I haven’t used Bitwarden for long, but the more I use it, the more I start to appreciate what an amazing product it really is and the value that it accompanies. Trust is not something that I give easily. I’m happy to say Bitwarden has earned mine.
Having an audited, open source solution to manage passwords is something I strongly believe in and want to support. I truly believe that $10/year for premium is far too low for this service. The developers did a stellar job, and I wish it was easier to support them.
It would be wonderful if there was a donate option in the web vault/client apps. I would donate frequently, and I’m sure others would as well. I am aware I can add more storage, but having a dedicated option would be appreciated.
Considering they are not a charity or a non-profit organization, donations can cause legal issues. Also their main income comes from the business clients, not from consumer sales.
I’m talking about ways to monetize the Bitwarden tool, don’t delete this post
In my humble opinion with an interest in helping in some way with the little knowledge I have so far,
You might think it’s naive and it probably is, as I don’t know about the Bitwarden business, namely how they make money from open source software. Part of my life, I did development for closed source companies. Selling software is one way, another is to do something like a monthly subscription, which is mostly present in streaming platforms like netflix.
In summary, in my opinion, crowdfunding is interesting to allow more financial resources, such as hiring people, etc. It’s just another way to monetize, we can monetize monthly subscription which is something streaming platforms do as well as Netflix
Just as we can have a financial area focused on foreign investment, as is the case with crowdfunding, part of this amount goes to people and another part goes to the business, those who believe that Bitwarden will continue to grow make monthly donations and those who think that everything is not good, you can stop investing or withdraw the amount you have already invested
I’m not criticizing you, I want to understand how to think of another form of monetization as this post is very interesting, and each person here has shown a point of view about it.
I think your point of view is valid, but I was wondering if what I’m thinking makes sense.
Another way is to charge for exclusive consultancies, so that companies hire experts in the tool to help manage the installation and support
It would be really cool to be an investor in bitwarden and help the company grow and make the tool more and more potentially incredible
Developers can use bitwarden and pay something monthly as a kind of gratitude for using great software.
Another way to monetize is to offer integration of some software or service
Some doubts
Is it possible to be a consultant specialized in bitwarden? Is there training to know how to use a tool and implement it in other companies?
Is there any crowdfunding to make possible the entry of foreign capital into the bitwarden company?
If you want to get more info about Bitwarden financials, you can join nearest webcast session. Devs and people from management team are answering questions in the webcast. In one of those webcasts they told that their main revenue comes from business clients, and consumer products don’t generate much.
Crowdfunding can work for startups or for new products, but Bitwarden is an established company with a good revenue.
Open source =/= free. It still has costs for development, marketing, support, and management of the software. For example, you can check Linux distros, like Redhat or SUSE. Open-source software only makes the software more trustable because everyone can inspect the code and if needed can adjust it themselves.
You can be a security consultant, but not specialized in Bitwarden, because their product range is not as much as their enterprise competitors. For this topic, you can check CyberArk or IBM. Consumer products don’t need any consulting, because help pages and videos are more than enough.