⎈K8sCalc

$ k8scalc compare hashicorp vault sealed secrets

HashiCorp Vault vs Sealed Secrets

HashiCorp Vault vs Bitnami Sealed Secrets for Kubernetes secrets management — compare dynamic secrets, GitOps compatibility, complexity, and which is right for your cluster.

FeatureHashiCorp VaultSealed Secrets
GitOps compatible
Via agent/CSI driver
Native (encrypted YAML)
Dynamic secrets
Yes
No
Automatic rotation
Yes
No (manual)
PKI / CA
Yes
No
Database credentials
Yes
No
Cloud auth
Yes (AWS/GCP/Azure)
No
Operational complexity
High
Very low
External dependency
Yes (Vault cluster)
No (in-cluster only)
Commit secrets to Git
No
Yes (safely encrypted)
Audit logging
Yes
No

Verdict

These tools solve different problems. Sealed Secrets is the simple answer: encrypt your Kubernetes Secrets with a cluster key so they can safely be committed to Git. Zero external dependencies, perfect for GitOps. Vault is the enterprise secrets platform: dynamic database credentials, PKI/CA, cloud auth, audit logs, and secret leasing. Vault is operationally complex and requires running a highly-available server cluster. For small teams and GitOps-first workflows, Sealed Secrets is the right call. For organizations needing dynamic secrets, secret rotation, and compliance audit trails, Vault.

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