01
Why OxidVault exists
Many small and medium businesses — dental practices, tax advisors, IT service providers — still manage credentials in spreadsheets, shared documents, or informal notes. That creates real operational risk: weak access control, no audit trail, and difficulty demonstrating GDPR compliance when something goes wrong.
Cloud password managers address part of the problem, but they introduce a third-party operator into every read and sync. For organisations that want control over where secrets live and who can access supporting metadata, that trade-off is worth questioning — especially when credentials protect client data, infrastructure access, or financial systems.
OxidVault started from that gap: a tool that helps SMBs manage secrets properly without making an external cloud operator a structural dependency.
02
The approach
OxidVault is built around a local-first architecture: secrets are encrypted and stored on infrastructure you control, with no mandatory cloud relay for core operations. The desktop client uses AES-256-GCM and Argon2id; the browser extension communicates with the desktop safe via Native Messaging rather than routing credentials through an external service.
The core is open source under AGPLv3, so the implementation can be reviewed and audited. Audit events are recorded as structured metadata chains designed for ISO-27001-style traceability — who accessed what, and when — without relying on a vendor's opaque backend logs. Teams can optionally synchronise encrypted vault data through Git, keeping the sync channel under their own control.
The Community Edition supports up to five users per vault at no cost. Larger organisations can evaluate Enterprise features such as LDAP and SSO when their requirements outgrow a small-team setup.
03
About the builder
OxidVault is developed by Pascal Kuhn as a solo project, focused on transparent, practical security tooling for small businesses. The desktop client is built with Rust and Tauri for performance and a smaller attack surface than typical Electron-based alternatives. There is no large product team behind the project — development priorities follow what SMB operators actually need: local data control, clear auditability, and software they can inspect.
Feedback from early adopters — IT service providers, compliance-conscious practices, and security-aware small teams — shapes what gets built next. The goal is not to compete on feature breadth with enterprise suites, but to deliver a focused tool that works reliably in real SMB environments.
04
Get involved
The source code, issue tracker, and releases are on GitHub. If you have feedback, deployment questions, or feature requests, reach out atsupport@oxidvault.com.
