The Bitwarden client has all the data cached, so the server can be down and you still get access to the passwords (same for internet connection).
Thanks for the reply! That makes sense. I’m still weary of the client somehow losing the cache while the server is down (two holes in the Swiss cheese lining up) but that is overly paranoid I know that
You should definitely be! I take backups every 6h for my self hosted vaultwarden (easier to manage and to backup, but not official, YMMV). You can also restore each backup automatically and have a “second service” you can run elsewhere (a standby basically), which will also ensure the backup works fine.
I have been running bit/vaultwarden now for I think 6 years, for my whole family and I have never needed to do anything, despite having had a few hiccups with the server.
Don’t take my word for it, but the clients (browser plugin, desktop app, mobile app) are designed to keep data locally I think. So the term cache might be misleading here because it suggests some temporary storage used just to save web requests, with a relatively quick expiration. In this case I think the plugin etc. can work potentially indefinitely without server - something to double-check, but I believe it’s the design.
