Bitwarden extends passwordless leadership with acquisition

Today, Bitwarden announced that it has acquired European-based startup Passwordless.dev, a significant milestone in rounding out the Bitwarden commitment to offering open source, scalable, and secure passwordless solutions to every business and end user. 

Founded in 2020, Passwordless.dev provides a comprehensive API framework that minimizes complexities for developers seeking to build passkeys and FIDO2 WebAuthn features such as Face ID, fingerprint, and Windows Hello. Passwordless.dev trims down the development work around cryptographic operations, technical flows, and more – what used to take weeks can now be accomplished in minutes. 

FIDO2 WebAuthn plays an important role in improving digital security. Swedish-founder Anders Åberg started Passwordless.dev as an open source project with an aim to make passwordless authentication more developer friendly and ultimately, to help eradicate phishing attacks that lead to costly data breaches. Passwordless.dev unlocks the imagination of developers, giving them the right tools needed to accelerate passwordless authentication for global enterprises. 

For enterprises with existing commercial and homegrown applications, integrating modern passwordless authentication flows is resource intensive. Passwordless.dev accelerates enterprise security transformation, providing an API framework to quickly turn existing applications into more secure passwordless experiences for users. 

Together, Bitwarden and Passwordless.dev provide a turnkey solution built on the FIDO2 and Webauthn standards that are defining the future of passwordless. As part of this announcement, Bitwarden is excited to launch the Bitwarden Passwordless.dev beta program, giving enterprises, developers, and security enthusiasts the opportunity to test and provide feedback on the product. For more information on the beta program, please visit passwordless.dev.

Bitwarden started with a vision to help create a world where no one gets hacked. This means providing the best password management solution – across free and paid plans  – for everyone. This also means embracing passwordless authentication as a way to supersede passwords and remove them as a potential threat vector for malicious actors. 

When it comes to passwordless adoption, enterprises look for a combination of security, convenience, and ease of use. These have always been key tenets of the Bitwarden product philosophy, as evidenced by passwordless features already built into Bitwarden:

Why is Bitwarden acquiring Passwordless.dev?

Several factors drove the decision:

• This acquisition enables enterprises to embrace passkeys and passwordless authentication quickly and securely, even for existing applications. 

• This acquisition empowers developers to create passwordless web and enterprise applications in minutes using  a turnkey solution - a WebAuthn framework that removes the friction involved in passkey development. 

• Passwordless.dev was founded on open source principles, which benefits customers and allows faster passwordless development. The diverse talent and skill sets harnessed within the Bitwarden global open source community drive innovation speed. 

How will customers benefit from this acquisition?

From the beginning, the Bitwarden mission has been to provide security for everyone. Passwordless is part of this mission. By joining forces with Passwordless.dev, Bitwarden makes passwordless technologies much more accessible to businesses and developers. 

What are the use cases for Passwordless.dev?

For developers building web applications, Bitwarden Passwordless.dev provides an open source framework (codebase, server, SDK) that enables them to build device-native biometric sign-in experiences such as Touch ID, Face ID, Windows Hello. This saves weeks of coding do-it-yourself passkey implementations. 

Enterprises also have business applications that rely on passwords and want to provide users with passwordless experiences. Bitwarden Passwordless.dev helps them quickly add WebAuthn and passwordless authentication features into these applications. 

Will Bitwarden product offerings change? 

Bitwarden continues to provide password management to individuals and enterprises. In 2023, Bitwarden will also introduce secrets management. 

At the time of announcement, Bitwarden Passwordless.dev will be available in beta with new pricing released in Q2 2023. 

What will happen to the Passwordless.dev team?

The Passwordless.dev team will join Bitwarden. 

Will Passwordless.dev be integrated into the core password management solution?

Passwordless.dev will continue to be offered as a solution to application developers independent of using other Bitwarden products.

Bitwarden plans to take advantage of the technology across the portfolio in the future. 

How will this impact current Passwordless.dev customers?

The global reach, development expertise, and strong financial backing of Bitwarden bring incredible opportunities to current Passwordless.dev customers looking to accelerate adoption and broaden their range of passwordless innovations.

How do I find out about the Passwordless.dev beta program (demo videos, future pricing, and more)?

For more information, please visit https://www.passwordless.dev/