Another reason for NOT self hosting: I want the passwords for my family to be available in the event something happens to me. The probability of Bitwarden being more resilient (at least mid-term) is much higher than any self hosting solution I would come up with.
If you've opened it once on a device and haven't logged out, the encrypted vault is still available on that device and can be unlocked and read. You just can't modify it. There were bugs in the browser extension that made it log out without the user asking it to, but those should be fixed.
In which client? There's no technical requirement for that to be so.
I do find the Firefox browser extension sometimes logs me out (this is separate to the vault lock timer which just asks for a password, the extension basically resets to asking for a user ID)
I've never had that issue in multiple years with spotty internet. What I have is clients that stay out of date and don't always immediately sync. Even when the Internet is fine. Sometimes even a restart wont force a sync.
This is genuinely an underrated problem. This extends to a bunch of tech things in my life… if our Plex server were to fail everyone would be able to survive but we have a whole smart home setup with Home Assistant and if that fails the lights are going to stop turning on correctly.
I’ve made a pact with a similarly techy friend of mine that should something happen to either of us the other will step in and maintain in the short term, transition to something more hands off in the long term. But I still pay for Bitwarden for that extra level of reassurance.
