A Password Manager That Also Gives You a Burner Email for Every Site
You've probably got a password manager already. Maybe you've even got a handful of throwaway email addresses you use to dodge spam. But how often do those two things actually talk to each other? AliasVault is an open-source project that folds both into one self-hostable tool—strong passwords and random email aliases for every site you sign up for, wrapped in end-to-end encryption.
What It Does
AliasVault is a privacy-first password and email alias manager. For each website you use, it'll generate a unique identity, a strong password, and a random email alias. That means the address you hand over to a sketchy newsletter signup isn't the one tied to your real inbox.
What sets it apart is the architecture: it ships with a built-in email server and claims zero third-party dependencies. So instead of routing aliases through some external mail provider, the whole thing lives inside your own deployment. Everything is end-to-end encrypted. The project offers a responsive web app, browser extensions for Chrome, Firefox, and Edge, and native iOS and Android apps. There's a cloud-hosted version at app.aliasvault.com if you'd rather not run it yourself, but self-hosting is clearly the point of the open-source repo.
The creator, Leendert de Borst, frames it as a response to a web that tracks everything—a way to take back control of your digital privacy. That's the pitch, anyway.
Why It's Cool
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The email alias server is the real hook. Plenty of password managers will store credentials. Fewer will hand you a fresh email address per site. Fewer still will run the mail server themselves so you're not trusting a third party with the routing. Bundling all of that into one self-hosted package is the interesting bet here.
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Zero third-party dependencies matters more than it sounds. When your password manager and your alias server are separate services from separate vendors, your attack surface is the union of both. Keeping it in one deployment means one thing to secure, one thing to update, one thing to back up.
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End-to-end encryption across the board. The README is clear that this applies to the whole system, not just the vault. For a tool that's literally storing the keys to your online life, that's the baseline you'd want.
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It's genuinely cross-platform. Web, three browser extensions, and native iOS and Android apps. A lot of self-hosted privacy tools stop at a web interface and call it a day. Having native mobile apps and extensions means you can actually use it day to day instead of only on your laptop.
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Active development you can verify. The repo carries end-to-end test badges for the web app, the admin panel, and the browser extension, plus a Crowdin localization badge. That's a reasonable signal that this isn't a weekend project someone abandoned—there's real testing infrastructure and community translation work happening.
How to Try It
You've got two paths. The fastest is the cloud version:
- Head to app.aliasvault.com and create an account.
- Install the browser extension for Chrome, Firefox, or Edge.
- Grab the native app from the iOS or Android store if you want it on mobile.
If you'd rather self-host (and given the "zero third-party dependencies" pitch, you probably do), the README points to a dedicated self-hosting section in the repo. Start at the GitHub repository and follow the self-host instructions from there. The documentation site is the other place to look for deployment details.
Worth noting: the README excerpt here doesn't include the actual install commands, so I'm not going to invent them. Check the repo's self-hosting section for the real steps.
Final Thoughts
AliasVault makes the most sense for people who already lean toward self-hosting and are tired of splitting their identity management across a password manager and a separate alias service. If you're comfortable running your own infrastructure and want your credentials and your email aliases under one roof, this is a coherent answer to that problem. If you'd rather not maintain a mail server, the cloud version exists—but then you're trusting someone else again, which somewhat undercuts the premise. Either way, it's a thoughtfully scoped project with a clear point of view, and the combination of built-in email aliasing plus end-to-end encryption is a genuinely useful pairing.
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