I’m a user of the flatpak version of Bitwarden on Fedora, if Bitwarden could manage themselves the flatpak, it would be great.
So did I. Kind of surprised that the flatpak version wasn’t official already.
This is untrue, Flatpaks push updates very quickly, I am a flatpak maintainer myself. It takes 3 hours for users to recieve updates. See https://www.reddit.com/r/rotp/comments/sxx9bz/remnants_of_the_precursors_ubuntu_installation/ for example.
See App Maintenance · flathub/flathub Wiki · GitHub for documentation on this.
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Created an account just so I could vote for this! Love Bitwarden, but won’t use the Flathub version until it’s made official. 
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Windows 11 doesn’t think my Skylake processor is cool enough to join their club. And it’s not really worth the cost of upgrading any time soon. So I’ve made the switch to Fedora. Having something integrated in to a package manager would be nice.
I am a Linux user (OpenSUSE Tumbleweed) and I use Flatpak for certain applications. Bitwarden is an application I install via Flatpak because its not available in my distro’s repos. I care about security and would strongly support the Bitwarden flatpak application being made official.
I am a paid subscriber and love that Bitwarden supports Linux!
Yes, please! And here’s why:
- flatpak is far more widely used than snap; even Ubuntu users tend to install flatpak alongside snap
- Even though flathub is by and large the most popular repository, flatpak supports setting up your repository just in case flathub’s policies change for the worse. The same cannot be said with snap which has a centralized, nonfree backend.
- While .deb and .rpm solutions are nice, flatpak is universal and works on all major distros so package once, works on everything. This lifts the burden of packaging for specific distros.
- Bitwarden is an electron app anyway so it’s not like it will be missing out on native theming or anything.
- While .AppImage is a nice solution, it does not update with the rest of the system which could be a security risk as users are less likely to update programs individually.
- flatpak allows for sandboxing and fine-tuned permissions
- flatpak supports atomic updates and rollbacks
I rely on Bitwarden every day and I would love to have it officially as a flatpak. Thank you Bitwarden and keep up the good work!
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Flatpaks CAN be pushed quickly, but ONLY if they are actively maintained. That’s the issue here, and hence the reason for this entire thread!
You make a very compelling argument, @alexrelis. I also agree that Flatpaks are superior to AppImages and Snaps, and if BW were to adopt just one approach for distributing its software for Linux, Flatpaks are likely the choice that will appeal to nearly all users (even if old curmudgeons like me still prefer native packages from a developers repository).
I think you guys may be winning me over to this solution… 
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I agree as well.
Hey, no worries about the preference for native packages, I still prefer them too - but if I had to choose between Snaps and Flatpaks… Flatpaks all the way, lol. I do think the odd AppImage is okay provided there’s a justifiable reason, but if it’s not for some specific use-case (such as just plopping the AppImage on a USB or something), Flatpak would definitely be the more appropriate solution imho.
Hey, Flatpak / Flathub person here o/~
Upstream engagement is prime, and it would be fantastic to see Bitwarden maintained by its authors on Flathub! If there’s anything I and other Flathub community members can do to help you there, please just let us know. If you prefer direct chat, feel free to join the Flatpak room at Matrix.
I appreciate that the Flatpak manifest can be a bit intimidating to maintain, and might look scary if you’re used to traditional distro packaging, however there are a few ways to ease and automate your packaging. Fortunately, seems like the community members who currently maintain the Bitwarden package on Flathub are already using these features to automatically pull in new releases from GitHub! Biatwarden’s package manifest is really tight and clean, it’s looking great.
In the near future, app authors will be able to add an official badge to their applications on Flathub, so that the community can differentiate more easily which packages are official, and which ones are maintained by the community.
At last, if you happen to try the Flatpak / Flathub route, and find something too hard to do, not properly documented, or even just odd, please let us know. It’d be great to improve developer docs and resources along the way.
With respect,
Georges
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From what I have seen, most flatpaks auto build off of github/gitlab releases. This usually leads to the flatpaks being less than a day older than their source. Even if their maintainer is on vacation, and if something breaks on the update, you can rollback.
Compare this to Ubuntu/Debian repos. Some packages can be months or years behind. Yes, yes, you can have your own repo, but most users prefer not adding a bunch of PPAs if they can help it. PPA’s break all the time when new disro versions come out (see 21.10).
I would LOVE to see Bitwarden packaged as a flatpak! At this point, I actively avoid software I can’t get from flathub.
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Full disclosure, I signed up to contribute to this discussion. As a free user without the experience to do it myself, if the Bitwarden project is willing to do it, I would definitely appreciate it, as I already use flatpak for other apps (including the apparently unofficial Bitwarden package).
If not, I’ll either drop the desktop version, or switch to the AppImage or something.
More good points - thanks @Peter_Hoburg. I guess a lot of this comes down to which is harder to maintain, a PPA or a flatpak on Flathub, given that both need to be maintained?
Looking at Bitwarden’s Github, they currently are maintaining a deb, rpm, appimage, and snap for the Linux desktop app. So, perhaps the more relevant question, following what I said above, is will a flatpak distribution replace all those other releases they currently support? If so, then it definitely seems like a no-brainer to me to just go the flatpak route.
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Once you pick one (and I prefer flatpak) - you don’t have to maintain any other linux packaging format. Flatpak will also handle auto update as well.
Finally, flatpak will also give you telemetrics about how popular bitwarden is on the Linux platform. Plus links so that people are aware of how to support Bitwarden.
Deb/RPM do not really allow a way from the software developer to reach its audience. By doing it this way, we can get Linux platform as another vector in revenue than a possible loss leader.
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Hey, just created an account just to vote this. The original post made a few good points, and you can find many others in the comments. Would personally love to download bitwarden as a flatpak, knowing that everything is mantained by the team, so that we get fast updates from an official source.
I came here to just vote for this. Would very much love to see an official flatpak for bitwarden, so that we are assured of security and fast updates from an official source.
Been using bitwarden for years.
I would like the flatpak offically maintained, just made an account to vote it
Voted for this proposal + up voted on reddit subs (r/bitwarden and r/Linux).
If unclear, I’m in favor of this proposal.
