Who we are

denis bider - co-founder, President, technologist, and service lady ;)

denis completed the original SSH server developed in 2000 by Wei Dai, and the first version of what is now Bitvise SSH Client. He is the company's President, customer representative, main developer for much of the time, and continues to oversee development. He is originally from Slovenia, and now resides with his family in Colleyville, Texas.

Wei Dai - co-founder, original author

Wei is a silent partner in Bitvise. He is the original author of the predecessor to Bitvise SSH Server. He is known as the author of Crypto++, one of the first and most comprehensive public domain cryptographic libraries. The smallest unit of Ethereum, the Wei, is named after him. Wei lives in the US and focuses his efforts on the problem of safeguarding the qualities of humanity through the advent of artificial intelligence.

Igor Jerovšek - server GUI and settings

Igor specializes in Bitvise's server user interface and settings. He is the author of the SSH Server Control Panel, and is the main developer of all things related to settings, including master/follower synchronization. Igor lives with his family near Maribor, Slovenia.

Robert Kuster - authentication and FlowSshC/Cpp/Net

Robert specializes in particularly delicate system-level code for Windows, and is the author of the current iteration of the SSH Server's authentication and login subsystem. Robert is also the main co-author of FlowSshC/Cpp/Net with Andrej. Robert resides in Ormož, Slovenia.

László Májer - scriptable configuration, delegated settings

László hails from Szombathely, Hungary. He has developed support for scriptable PowerShell configuration in SSH Server versions 7, delegated administration in 7.2x, as well as automatic updates in versions 8. He continues to work on new features for future SSH Server and Client versions.

Katarina Nahtigal - executive and marketing

Katarina, also from Slovenia, joined us in 2017 to play a key role in Bitvise's move to the US. With a background in marketing, she is central to the company's ongoing efforts to create more opportunity to grow.

Our history

What is now Bitvise began in early 2000 with Wei Dai's idea to develop an SSH server for Windows, which did not exist at that time. The company was formally founded in February 2001, and the first version of WinSSHD — now Bitvise SSH Server — was released in May. The initial version of Tunnelier (now Bitvise SSH Client) was released shortly thereafter - it supported manual port forwarding.

In May 2002, we released the first WinSSHD and Tunnelier in the 3-series, with Tunnelier now supporting the bvterm remote console and remote WinSSHD configuration. In May 2003, we released new versions of our products with drastic improvements in speed, and in February 2004 we released the first versions in the 3.2x series, with xterm, VT-100 and graphical SFTP support available for the first time in Tunnelier. On 24 December 2004, Tunnelier 3.60 was released with dynamic tunneling, proxy and public key support, as well as a new license policy granting free individual use.

Years 2005 to 2007 featured WinSSHD and Tunnelier versions 4. In a process of incremental improvement, our products reached feature maturity and became known for their solidity and reliability, rooted in years of refinement.

2008 and 2009 saw the long-awaited release of WinSSHD version 5, featuring a complete rewrite of most of its functionality, including much better terminal and file transfer subsystems, fully FIPS 140-2 compliant encryption, and a new Control Panel. Most shortcomings of previous releases that were caused by architectural deficiencies were addressed in this version.

In 2012, we renamed our products to Bitvise SSH Server and Bitvise SSH Client, and released an important new version of our SSH Server, 5.50, with a complete authentication overhaul, support for true password-less login, and improved support for domain environments.

We released Bitvise SSH Server version 6 in 2013, with support for master/follower synchronization as the major new feature. Bitvise SSH Client version 6 was released in 2014, adding new command line clients and fully FIPS 140-2 compliant encryption.

In 2016, we released SSH Server and Client versions 7, featuring the BvShell terminal subsystem, new PowerShell-friendly scriptable configuration, and overhauled cryptography. Our SSH Client became free for all types of use.

In 2018, we released SSH Server and Client versions 8, featuring automatic updates, automatic host key rotation, FTPS support and 2-factor authentication in the server, and an updated look.

The licensing of our SSH technology has also played a role. Each year, new clients trusted our SSH implementation with their network transport security requirements. At one point, WinSSHD 4 formed the core of a major competitive SSH server product.

Our company began with two and has grown to currently six people. Most of us are developers, living in different countries. The President and co-founder, denis bider, lives in Texas. He is originally from Slovenia, a small EU country south of Austria and east of Italy. Another Bitvise co-founder lives in the US. All of us work from individual home offices in Slovenia, Hungary, and the US.

Our plans for the future remain simple: do our best to produce robust and reliable security software!