Not so long ago I tried to pinpoint when I started feeling that I lacked control over the tools I use online. I traced it back to 2022 - and MYKI.
MYKI was a brilliant password manager that I've used back in the day, all the way up to its last day - April 10th, 2022 (got acquired by a company in March of the same year). It relied on locally stored vaults and device-to-device synchronization, which was, at the time quite different from what others were doing; have a backend service that stores the encrypted client data and the clients can cache the vault so that they maintain access while offline. Of course, then there are the OG password managers that are born and raised to be local. I've always felt that there is way too much friction when I wanted to set up synchronization or backups with these products. Now, my specific engineer gut is probably to thank for that - I'll be the first to admit.
The team behind MYKI did the right thing when the product was discontinued, they made sure that their users weren't stuck - I could export my data. But one thing bugged me: having a way to leave is not the same as having a way to stay.
When I say stay, I mean that I liked the product so much that I wouldn't mind putting in time and effort into maintaining it, keeping it up to date, possibly even figuring out how to host it (or the accompanying services) myself. The thing was, there was no source published for this product, from that I can only conclude that there was no plan for anyone to maintain it or a way to run it if the company went out of business.
To be frank, most software isn't built this way, and I understand why. It is way easier to set up centralized infrastructure, not to mention operate it aand keep the intellectual property private. Dedicating time to making your software work once you're not there to reap the benefits is, most of the time - hard to justify.
I am obviously not the only person to think about this (thank God). The self-hosting community and local software already exist, and Ink&Switch articulated many of these principles years ago.
Ink & Switch - local-first software - A highly recommended read, grab your favorite drink and read it.
To go back to the story, like many times in the past I was once again considering making a bad decision of starting yet another project I wasn't going to finish. For context: around the end of 2020, a good friend of mine and I founded a start-up to build laser-weeding robots for fields less than one hectare. I was in charge of infrastructure, designing the electronics and the whole software stack - be it firmware or the mission control UI. On top of that, I had joined a successful HR software company as a software engineer. So I was already strapped for time.
A couple of months go by, I finally gave in to the temptation, and started researching how the industry giants work, and the cryptography behind their products.
By October 2022, I had my web app up and running. I called it Cryptex Vault (was inspired by the Cryptex device from The Da Vinci Code). Everything lived on my machine, there was no personal information I had to surrender to use it, and the devices synchronized directly when they could, and used an encrypted relay when they couldn't. I felt really good about where it was. Once I imported all of my credentials to it, a couple of my friends and I started using it and never really left.
By summer 2025, a few friends, their families, and I had been using Cryptex Vault for nearly three years. I've even set up a homepage with pricing and had a buddy create a nice 3D model for it, but I hadn't done enough to make it approachable to people outside of my group. Don't get me wrong, I really wanted to push this thing proper and see where it could go. At that point, the source was already public and it was possible to self-host the synchronization infrastructure.
That summer, I decide it is time to start a company that can do this right. A company that creates products that don't lock people in, and give a way to stay, not only a way to leave. Software that delivers the conveniences of the cloud while leaving you in charge of your files, your keys, and what happens to them once I am no longer part of the story.
The next step was to leave my Software Engineering lead position at a cozy company, and dedicate time to building the company and the product according to my vision - so I did exactly that.
I am thankful that MYKI existed. Although it was sad to see it go I don't blame the team for taking the next step - they did it properly. The only problem was that I never wanted to leave.
I've chosen Cryptex Vault to start with, but the long-term goal of Cryptex Industries is to look at other technology that we've become dependent on and ask the same question: how can we keep the convenience without baking in the dependence on the provider?
That is exactly why Cryptex Industries was born, here in Croatia - to give people both options.
Milivoj Bošnjak
- 8l4cksmith