The official server is distributed as docker containers, with a shell script to manage them, and is quite simple to setup and maintain. I could see how trying to deploy it yourself outside of docker could be an undertaking though.

The MSSQL database seems a bit heavyweight (RAM wise) given the tiny amount of data it needs to host for a handful of users, and isn't acceptable to some people on principle, since it isn't open source.

The official one used to only support MS SQL and other DBs are still “mileage may vary” so people were uhh pretty motivated to make something else.

It's easier to manage until it breaks as the recent example last month when Bitwarden updated their client and Vaultwarden had to play catch up and reverse engineer the changes.

That experience sent me back to just letting Bitwarden host for me, I know it's all free and I can't expect anything which is fine, but I can't be without my passwords either.

I personally use vaultwarden myself as well, and am also quite pleased with it.