Azure Key Vault Reviews

We are using Azure Key Vault for holding secrets, such as certificates and API management. We're using it for integrating and saving secrets for web applications.

The most valuable feature of Azure Key Vault is the secret storage of data.

If multiple clouds are to be used it can be difficult and a third party should assist in the implementation.

I have been using Azure Key Vault for approximately six years.

I rate the stability of Azure Key Vault a ten out of ten.

I rate the scalability of Azure Key Vault a ten out of ten.

I have not had issues needing support.

The initial setup of Azure Key Vault was easy.

My advice to others is if they want to do a multi-cloud deployment it should be done by a third party.

I rate Azure Key Vault a nine out of ten.

We use Microsoft Azure Key Vault to store some secrets and then we use them outside in connectors in the Data Factory.

The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Key Vault are the security and convenience of changing passwords in multiple places.

I have used Microsoft Azure Key Vault within the past 12 months.

I would rate the stability of Microsoft Azure Key Vault an eight out of ten.

We use the solution in the data science field. If there is some outage, we did not notice any prolonged outage which would affect our business significantly while working with it.

We did interact with the technical support from Microsoft and we did not have any negative experiences with them.

My advice to others is to figure out what your needs are and then start using the solution if it fits.

I rate Microsoft Azure Key Vault a nine out of ten.

Our primary use case for Azure Key Vault is cloud applications that are being developed and deployed on Azure. In addition, we use it to store secrets that are used for on-premises applications.

The best feature is the integrity of the .NET applications in our company.

The big problem with Azure Key Vault is key rotation. We haven't found a good way to synchronize the credentials between the databases and Key Vault.

We have been using Microsoft Azure Key Vault for about one and a half years.

Azure Key Vault is stable. We haven't had issues with it in terms of reliability.

The scalability of Key Vault depends on how we develop applications. The technical part of integrating between the cloud and Key Vault is easy. It's more that the development of life cycle processes needs to be improved. That's one of the big problems. They have to improve it so that all projects and all servers achieve integration easily. But that's not so much an Azure Key Vault issue. It has more to do with the processes of our company.

We don't look at the number of users but, rather, what are called service principals in Azure Key Vault. We have a lot of service principal applications.

Our first step is always to try to find issues ourselves. If we can't handle an issue we escalate the request to a local Microsoft support provider. If they don't have the answer, they go directly to Microsoft.

We have been using Azure Key Vault and Centrify. We have begun a migration to CyberArk because our provider told us about a technology change and offered to migrate us from Centrify to CyberArk. We are looking to understand what CyberArk's capabilities are in comparison with Azure Key Vault. We are trying to decide which option is the best one to go with. What we have learned is that each product has particular issues that make us think that we need to keep both. The issue we have is with the rotation of databases and servers. CyberArk accomplishes it better. That's why we are trying to integrate these two solutions.

It's not complex to set up. It's easy to configure secrets.

What can be a little difficult is establishing a good design and governance of the Key Vault repositories. Sometimes it's difficult to understand if we need one key vault or multiple key vaults. Do we need a key vault instance for an environment or do we need multiple key vaults for our databases or maybe multiple key vaults for the segregation of services according to on-premises and cloud? But creating a secret and integrating an application you're going to consume the secret with is easy.

We have four operators responsible for Key Vault and CyberArk.

Azure is cheaper than CyberArk. You can configure a lot of applications with it, but the key rotation issue is there. CyberArk has good key rotation. It integrates with a lot of technologies and a lot of different types of databases. CyberArk is good, but it's quite expensive. 

Both Azure Key Vault and CyberArk are paid annually.

I would rate Azure Key Vault a seven out of 10 because of the key rotation issues. They are a big problem. The integration of the application is easy, but key rotation is not easy. It needs a lot of improvement.

From what I have seen from CyberArk in terms of services, key rotation, and its integration with technologies, it's quite good. The big problem is its pricing. I would rate CyberArk at 8.5 out of 10.

We will likely use Microsoft Azure Key Vault for secure key management.

Provide a central, secure repository for keys.

It is a managed service in Azure, you do not have to worry about security other than the access. The vaults themselves are inherently secure.

It's too early for me to say with certainty, but what I'm seeing thus far is that Key Vault at face value is more of a secure store than it is a password manager. I suspect that we may be able to use logic apps to perform some actions that a password manager would, but a little more focus in this area would be beneficial.   

I have been using Microsoft Azure Key Vault for one day.

We have approximately 15 users using the solution in my organization.

The setup of my test files has been easy and the documentation is straightforward.

I handle the implementation of the solution.

The price of the solution is reasonable for what we are using it for.

We did not have a great solution in the past. We wanted something better, and everything that I read about Microsoft Azure Key Vault was good. We did evaluate other solutions but we were already using Azure for other things, it made sense to implement Microsoft Azure Key Vault.

Other people's opinions of Microsoft Azure Key Vault seem to be quite good.

I rate Microsoft Azure Key Vault an eight out of ten.

We were using the solution to store our keys that includes secrets, passwords, and also application properties.

The application properties and the ability to store our certificates too have been great aspects of the solution. 

Mainly, having the application properties where all our applications' configurations were stored in the key vault was very useful.

The initial setup is pretty simple. 

The stability is very good.

The solution can scale up as needed. 

The solution offers very reasonable pricing. 

I can't recall coming across any missing features or elements. 

The solution does not allow you to integrate with XML parties if it is not inside Azure itself.

I used the solution during my previous project that I handled last year. I used it for a full year, from January to December.

The solution is stable. I never had issues, for example, with stability, bugs or glitches, or crashing. It's reliable.

The solution can scale. It is already a platform as a service, and therefore, it's already scaled up.

Our entire company is currently using the product.

I did not use technical support when I worked with the product. Therefore, I cannot speak to how helpful or responsive they are. 

We did use HashiCorp Vault. We used to use it, and then we moved to Azure Key Vault due to the fact that it's a cloud platform as a solution and it is easy to implement.

The initial setup was straightforward, however, we never used the console. We always used to use the Azure CLIs to set everything up.

The pricing is very reasonable. It's not overly expensive.

We're a Microsoft partner.

I cannot recall which version of the solution I used for the project I worked on.

Overall, it's a great product.

There's nothing I dislike about the solution. I would rate the solution at a ten out of ten.

I have used the solution on a couple of projects for a client, mainly for storing credentials and secrets, such as API keys and application or username passwords into the vault, as well as certificates. 

It is used for anything we need to keep safe and secure and not have users access, except via applications that programmatically access Key Vault and retrieve the secrets and connect to other APIs. That way, we don't supply usernames and passwords within application code or to people. We vault them in Key Vault and those secrets can be used within an application without human intervention.

Azure Key Vault is a SaaS solution.

You have to have this to make sure that you're compliant with security and governance. One of the main concerns with compliance is how you manage keys and secrets in your cloud environments. You're encrypting your data at rest and in transit, but where do you store the encryption key itself to not become compromised? Key Vault addresses all those concerns. This is one of the main tools and, without it, it's hard to implement and address one of the main pillars of cloud architecture, which is security.

The whole nature of it is to help make things autonomous, because you can run infrastructure as code. That really takes away the human factor and you can fully automate the creation and management of, and access to, the keys, including the rotation of the keys. By taking away the human element, it's really secure. And, implementation-wise, when you're using Key Vault, Microsoft is behind it and they're using the best methods for encryption and ciphering of keys. You don't have to worry about those things.

It really simplifies the whole process, in contrast to needing in-house experts to help you facilitate key management. When it comes to two main concerns, encryption of the data in transit and at rest, it is a service that is with you all the time. It has a low cost and it's ready to implement. You don't have to have 10 developers build something that you don't even know will be successful, versus a service that has already been tested across global enterprise companies.

All its features are really valuable. It's really well thought-out. It's a complete turnkey solution that has all the concerns taken care of, such as access control and management. You can use it in infrastructure as code to create key vaults, APIs, PowerShells, CLIs, even Terraform.

You can also use it in different services across the board. If you have app services, or virtual machines, Kubernetes, or Databricks, they can all use Key Vault effectively. In my opinion, in a DevSecOps, DevOps, or even in a modern Azure implementation, you have to use Azure Key Vault to make sure you're addressing security and identity management concerns. By "identity" I mean usernames, passwords, cryptography, et cetera. 

It's also a regional solution and it frees you up from using third parties like HashiCorp Vault, for example.

In addition, there is a feature in Azure called managed identities, and when storing your credential or any keys or secrets in that you can have your code use managed identities to access Key Vault. That simplifies the whole process of connecting to Key Vault and retrieving your secrets, passwords, and credentials. 

It's a full-blown solution and it supports most breeds of key management: how you store keys and certify. 

I can't say that one of its features is better than others. You have to have all of them to make it a competent service, although one of the especially important features is the connection with monitoring and logging, so you can see who had access to what.

If you check the capabilities of other key management services across Amazon, HashiCorp, and Google, there are features that Key Vault doesn't have. It could be the case that when you use Key Vault, you might be forced to use a third-party solution to get certain services. If those services could be included in Key Vault, there would be diminished reasons to go for a third-party key management system.

I was using Microsoft Azure Key Vault until two years ago, but since then I've been actively using it for two or three different projects.

It's stable. There is the SLA and the resiliency that goes with Azure. Because many services are dependent on Key Vault, if it's highly available and redundant, it helps a lot. You can imagine how many times applications would go down if Key Vault were not available. It is one of the high-demand services. Anything that needs to access a key or a certification is dependent on Azure Key Vault. 

So far, compared to other services that are available in the Azure environment, I haven't seen anything surprising with the stability or availability of Key Vault.

It's scalable and global in its performance. I have implemented it for one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the whole world, a company that operates on a global scale. Key Vault is a main ingredient for every one of their infrastructure pieces that is tied to it. The scale of that company in its use of Key Vault was phenomenal.

I haven't needed to contact Microsoft support about Key Vault. There have been instances when I have had to talk with Microsoft support about Graph API for Active Directory and other services, and even to the cloud adoption framework team, but never for Key Vault. It is just so straightforward.

The complexity depends on what you're trying to do with Key Vault. It can get complex or it can be simple. You don't expect advanced scenarios to be easy to implement because it has many ingredients. If someone is simply going to Azure portal to create a secret and retrieve it, it's simple. But if you want to tie in your services, and have role-based control over who can access keys, and what services are tied to the keys, it gets complicated. But that's not just Azure. That complexity comes with the level of complexity of the scenario.

Key Vault is easy to use because there are many APIs and mechanisms to create and retrieve. The concepts are easy. I use it in many scenarios, such as building infrastructure as code, consuming it in Kubernetes. Everything seems to be straightforward. It is really the de facto for key management and vaulting secrets. 

For example, one of the applications recently we developed needed to store the username and password of the service that connects to SQL Server. I found it was super-easy to tie the credentials within the application configuration files to Key Vault to retrieve the keys. It was a no-brainer for a developer to learn and do it. It took about 15 to 30 minutes to follow the documentation. And it has really nice documentation. Performing any action using the features of Key Vault is really easy as it's user-friendly. Depending on your level of skill, the deeper you get, the more features you can use.

Key Vault, like every Azure service, has a cost associated with it, but you don't have to spend thousands of dollars to spin up an environment to build a key management system. It's already there.

You pay as you go, similar to other services in Azure.

There are many other tools that I am still using, including AWS Secrets Manager, CyberArk, and Conjur, but none of them is close to Key Vault.

One of the benefits of Azure Key Vault is its integration with Active Directory, as is the case with most of the services in Azure. That really adds something to all the services.

Also, Managed HSM is not available in those other solutions. You have to go with HashiCorp Vault to get that. 

In addition, the key rotation feature of Key Vault is a lot better than in AWS Secrets Manager. CyberArk and Conjur, are more one-off products for specific use cases. You have to purchase a license and implement and manage them yourself, and not everything works seamlessly in CyberArk.

Conjur was good until Key Vault supported containerization. Azure created services for using blob storage, and those features of Key Vault came naturally as part of the whole cloud stack. 

Key Vault covers different problems for various personas and roles. As a developer, you get a lot of benefits that you don't get when you start developing with other tools, excluding HashiCorp Vault. HashiCorp Vault is really neat, and the only downside is that you have to manage the infrastructure yourself.

I'm a cloud architect. If I don't see that Key Vault has been included in a proposed architecture, I don't approve it. It's a main ingredient in any cloud enterprise infrastructure and architecture. When you're using Azure, you have to have this or a third-party solution. If someone shows me a third-party solution, I have to ask, "What's the cost of owning this component that you're adding to the architecture? Is it included, like Key Vault, or do you have to pay for it like with HashiCorp Vault?" With Azure Key Vault you have something that is free, enterprise-level, global, and it just works.

I don't know if we could survive without Key Vault in a cloud implementation and still call it a secure platform. These days, you have to have Azure Key Vault or some third-party mechanism such as HashiCorp Vault. You need something that addresses key management in your cloud environment. But why should you pay for extra resources, costs, and management overhead, if everything is managed by Azure itself?

The primary use case is for storing secrets.

It has improved our organization. We have been able to secure our passwords and secrets. We didn't have to add an extra tool in addition to this solution.

The most valuable feature is the ability to store secrets securely and encrypt them. It is pretty easy and straightforward to use.

I would like more code examples.

Over six months.

It is a reliable solution.

I have had no problems with scalability.

We are deploying it on 10 client systems.

I haven't needed support for this application. However, when I need support from Microsoft, I get it immediately.

I went straight to this solution.

The initial setup was straightforward.

Including research and getting up to speed with the technology, the deployment took less than a week for the PoC. Deploying it all the way to production took about a month. It took a week to determine that it was the right tool. It took another three weeks to implement in all environments, like UAT production and test. We tried it on a dev environment first, then we implemented it over different stages, like QA, test, and production. 

We deploy the solution in just one location.

I did the deployment.

It is a good deal.

The pricing is decent. It has a pretty low price. It is a straightforward cost based on usage.

I just went straight to Azure Key Vault.

Follow the Microsoft official documentation for this solution. It is pretty straightforward and very well documented.

I would rate Azure Key Vault as nine out of 10.

We primarily use the solution for key management.

The access policies are the solution's most valuable aspect.

The solution is very stable.

The scalability is very good.

The pricing of the product is reasonable.

Technical support is helpful.

The rotation of key needs improvement. It needs to offer dynamic secrets management.

I've been using the solution for about a year or so. It hasn't been that long.

The solution is very stable. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. It's reliable. 

The solution can scale well. It's not a problem at all. If a company needs to expand it, it can.

Our clients tend to be enterprises, and aren't overly small. 

You do need a support agreement, however, from what I have seen, it's quite reliable and knowledgeable. It's easy to reach them and to work with them.

The initial setup has a moderate amount of difficulty. It's neither extremely straightforward nor overly difficult.

You do need a special agreement in order to receive technical support.

While I don't directly deal with pricing, my understanding is that it's okay, and not too expensive.

We are currently looking at other solutions in order to compare them. We are also using HashiCorp Terraform and looking into HashiCorp Vault.

We are just a customer and an end-users. We tend to use the solution for our clients.

For those companies that want to work with the solution, I'd advise that they consider the use of and integration with Azure's pipeline.

Overall, I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We've largely been quite happy with its capabilities.