Vaultwarden or Bitwarden – which is which?

While setting things up you will come across two names: Bitwarden and Vaultwarden. That is not a mistake or a contradiction — they refer to two different things that work together.

The app is called Bitwarden

Bitwarden is the app you use: the browser extension, the app on your phone, the program on your computer. It comes from the company Bitwarden and is free on the App Store, on Google Play and as a browser extension.

The server is called Vaultwarden

Vaultwarden is the server your vault lives on — ours is at vault.arbnor.me. It speaks the same “language” as the Bitwarden app but runs on our own hardware instead of a third-party provider. That keeps your passwords in our hands.

A comparison

It is like email: you read your messages in an app — Outlook or Apple Mail, say — while the messages themselves sit on a server. The app and the server are two things and may have different names, yet everything works together.

The same applies here: app = Bitwarden, server = Vaultwarden.

What this means for you

• You install the ordinary Bitwarden app or extension.
• In the settings you enter https://vault.arbnor.me as the server address — see Password manager is moving.
• After that the app often just says “Bitwarden”. That is correct; the name “Vaultwarden” only appears in the address.

One account, one master password, one vault. Only the two names in the background are different.