure software to a minimum.

1 Like

Strongbox TRIAL RUN!! I exported the couple hundred entries from my 1Password and imported them to the Strongbox app that I downloaded from the Mac App Store. Now I’m in position to run both apps side by side until I am confident of Strongbox and willing to accept its differences and limitations. Or my standalone license for 1Password7 stops working. :slightly_smiling_face:

The export and import was picky. Spent a lot of time in the Numbers app looking at the CSV file for problems. Had to edit some fields in 1Password to get them to export right. And I had to tweak the CSV file itself before it would load okay. Seemed to be picky about number of columns and even “Url” but not “URL” for column header? I think.

Experienced a crash and loss of items due to badly formatted input data. Once I had the CSV file cleaned up well enough, it stopped doing that. (And of course nothing I’m doing in Strongbox affects the data in 1Password, so I’m free to experiment all I want.)

Strongbox is a nice simple little Mac app compared to 1Password. It won’t be for everyone. But it is a native Mac app, it does allow me to keep my data on my Mac, and it is even available for the non-subscription price of $23, which I have paid.

On import, it really only handled five fields: Title, Username, Password, Url, Notes (and also claimed an Email field but I had no such data). My credit card and other non-password records imported mostly empty of data.

Strongbox is probably not for you if you need family or company sharing. Sharing among devices is supposed to be possible any number of different ways. My next step will be to figure out the best way to get my Strongbox data from my Mac to my iPhone.

4 Likes

You’re braver than I. :smiley: I would’ve imported it into KeePassXC first, and only then used the Mac version of Strongbox to use the resulting .kbdx file.

Also, the iOS version of Strongbox is really nice, so you should have no trouble with the last item.

Would that have allowed me to import some of the “custom” fields from 1Password?

If you follow that article’s procedure religiously it will help, but there’s nothing that will give you everything. You’ll simply have to keep 1P and the KeePass app-of-choice up together and manually add fields if you truly want everything. At least, that was my experience. YMMV.

Thanks, I’m okay with the basics and am willing to update Strongbox with some of the missing data manually if needed. I still have the1Password app for reference as well as a printout of all my data so I really shouldn’t lose anything.

1 Like

Wow, I take back my MacPass recommendation for a KeePass client earlier. Strongbox free looks much better—and the paid version seems to handle convenience better than MacPass plugins. Not to mention the iOS app for those who want it. I didn’t realize that Strongbox could store in the KeePass format.

1 Like

Yep, that’s what it is: a KeePass client.

The reason I prefer KeePassXC on the Mac is because it has browser extensions for Chromium-based browsers and Firefox, while Strongbox on macOS pretty much is for use with only Safari via Apple’s AutoFill hook. (KeePassXC doesn’t have an extension for Safari, which may be a deal-breaker for some.) But, on iOS, where every browser is Safari-based — well, Webkit-based — regardless of the app name, Strongbox auto-fills like a champ.

Well, it definitely shows you’ve never worked on a software development team with a tight budget. Jeezus the level of hate is absurd.

1 Like

It’s super annoying, honestly. It really really makes being a fan of Apple communities hard.

I’ve tried to refrain from calling this community elitist but it’s becoming clearer and clearer to me that that’s exactly the word to describe it.

1 Like

When you get your first Apple silicon-based laptop Mac (M1 or whatever) and you start watching the energy and memory usage in Activity Monitor of various apps and how good ones contribute to excellent battery life, you may come to realize how a good native Mac app could stand head and shoulders above other ways of doing things.

6 Likes

Flagged? Lol.

Of course most people in this forum are not developers. This is a user forum. The name says it all.

Also, what tight budget? You mean a company with a 2 billion valuation has tight budget?

You can label the community whatever you want. But I’m guessing that word is exactly reserved to people like you.

5 Likes

I’m totally elitist, but more in that old-timey Unix user kind of way, so elitist, but also kind of shabby :wink:

8 Likes

That was a good read!

You guys realize the 1Password Mac application isn’t actually running the entire time, right? The browser extension does the job of filling in passwords and creating new ones - you only need to open the app once in a while for certain tasks.

4 Likes

Here’s some additional info on 1PW if you are interested.