Confidant vs Vault: What are the differences?

Introduction

In this article, we will compare the key differences between Confidant and Vault, two popular tools for managing secrets and sensitive information in a secure and encrypted manner.

1. Scalability: Confidant is highly scalable and designed to handle large-scale secret management needs. It provides horizontal scalability through the use of multiple backends, allowing organizations to effortlessly scale their secret storage based on their requirements. Vault, on the other hand, also offers scalability but is primarily designed for smaller to medium-sized deployments and may require more configuration for large-scale deployments.

2. Authentication and Authorization: Vault offers a wide range of authentication methods, including tokens, username/password, and more advanced methods like LDAP, AWS IAM, etc. It also provides fine-grained authorization policies, allowing administrators to define access control based on the specific needs of their organization. Confidant, however, has a simpler authentication mechanism and limited support for external identity providers. While it can integrate with existing identity stores, it lacks the advanced authentication and authorization capabilities of Vault.

3. Encryption: Both Confidant and Vault provide strong encryption for secrets at rest and in transit. However, Vault offers a more extensive range of encryption options, including both symmetric and asymmetric encryption, various key management techniques, and support for hardware security modules (HSMs). Confidant, on the other hand, focuses primarily on symmetric encryption and lacks some of the advanced encryption features provided by Vault.

4. Secret Lifecycle Management: Vault offers robust secret lifecycle management capabilities, including automatic secret rotation, versioning, and auditing. It allows organizations to enforce strict access controls and policies to manage secrets throughout their lifecycle, making it easier to maintain compliance and security standards. Confidant, while it provides basic secret management features, does not offer the same level of control and automation for secret rotations and versioning.

5. Integration Ecosystem: Vault has a strong integration ecosystem and provides extensive APIs and plugins to integrate with various cloud providers, databases, and other applications. This allows seamless integration within existing infrastructure and applications. Confidant, on the other hand, has a more limited ecosystem and may require additional custom development or integration efforts to work with specific applications and environments.

6. Community and Support: Vault has a larger and more active open-source community, which translates into a broader range of community-supported plugins, libraries, and resources. It also has a more extensive documentation and support ecosystem, with official documentation, forums, and community-driven resources readily available. Confidant, while it has a growing community, may have relatively fewer resources and community-driven support.

In summary, Confidant and Vault differ in terms of scalability, authentication and authorization capabilities, encryption options, secret lifecycle management features, integration ecosystem, and community support. While both tools have their strengths, Vault offers a more comprehensive and feature-rich solution for organizations with more complex secret management needs.