AWS Secrets Manager
Shares rank 10 of 20 secrets managers by recommenders
People recommend it for simple API access with granular permissions and audit logs, and it works well at scale. The most common caveat is per-secret pricing that adds up.
People recommend it for simple API access with granular permissions and audit logs, and it works well at scale. The most common caveat is per-secret pricing that adds up.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 80%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Secure cloud-native place for secrets
“especially in a cloud environment like AWS, where you can use services like AWS Secrets Manager.”
Comment from 19 May 2026 in “CISA Admin Leaked AWS GovCloud Keys on GitHub” “Security should be done using a secrets manager through the cloud platform that's being used”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “Where .env Went Wrong” “one of the many AWS services that's more secure”
Comment from 19 May 2026 in “CISA Admin Leaked AWS GovCloud Keys on GitHub” - Comment from 21 Apr 2026 in “The Vercel breach: OAuth attack exposes risk in platform environment variables”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Per-secret pricing adds up
“AWS Secrets Manager / GCP Secret Manager work well at scale”
Comment from 25 Feb 2026 in “Show HN: KeyEnv – manage team secrets without scattered .env files”
Other secrets managers people recommend
The four most recommended other secrets managers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| OneCLI | 39 | 8 | 83% | 6 | — | Approved |
| SOPS | 28 | 5 | 85% | 10 | — | Approved |
| HashiCorp Vault | 26 | 10 | 72% | 10 | — | Approved |
| fnox | 20 | 4 | 83% | 9 | — | Approved |
| AWS Secrets ManagerThis page | 8 | 2 | 80% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
10 of the 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Security should be done using a secrets manager through the cloud platform that's being used”
“Someone pulled all our secrets from AWS about 5 minutes in.”
“one of the many AWS services that's more secure”
“especially in a cloud environment like AWS, where you can use services like AWS Secrets Manager.”
“This is how Google Secrets or AWS Vaults work.”
“All these have native audit logs and access logs, which can help you pin point exactly when did your AI Agent requested and accessed your secrets at Runtime.”
“But Secrets Manager just works. It’s a simple API/ClI command and the permission system to access it is very granular.”
“This should be solved by the vaults”
“work well at scale but have per-secret pricing that adds up”
“AWS Secrets Manager / GCP Secret Manager work well at scale”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.