Vaultwarden only provides the API (server) side implementation, so users still rely on clients from upstream (mobile apps, desktop apps and the web-vault). This is a lot of work that is done upstream by Bitwarden, Inc. At the same time Vaultwarden supports some paid features and offers that functionality for free. This raises some questions about sustaining and supporting upstream development. Many users have raised this issue and were asking how they can support upstream while using Vaultwarden.

Buying a subscription

Many users just subscribe to an appropriate plan for their deployment and leave the license unused. It's kind of a donation because Vaultwarden can't use the purchased license in any way.

You can also support upstream by buying Bitwarden merch from their shop.

Help translating the apps

There are projects on Crowdin for each of the apps. If you're fluent in any language other than English, you can help translating the apps.

Testing, reporting bugs in clients

Please, always report any bugs found here first. Chances are these aren't upstream bugs, but bugs in our implementation or in your configuration. We don't want to waste Kyle's time troubleshooting bugs with 3rd party server. In very rare cases there is a bug upstream, but at this stage we would have any other reason ruled out and the bug confirmed on the upstream server. So the takeaway here is to not report bugs in upstream, but report it here instead even if you think it is client issue. We can work together to see where the problem is.

Cf. our Bitwarden clients troubleshooting page for more information.

Helping other users in the community

There are lot of new users that sometimes struggle with basic stuff. Helping them is a great way to support the project (and to grow the community). From my experience with the community around Vaultwarden, it's great to see people actually helping each other before I get to answer their question - it saves some time and I often end up learning something new. There's Bitwarden community on Reddit for example, there are also official forums.