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AWS Secrets Manager vs Azure Key Vault comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Jun 29, 2025

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS Secrets Manager
Ranking in Enterprise Password Managers
3rd
Average Rating
8.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
15
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Azure Key Vault
Ranking in Enterprise Password Managers
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.3
Number of Reviews
50
Ranking in other categories
Certificate Management Software (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (14th)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of July 2025, in the Enterprise Password Managers category, the mindshare of AWS Secrets Manager is 17.3%, down from 21.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Key Vault is 19.1%, down from 26.9% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Password Managers
 

Q&A Highlights

NC
Nov 24, 2021
 

Featured Reviews

Mahadev Metre - PeerSpot reviewer
Consistent security and efficiency improvements optimize IT infrastructure with effective management
When creating AWS Secrets Manager, it should be automated using tools such as Terraform, Puppet, or Ansible. With Terraform code, you specify the encryption key, secret name, rotation policy, and secret replication. Human error occurs when feeding secret values manually, especially with large amounts of secrets to input. Secrets should never be protected only by IAM. They should be protected by multiple layers, such as IAM and one or two KMS keys. Additional security measures could be beneficial if necessary. The rotation policy is crucial because some secrets may become obsolete, require updates, or get compromised. With a weekly rotation policy, if unauthorized access occurs, the exposure is limited to seven days. The rotation policy can be customized according to needs.
RituparnaBhattacharya - PeerSpot reviewer
Secret storage and certificate management have been streamlined
I am not on the developer's end. I am primarily the main infrastructure person. I'm not sure what needs improvement. Sometimes, we face issues that the support team is not aware of, necessitating investigation from their end. For example, one of our certificates was not getting deployed, and during that time, the support team was unsure and had to connect with the back-end team for assistance. Improvements can be made in this area, however, it's understandable that not everything can be perfect.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Integrating with other services was straightforward, especially within the AWS environment."
"The most valuable feature is security."
"The most valuable feature is the management of credentials."
"The API is fine and works well."
"AWS Secrets Manager plays a significant role in optimizing IT infrastructure security and efficiency."
"The solution is very scalable."
"All our workloads are running on AWS, so integration with our workload is much easier on AWS Secrets Manager than going with another solution such as Thycotic."
"It's highly scalable, so I'd rate it a ten out of ten."
"Azure Key Vault's performance is excellent. It makes infrastructure management easier."
"Considering the features provided by the product, I would say that the solution is available at a good price point."
"The product’s advantageous feature is integration."
"We only use the basic features and those are the ones that have the ability to tie into the app, the secrets, and the passwords and encrypt them."
"The solution's most valuable features are reusability and safety."
"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."
"Azure Key Vault allows only identified users to get the credentials and rotates the keys automatically."
"We use Azure Key Vault for securing secret connection streams, like API secrets, Azure services Secret Key, and AD Client Secret."
 

Cons

"If you don't have enterprise support, then you will not be able to get through to them to get the help. It is not only applicable to AWS Secrets Manager. It is also applicable to any service on AWS."
"The sidecar feature has room for improvement."
"An area for improvement in AWS Secrets Manager could be expanding integration options beyond AWS services."
"The solution's initial setup process is complicated."
"There is a potential improvement in connecting AWS Secrets Manager to Jenkins CI/CD pipeline to automatically reflect changes in production."
"There is a need for better environmental implementation, such as having a security fund as a solution."
"If you add one more layer of security to AWS Secrets Manager, even the programmer will not be able to see the secrets."
"AWS Secrets Manager could support hybrid infrastructure."
"The initial setup could be less complex for first-time users."
"Sometimes, we face issues that the support team is not aware of, necessitating investigation from their end."
"Azure Key Vault has a lot of glitches."
"They should improve its policies, which sometimes reapplied but don't sync properly between the Key vault and the role-based access. When I put some roles on the user side, it sometimes misses the end data to secure."
"One area for improvement is the notification system for secret expiration. It would be beneficial if the service could handle this more autonomously, eliminating the need for additional integrations."
"I would suggest making the user interface a bit more friendly."
"Azure needs to provide versions of Key Vault that are suitable for different sizes of companies."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The solution is expensive."
"The cost is somewhat high."
"We purchase a monthly license for the product."
"I don't believe there is a license cost for the solution."
"We've observed that AWS Secrets Manager pricing is based on a per-secret-per-month model. As a result, we prefer to divide our secrets into individual pieces to increase security and grant specific access permissions to certain secrets, systems, or individuals. However, this approach results in higher costs. Therefore, we have been exploring ways to combine our secrets into groups to reduce expenses and simplify management. Nonetheless, we acknowledge that this issue may not be related to the secret manager's functionality."
"Currently, the tool's monthly licensing costs are around 1,800 USD for all the environments combined, including the production and pre-production environments."
"I find the pricing of Azure Key Vault to be reasonable."
"The product has good pricing."
"Pricing is quite reasonable and support is included, although premium support is available for an additional fee."
"We use a pay-as-you-go license for the solution, which is not very expensive."
"Azure is cheaper than CyberArk... CyberArk is good, but it's quite expensive."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten."
"There are no extra costs beyond the standard fees, beyond maybe data transfer charges. It's $0.025 per 10,000 data transactions, so it is quite cheap."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

Which is better - Azure Key Vault or AWS Secrets Manager?
Azure Key Vault is a SaaS solution. You can easily store passwords and secrets securely and encrypt them. Azure Key Vault is a great solution to ensure you are compliant with security and governanc...
Which is better - HashiCorp Vault or AWS Secrets Manager?
HashiCorp Vault was designed with your needs in mind. One of the features that makes this evident is its ability to work as both a cloud-agnostic and a multi-cloud solution. As a cloud-agnostic sol...
What do you like most about AWS Secrets Manager?
The most valuable feature of AWS Secrets Manager is its seamless integration with various AWS services.
What do you like most about Microsoft Azure Key Vault?
With Azure Key Vault, we can generate our own keys and then import them inside the system, which provides a higher level of security than provider-managed keys.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft Azure Key Vault?
The setup cost is low, as my usage is not extensive. I would classify it as low priced.
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure Key Vault, MS Azure Key Vault
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Autodesk, Clevy, Stackery
Adobe, DriveTime, Johnson Controls, HP, InterContinental Hotels Group, ASOS
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Secrets Manager vs. Azure Key Vault and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
862,499 professionals have used our research since 2012.