HashiCorp Vault
An identity-based secrets and encryption platform for infrastructure teams, now part of IBM.
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About HashiCorp Vault
Vault is HashiCorp's secrets management system, widely used in infrastructure and platform engineering. Beyond storing static secrets, it generates dynamic, short-lived credentials for databases and cloud providers, offers encryption as a service, issues certificates and authenticates workloads through many identity methods, all governed by fine-grained policies and audit logs. The free Community Edition runs on Linux, macOS, Windows and FreeBSD, while Vault Enterprise adds features like namespaces, HSM support, replication and Sentinel policies, and HCP Vault Dedicated is the managed cloud option. HashiCorp moved Vault from an open-source licence to the source-available Business Source License in 2023 (which led to the OpenBao fork), and the company is now owned by IBM. It is powerful but complex to operate. It suits larger engineering organisations with dedicated platform teams.
Best for: Platform and infrastructure teams that need dynamic secrets and encryption at scale.
Pros and cons
What works
- Dynamic, short-lived credentials for databases and clouds
- Encryption as a service and certificate issuance
- Huge range of auth methods and integrations
Why people leave
- Complex to deploy, unseal and operate well
- No longer open source (Business Source License)
- Enterprise features are expensive
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HashiCorp Vault: common questions
Is HashiCorp Vault free?
HashiCorp Vault has a free plan and paid plans.
Is HashiCorp Vault open source?
No, HashiCorp Vault is not open source. Open-source alternatives include Infisical, Bitwarden and gopass.
What platforms does HashiCorp Vault run on?
HashiCorp Vault is available for Linux, macOS, Windows and Self-hosted.
What are the best alternatives to HashiCorp Vault?
The highest-ranked HashiCorp Vault alternatives right now are Infisical, Doppler and Bitwarden. See the full ranked list for pricing, platforms and verified facts.