A password vault you buy once — no subscription, no monthly fee

Why so much of this became a subscription

Subscription pricing funds cloud infrastructure, cross-device sync, shared team vaults, and continuous product engineering. If you need those, the subscription is honest.

If you do not — if you have one machine, one folder, and no team — you are paying rent on features you never open.

What a one-time-purchase file vault gets right

You own the file. If the company disappears, your copy still runs. If they change their mind about pricing, your copy still runs. If they add features you don't want, you can ignore the update.

The tradeoff is honest: no sync, no shared teams, sometimes no automatic updates. For a personal folder, that is often the point.

Elba's shape

Elba is €49 today. The price falls every year until 1 January 2030, when the source becomes free. You buy the HTML file once and keep it forever. No account, no server contact, no upgrade nag.

Questions people actually ask

Do I get updates?

Yes, for the life of the current major version. You never pay again for the version you bought.

What if the company closes?

The file you bought still works forever, and the source becomes free in 2030 by license — even if we vanish.

Is this a good replacement for 1Password?

For team credential sharing across devices, no. For 'a folder of secrets on my laptop', yes.

Related answers

• 1Password alternative with no account, no cloud, and no company in the middle

  If you only need to keep a folder of secrets on your own machine, you don't need a password manager service. Here is the smaller shape.