SecretSpec
Shares rank 14 of 20 secrets managers by recommenders
Developers recommend SecretSpec as a declarative way to define and load secrets across apps, made by the team behind devenv. One critic notes it lacks a clear plan for a key feature.
Developers recommend SecretSpec as a declarative way to define and load secrets across apps, made by the team behind devenv. One critic notes it lacks a clear plan for a key feature.
9 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 7
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 78%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 7 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 3.5 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.
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Unclear plan for a feature
“I didn't see any reference in `secretspec` as to how they plan to do that.”
Comment from 4 Aug 2026 in “Where .env Went Wrong”
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 |
| SecretSpecThis page | 7 | 2 | 78% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
8 of the 10 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“That looks pretty cool - even supports caching.”
“By the time the bcrypt bug blocked SecretSpec”
“pairs really well with direnv”
“I didn't see any reference in `secretspec` as to how they plan to do that.”
“we're providing an interface for applications to build with, with 8 SDKs available”
“It's from the creator of https://devenv.sh and has been around for a while.”
“Secrets don't belong in config”
“secretspec is more powerful”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.