KeePass has dominated the password manager landscape for years thanks to its uncompromising security and data sovereignty. However, the KDBX file format's reliance on XML since 2007 has created persistent friction points that limit modern feature adoption and developer efficiency.

The brittle XML schema prevents native feature additions without breaking compatibility, forcing developers to shoehorn innovations into custom attributes. This approach led to TOTP chaos where different plugins used incompatible field names before KeePassXC standardized on otpauth URIs. Passkey support suffers similar fragmentation, with five different attribute entries cluttering user-facing data. The lead developer of KeePassXC warns this creates "significant code bloat with exceptions and workarounds" that plague the ecosystem.

Storage inefficiencies compound these issues. Base64-encoded icons increase file sizes by roughly 33% and force entire databases into memory on every edit. Large databases with attachments frequently exceed 10-100MiB, causing slow mobile performance and memory errors. The entire file rewrites on every change, risking corruption on network shares. While Dominik Reichl's conservative governance has preserved compatibility, it now constrains the format's evolution. With KeePassXC and mobile clients collectively commanding more users than the original KeePass, the current development model where one maintainer unilaterally controls the format appears increasingly unsustainable for modern password management needs.