ShelterVault
Local-first password manager for Windows
Keep your credentials on your device, secured with modern encryption and no third-party infrastructure required.
Why a new password manager?
Commercial password managers rely on proprietary cloud storage, locking your data behind subscription models and forcing you to blindly trust their infrastructure with your privacy.
While excellent open-source, local-first alternatives exist, they generally fall into two categories:
- Web-based wrappers (e.g., Electron): They offer modern, rich user interfaces but suffer from high memory consumption and poor native performance due to the Chromium and Node.js engine.
- Native legacy apps (e.g., C++): They are incredibly fast and lightweight, but often rely on outdated, rigid user interfaces that compromise the user experience.
ShelterVault was engineered to bridge this gap. Leveraging Microsoft’s modern WinUI 3, I built a local-first password manager that delivers a beautiful, fluent UI without sacrificing native performance.
What if synchronization is still a requirement?
Because security is paramount, all data is cryptographically encrypted before being written to a local SQLite3 database. This design grants absolute data custody and unlocks two flexible, zero-trust synchronization methods if you need to use multiple devices:
- File-Based Sync: Simply host your encrypted database file inside a provider like OneDrive, letting the cloud handle file replication without ever exposing your raw credentials.
- Cloud Engine Sync: Connect the application directly to your own self-managed Azure Cosmos DB instance for seamless, granular record synchronization.
Best of all, the cloud providers’ free tiers are more than enough for personal usage, allowing you to maintain full data ownership at zero cost.
Support
ShelterVault is FREE — no ads, no subscriptions, no upfront
payments 🙅🏻♂️. If you’d like to support the project, you can donate via my “Buy Me
a Coffee” page:
