Strongbox Acquired by Applause Group

I wonder how many people just never even waste time on indie software, knowing how likely it is that the best apps will just get acquired and slowly ruined anyway.

@billyok: It has certainly made me think twice before picking up a new Indie app unless it is paired with the ability to self-host the backend.

Things like this are pushing me closer and closer to just adopting Apple's Passwords app and I'm not happy about it. 1Password making any more user hostile moves will probably be the last straw.

I'm still limping along with 1Password 7. Eventually v7 + iOS will fail to work and I'll probably bite the bullet and upgrade.

My heart sank when I read this.

Yes, Strongbox really is great. So of course it had to be "acquired" and will, eventually, bleed to death, which will probably take the form of an initial price hike and/or forced sub. It's just so sad how everything turns to shit just as it's getting good because of course the dev wants to capitalise and reduce costs.

Strongbox has no backend but what you provide yourself, except for the optional sync. That's part of what makes it great, of course.

I'm not migrating again unless there's a clear need. But my next stop, should it prove necessary, will probably be BitWarden with a self-hosted VaultWarden backend.

"BitWarden with a self-hosted VaultWarden backend"

This is the way.

Damn, just as when I was thinking about switching to Strongbox. I suppose I could use the current version and stick with it, since it doesn't rely on anyone's backend and I won't be upgrading macOS any time soon.

Last time I tried BitWarden, it felt sorely lacking compared to 1Password 7. I think the part that was the most annoying was that I had to unlock each bit of it separately between the app and the extension running separately in each web browser I have open (and I generally do have more than one). Maybe I should give it another go... not that BitWarden is any less likely to become shitty than any other app.

Or maybe I should just use one of the less good open source KeePass apps, because at least then it can be forked.

I used to be so down on open source software, because it generally suffered from "designed by programmers" syndrome and was so frequently obnoxious to set up. But now it seems like it's the only thing you can rely on, because anything proprietary eventually turns to shit and gets dropped, and there's nothing you can do about it.

@gildarts KeePass (KeePass XC to be specific) (Y)

@CowMonkey KeePassXC is kinda fine, I guess (very alien UI for macOS, no OS integration), but the bigger problem is what to do with iOS devices. I tried KeePassium, but even on iPhone it's lacks many features and usability niceties compared to Strongbox.

Ah, well. I was still on Strongbox's generous 3-month trial, and was originally planning to seal the deal in this sale (which was preannounced back in January). Now with this announcement, as well as the fact that the sale had no effect in my country (probably because the pricing was severely outdated, USD appreciated greatly since the pandemic and Strongbox was therefore much cheaper than it should be)… guess I'll just continue with 1Password. I'll reevaluate my options a year from now, hopefully by then I won't have to redo my Passkeys when switching.

This one hit home. I use and love Strongbox. Everything about it was about as perfect as it gets. Bought a lifetime license a few years ago. It was the one thing I thought I could count on in software these days.

I really hope they just leave it alone but then why would they buy it.

I'm going to try to remain cautiously optimistic, but this is a very sensitive app for acquisitions.

"not that BitWarden is any less likely to become shitty than any other app"

Bitwarden's clients and Vaultwarden are open-source. The clients have forks already, so you're not beholden to one software company's whims. It's also trivially easy to put Vaultwarden on a NAS and access it with something like Tailscale.

It's true that Bitwarden's clients have problems, but having used 1Password and Proton Pass extensively, I don't find it substantially worse than those (and better in some ways).

I was also going to buy Strongbox this weekend to finally replace 1Password 7 with local vaults. It checked a lot of boxes during my testing, like local vaults, good OS integration, auto-fill add-ons for all major browser, and compatibility with other KeePass clients.

Instead of betting my 70 EUR on the new owner of Strongbox, I'm just going to migrate straight to Bitwarden clients with local sync using Vaultwarden, since I already had it set up locally for testing anyway. Apple's "free" Passwords.app also suddenly does not look that terrible.

I also fully expect the new owner to milk the existing user base by hiking subscriptions and stop honouring the lifetime licence soon. It's just how Apple's App store works, unfortunately.

@Bart Copy that. Ultimately the worst thing about this is that Strongbox really was **great**.

@Plume Yup. Already have a global route to my home LAN, so it's just a question of launching a container with VW in it on my NAS. Although it doesn't gladden my heart, it's good to know that all my data is just a single sqlite3 DB that will be part of every backup of the NAS. This is, ironically, almost exactly the situation I'm now in for Strongbox, except that the DB file is a KDBX2 and the file transfers are done using sftp to the NAS by the client instead of being accessed through an API. The obvious advantage of the former is that the DB is self-contained and works in any (theoretically ubiquitous and not shitty) KeePass app. But I'll live with the bodgie JS extensions provided by BW, even though I'll sorely miss the native autofill support in Safari (think iCloud keychain, without the iCloud).

And KeePassXC isn't an option: no native Safari autofill, is a QT app, separate browser extensions. And no iOS at all. Fine for a Linux/Windows user exclusively using non-Apple browsers but it's only really useful as a DB browser on macOS, sadly. Turns out Open Source works best when you've actually got competition on your platform.

Apple's Passwords does suddenly look shinier. As do, let's be honest, all the closed browser first-party options, especially on iOS where they all expose their passwords to the system. Ha!

The app ecosystem is built on Apple platforms with the sweat of those developers who've each independently re-implemented all of the core functionality necessary for an app of this sort to be useful, because they all run in an sandbox and there's no first-party support for syncing that's worth a damn. And Apple does make it very easy for developers to collect reliable, recurring revenue, with no options for users upgrading piecemeal or even by just pausing a subscription. Maybe that's why devs all inevitably sell out?

After several months I decided to have a look at Bartender, and… it seems honestly fine? Amplitude is gone, and the Setapp version at least appears to make absolutely zero network connections outside of the "Send feedback" form. I agree the silent transition was suspicious AF, but the app truly seems no worse than it was before — no subscriptions, no price hikes, got updated for Sequoia, and a few (very minor) fixes and updates.

Well, I'll maintain my original plan: abandon my trial now and reevaluate in a year, around the time to renew my 1P subscription. But I'm slightly more optimistic now.

Just checked, and right now Strongbox contacts *nothing* but the sftp server I indicate. Meanwhile, VoiceDream Reader is contacting *everything*, from RevenueCat to Firebase to Facebook to Crashlytics ... If this is the future for Strongbox, I'm worried.