Bitwarden app store builds go commercial: test your export

Bitwarden is changing which license ships to your phone. Starting with the next release, the apps in the app stores — and the direct downloads from its site — will be the commercially licensed builds, the company said in an announcement on its community forum on October 9. The GPLv3 version keeps getting updated on GitHub. Bitwarden says nothing changes for users today. The part worth reading is what it says about tomorrow.

What actually happened

From Bitwarden's post and staff replies in the thread:

• Store and download builds move to the commercial license with the next release.
• The GPLv3 build continues on GitHub under the existing license.
• Features today: all current features are in both versions.
• Features tomorrow: some future components will be commercial-only. New features get a license decision case by case.
• Staff statements: Bitwarden is "not going closed-source," forks are still allowed, self-hosting does not change, and the free plan stays.
• Still unanswered in the thread: whether future commercial-only features reach self-hosters, how the Linux Flatpak build is licensed, and pricing for any new tiers.

This is not the first licensing wobble. In 2024, Bitwarden moved its SDK to GPLv3 after users found the public source would not build without a proprietary package.

Why it matters for your business

For most small teams, nothing breaks this week. Your vault syncs, your logins fill. If you picked Bitwarden partly because it was open source, though, the honest read is this: the build you run is now a vendor product with an open-source sibling, and the gap between them can grow one feature at a time.

That's normal software economics, not a scandal. But a password manager is the one tool you can't afford to be stuck in. So treat this as a reminder to check your exit:

Run a test export. Export a non-production vault and confirm it imports somewhere else. An export you've never restored is a hope, not a plan.

Know which build you run. Store app, direct download, or self-compiled. In twelve months that answer may decide which features you get.

If you self-host via Vaultwarden, note that third-party servers choose their own feature support. Watch the release notes.

Write down the trigger. Decide now what change would make you move — a removed export path, a price jump, a feature you depend on going paid — so you aren't deciding under pressure.

Sources: Bitwarden Community announcement, Bitwarden clients license on GitHub, The Register (2024 SDK change).