KeePass(X)(C)

If you are not just try to meet the very minimal password policies that your service providers try to enforce, but really care about your security and privacy, you should already use a of password manager…

In fact the reality is totally disappointing, but that issue is worth a separate article – which I’m not finished jet.

The KeePass is probably the oldest password manager, which has a lot of remake, fork, and clone out there. Not even the IT professionals can distinguish them. How would an average user getting through?

I would like to make it clear for everyone:

KeePass

This was the first – the original one – which has been acknowledged and used by many users pretty early. Probably because it was opens-source, it has a lot of useful features, and prepared for plugins and extensions. For now there is a plethora of plugins and extensions, which makes a little bit of chaos, and not really the best way for success in my opinion.

There was only one real problem whit this application: it was coded in .NET, and made for windows only. Even if this issue is partially solved by the existence of Mono – which means now it an be built for Linux as well, not everybody was impressed by this solution – including me. Now it seems most of the mainline Linux distributions includes this, but because of the .NET and the need of Mono makes a huge amount of bloated and questionable licensed dependencies,  which are not likely to be approved – if not explicitly denied – by many organization.

KeePassX

This is a full re implementation (using C and C++) of the original KeePass. The project initial goal was to make compatible application for Linux. However it has been turned to a real cross-platform (Windows, Mac, Linux) application very quickly, while keeping the compatibility with the original project.

Other advantage was that there was no huge dependencies, and not prepared for plugins at all. This is how it can remain a really small, and pretty fast and simple application.

However the time passed by, and the original developers seem to abandoned the project.

KeePassXC

This is the community fork of the KeePassX, and the goal was to fix existing bugs, and add new features to provide a feature-rich, fully cross-platform and modern open-source password manager.

The new features and the modern look and feel make it a little bit bigger with more dependencies, however it is still a blazing fast and small and simple password manager. And the most important it is still compatible whit the original KeePass password database, that promises a smooth transition between these applications, no matter what OS are you using.

This is my preferred and recommended password manager for now!