Best Secrets Management Tools

Lauren Worth
LW
Researched and written by Lauren Worth

Secrets management tools help companies securely store, transmit, and manage sensitive digital authentication credentials such as passwords, SSH keys, API keys, database passwords, certificates like TLS/SSL certificates or private certificates, tokens, encryption keys, privileged credentials, and other secrets.

Companies use these tools to manage their secrets across their IT ecosystem centrally. These tools reduce the risks associated with poor and manual secrets management, such as hardcoding secrets into scripts, using default passwords, sharing passwords, and not rotating credentials. Secrets management tools replace fragmented and manual secrets management and provide central visibility, oversight, and management of a company’s credentials, keys, and other secrets across departments. Most commonly, these tools are used by software developers, security professionals, and IT operations teams (DevOps or DevSecOps).

Secrets management tools are similar to but more robust than encryption key management software, which focuses on the storage, use, and rotation of encryption keys. Similarly, there is an overlap between secrets management and privileged access management (PAM) software. While security-focused PAM solutions offer secrets management, they also offer more robust security functions for enforcing least privilege policies with access controls, monitoring and recording privileged sessions, and alerting suspicious activity. Some secrets management solutions are built into platforms or cloud providers directly. In contrast, other solutions augment that functionality by offering a universal and centralized approach to secrets management, regardless of platform, using integrations.

To qualify for the Secrets Management category, a product must:

Centrally manage keys and other secrets
Securely store secrets with encryption and tokenization
Automate pushing secrets to applications and infrastructure
Create audit trail of secrets use and lifecycle
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Best Secrets Management Tools At A Glance

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G2 takes pride in showing unbiased reviews on user satisfaction in our ratings and reports. We do not allow paid placements in any of our ratings, rankings, or reports. Learn about our scoring methodologies.

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34 Listings in Secrets Management Tools Available
(1,728)4.6 out of 5
Entry Level Price:$7.99
1st Easiest To Use in Secrets Management Tools software
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(55)4.5 out of 5
4th Easiest To Use in Secrets Management Tools software
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(46)4.3 out of 5
5th Easiest To Use in Secrets Management Tools software
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(61)4.8 out of 5
Entry Level Price:Free
3rd Easiest To Use in Secrets Management Tools software
(41)4.4 out of 5
8th Easiest To Use in Secrets Management Tools software
View top Consulting Services for Delinea Secret Server