---
id: keyrings-alt
version: "5.0.2"
license: unclear
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: active
---

# keyrings.alt — Alternate keyring implementations

License: permissive · Maintenance: active · Downloads: 3.9M/mo

## What it is and what it does

keyrings.alt provides alternate implementations of credential storage backends for the keyring package. Rather than using the system's native secure storage, these backends offer alternative approaches—most notably a plaintext file-based storage. The package explicitly warns that these backends carry security risks and were extracted from the main keyring project to isolate experimental or discouraged implementations.

The package is designed for developers who need non-standard credential handling, such as testing scenarios or development environments where the standard keyring backends are unsuitable. It depends on jaraco.classes and jaraco.context for utility functionality. The maintainers explicitly discourage production use of these backends and recommend understanding the security implications before deployment.

Use it for:

- Testing keyring-dependent code in CI/CD pipelines where system keyrings are unavailable
- Development environments where plaintext credential storage is acceptable for local testing
- Evaluating alternative credential storage strategies before committing to a production backend
- Scenarios requiring custom or legacy credential storage formats incompatible with standard keyrings

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Provides alternate keyring backend implementations for the keyring package, including plaintext and other non-standard credential storage methods.

Yes, but only for development, testing, or specialized scenarios where you understand the security trade-offs. The package is actively maintained and carries no known vulnerabilities, but the description explicitly warns against production use due to security risks. Install only if you have a specific need for an alternate backend and accept responsibility for the security implications.

## Install

pip install keyrings-alt
uv add keyrings-alt
poetry add keyrings-alt

## Installing keyrings.alt

Before you install: Low install friction with only two lightweight runtime dependencies. Active maintenance with latest release on 2024-08-14 and last commit on 2026-04-13.

License in practice: MIT license permits free use, modification, and distribution with minimal restrictions, making it suitable for both open-source and commercial projects.

Quickstart:

pip install keyrings.alt

from keyrings.alt.file import PlaintextKeyring
keyring = PlaintextKeyring()
keyring.set_password('service', 'username', 'password')

Requires Python >=3.8. The plaintext backend stores credentials unencrypted on the filesystem.

Verify before relying:

- Which specific keyring backends are included beyond PlaintextKeyring and their security implications
- Whether this package is intended as a testing/development tool or has legitimate production use cases

## Package facts

- License: not declared (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: active
- Downloads: 3.9M/month (top 5,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

keyring backend implementations, alternate credential storage, plaintext keyring, keyring extensions, custom keyring backends, keyring alternatives, password storage backends, keyring-backends, credential-storage, testing-utilities

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/keyrings-alt) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/keyrings-alt/)