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AWS Secrets Manager

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152
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Vault

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AWS Secrets Manager vs Vault: What are the differences?

AWS Secrets Manager and Vault are both popular options for managing and securing secrets, but they differ in several key aspects. Here are the main differences between the two.

  1. Integration with Cloud Providers: AWS Secrets Manager is tightly integrated with the AWS ecosystem, allowing seamless integration with other AWS services. On the other hand, Vault is platform-agnostic and can work across multiple cloud providers.

  2. Scalability: AWS Secrets Manager is a fully managed service provided by Amazon, offering automatic scaling and high availability. In contrast, Vault requires manual setup and configuration for scaling and availability.

  3. User Management: AWS Secrets Manager leverages AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) for user authentication and access control. Vault, on the other hand, provides its own built-in user management system with fine-grained access control policies.

  4. Secret Types: AWS Secrets Manager primarily focuses on managing credentials and secrets for AWS services, such as database credentials, API keys, and encryption keys. Vault, on the other hand, is more flexible and supports various secret types beyond AWS-specific use cases.

  5. Secret Rotation: AWS Secrets Manager provides built-in automation for secret rotation, ensuring that credentials are regularly updated without manual intervention. Vault offers a similar feature, but it requires custom scripts or plugins to enable automation.

  6. Open Source vs Managed Service: Vault is an open-source tool developed and maintained by HashiCorp, allowing complete control and customization. AWS Secrets Manager, on the other hand, is a managed service provided by Amazon, offering ease of use without the need for infrastructure management.

In summary, AWS Secrets Manager is closely tied to the AWS ecosystem, offering seamless integration and managed scaling, while Vault provides a flexible, platform-agnostic solution with its own user management system and extensive customization options.

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Pros of AWS Secrets Manager
Pros of Vault
  • 5
    Managed Service
  • 16
    Secure
  • 12
    Variety of Secret Backends
  • 11
    Very easy to set up and use
  • 8
    Dynamic secret generation
  • 5
    AuditLog
  • 3
    Leasing and Renewal
  • 3
    Privilege Access Management
  • 2
    Variety of Auth Backends
  • 2
    Easy to integrate with
  • 2
    Open Source
  • 2
    Consol integration
  • 2
    Handles secret sprawl
  • 1
    Multicloud

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What is AWS Secrets Manager?

AWS Secrets Manager helps you protect secrets needed to access your applications, services, and IT resources. The service enables you to easily rotate, manage, and retrieve database credentials, API keys, and other secrets throughout their lifecycle.

What is Vault?

Vault is a tool for securely accessing secrets. A secret is anything that you want to tightly control access to, such as API keys, passwords, certificates, and more. Vault provides a unified interface to any secret, while providing tight access control and recording a detailed audit log.

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What are some alternatives to AWS Secrets Manager and Vault?
AWS Key Management Service
AWS Key Management Service (KMS) is a managed service that makes it easy for you to create and control the encryption keys used to encrypt your data, and uses Hardware Security Modules (HSMs) to protect the security of your keys. AWS Key Management Service is integrated with other AWS services including Amazon EBS, Amazon S3, and Amazon Redshift. AWS Key Management Service is also integrated with AWS CloudTrail to provide you with logs of all key usage to help meet your regulatory and compliance needs.
CyberArk
It is the only security software company focused on eliminating cyber threats using insider privileges to attack the heart of the enterprise.
Azure Key Vault
Secure key management is essential to protect data in the cloud. Use Azure Key Vault to encrypt keys and small secrets like passwords that use keys stored in hardware security modules (HSMs). For more assurance, import or generate keys in HSMs, and Microsoft processes your keys in FIPS 140-2 Level 2 validated HSMs (hardware and firmware). With Key Vault, Microsoft doesn’t see or extract your keys. Monitor and audit your key use with Azure logging—pipe logs into Azure HDInsight or your security information and event management (SIEM) solution for more analysis and threat detection.
Doppler
Doppler’s developer-first security platform empowers teams to seamlessly manage, orchestrate, and govern secrets at scale.
Docker Secrets
A container native solution that strengthens the Trusted Delivery component of container security by integrating secret distribution directly into the container platform.
See all alternatives