Infisical vs AWS Secrets Manager
Both are alternatives to HashiCorp Vault. Here's how they stack up — verified facts, no spin.
Also searched as AWS Secrets Manager vs Infisical — same comparison, one verdict.
Infisical is open source (MIT core, with an `ee/` enterprise directory carve-out) and AWS Secrets Manager is not (Proprietary (hosted service)) — so the real question is whether you want to own the secrets management stack or rent it.
Infisical
Secrets management that a developer can actually use on day one.
Infisical was built on the premise that Vault is too hard for what most teams need, and it shows: a clean web UI, a CLI that injects secrets into a process without writing them to disk, native Kubernetes and GitHub Actions integrations, and secret scanning to catch leaks before they are committed. It covers the common ninety per cent — storage, rotation, environment scoping, access control — without the unsealing ceremony. Around 28.5k stars. One precision worth stating: the core is MIT, but everything under the `ee/` directory is licensed separately as enterprise, so check which side of that line the feature you need falls on before you build around it.
AWS Secrets Manager
The obvious answer if everything already runs in AWS.
If your workloads are on AWS, Secrets Manager is already available, already inside your IAM boundary, and already covered by your compliance paperwork. It does rotation with Lambda, integrates natively with RDS, ECS and EKS, and requires no new infrastructure of any kind. It is priced per secret per month plus API calls, which is cheap for dozens of secrets and less cheap for thousands. The obvious limitation is the obvious one: it is AWS-only, so a multi-cloud estate ends up running something else alongside it, which defeats the point of a central secrets store.
Side by side
10 points of comparison, every one read from a verified field. Green marks the side that wins a row outright. A dash means we do not hold that fact — never that it is zero.
| Infisical | AWS Secrets Manager | |
|---|---|---|
| Sovereignty ScoreOur transparent 0–100 composite for data ownership and exit cost. | 84 | 35 |
| Open source | Yes | No |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No |
| Local-first data | Yes | No |
| License | MIT core, with an `ee/` enterprise directory carve-out | Proprietary (hosted service) |
| Pricing | Free and self-hostable for the MIT core; hosted plans and enterprise features are paid. | Roughly $0.40 per secret per month plus a small per-10,000-API-call charge. Rates checked 2026-07-31. |
| RAM to run it wellThe figure that actually matters, not the vendor's minimum. | 2 GB | — |
| Realistic running costWhat the box costs each month if you run it yourself. | $12–20/mo, against per-seat secret-management pricing | — |
| Setup timeHonest first-install estimate, not the marketing quickstart. | 2 hours | — |
| Ongoing maintenanceThe part nobody budgets for. | Moderate, and high-stakes. Encryption key custody is now yours. | — |
Infisical edges it on the Sovereignty Score, but the right pick depends on the trade-offs below.
Infisical
Strengths
- +By far the best developer experience in this comparison
- +CLI injects secrets into a process without touching the filesystem
- +Built-in secret scanning catches leaks before they ship
- +Self-hostable, with Kubernetes and CI integrations that work out of the box
Trade-offs
- −Enterprise features live behind an `ee/` carve-out — not a pure MIT product
- −No equivalent of Vault's dynamic database credentials or PKI engine
- −Single-vendor governance, the same structural risk that moved Vault to BSL
- −Younger, with a shorter track record under real load
AWS Secrets Manager
Strengths
- +Already inside your existing IAM, VPC and compliance envelope
- +Native rotation with RDS, Redshift and DocumentDB
- +Zero infrastructure to run or patch
- +Cheap at small secret counts
Trade-offs
- −AWS-only — useless as a central store in a multi-cloud estate
- −Per-secret pricing adds up quickly at scale
- −Far less capable than Vault for dynamic credentials and PKI
- −Deepens AWS lock-in rather than reducing it
Which one fits you
The trade-offs above, turned into a decision. Find the line that describes your team.
Choose Infisical
if you want the source and the option to fork it, and you would rather run it on your own hardware, and your data should stay on machines you control.
Choose AWS Secrets Manager
if already inside your existing IAM, VPC and compliance envelope.
Neither, yet
if both carry a real cost you should weigh first — enterprise features live behind an `ee/` carve-out — not a pure MIT product, and aWS-only — useless as a central store in a multi-cloud estate. If either of those is a dealbreaker for your team, the shortlist is wrong rather than the choice.
What it takes to run these yourself
Real requirements and honest running costs, not the vendor quickstart.
Infisical vs AWS Secrets Manager — common questions
Is Infisical a better fit than AWS Secrets Manager for secrets management?
It depends on what you are optimising for, and the honest split is this: Infisical scores 84 to AWS Secrets Manager's 35 on data ownership and exit cost, so it is the safer choice if you care about being able to leave. AWS Secrets Manager earns its place on a different axis — already inside your existing IAM, VPC and compliance envelope. Neither is a wrong answer for every team; the table above is the actual comparison.
What happens if we want to switch later?
Infisical keeps its data local or in open formats, so leaving is an export rather than a negotiation. AWS Secrets Manager keeps your data on its own infrastructure, which is the part to plan for: confirm the export path before you commit, not when you are already trying to leave.
Is Infisical free?
Infisical: Free and self-hostable for the MIT core; hosted plans and enterprise features are paid.. The other side of this comparison, AWS Secrets Manager, is priced as Roughly $0.40 per secret per month plus a small per-10,000-API-call charge. Rates checked 2026-07-31.. "Free" here means no licence fee — if you self-host it you still pay for the server, and the running cost row above is our honest estimate of that.
Can I self-host Infisical?
Infisical can be self-hosted; AWS Secrets Manager cannot, so it stays on the vendor's infrastructure whatever you do.
Are Infisical and AWS Secrets Manager both alternatives to HashiCorp Vault?
Yes — both appear in our HashiCorp Vault comparison, which is why they are worth putting side by side. People usually arrive here already having decided to move off HashiCorp Vault and now choosing between the two replacements, which is a narrower and much easier question.
Related alternative guides
Facts verified 2026-07-31. Licenses and pricing change — spotted something out of date? That's a correction we want.