AWS Secrets Manager vs HashiCorp Vault

The honest comparison

This is the classic build-on-the-cloud versus run-a-platform decision. AWS Secrets Manager is a fully managed service that stores and rotates secrets with deep, native AWS integration. HashiCorp Vault is a portable secrets platform you run (or consume via HCP) that works the same across clouds and on-premises, with a much wider set of secret engines.

When AWS Secrets Manager wins

• Your workloads live almost entirely in AWS and you want IAM-native access control
• You want managed rotation for RDS and other AWS services with minimal setup
• Operational simplicity matters more than portability: no servers to run or upgrade
• Per-secret pricing is predictable for your scale

When HashiCorp Vault wins

• You operate across multiple clouds or hybrid environments and need one consistent secrets API
• Dynamic, short-lived credentials across databases, cloud providers, and PKI are central
• You want fine-grained policy, namespaces, and a pluggable engine model
• Avoiding cloud lock-in for secrets is a deliberate architectural goal

Pricing

AWS Secrets Manager charges per secret per month plus API calls, which is simple but can add up with many secrets. Vault's open-source core is free to run; Enterprise and HCP add cost but amortize across clouds and large secret counts.

Verdict

If you are committed to AWS, AWS Secrets Manager is the path of least resistance and integrates natively with the rest of the stack. If you are multi-cloud or hybrid, or you need rich dynamic secrets, HashiCorp Vault gives you one control plane everywhere. Many teams use both: Vault as the cross-cloud standard, Secrets Manager for AWS-native edges. Explore the full secrets category.