Best Kubernetes Secrets Management Tools in 2026: Vault, ESO, Sealed Secrets & More

Every Kubernetes cluster ships with a built-in Secret object. It looks like security. It feels like security. It isn’t security.

A Kubernetes Secret is, by default, just a base64-encoded string stored in etcd — readable by anyone with cluster access and trivially decodable with a one-liner: echo "c2VjcmV0" | base64 -d. Unless you’ve explicitly enabled encryption at rest (and most teams haven’t), your database passwords, API tokens, and TLS private keys are sitting unencrypted in your cluster’s control plane datastore. Commit a Kubernetes manifest containing a Secret to Git, and that credential lives in your repository’s history forever.

This is the problem that a new generation of secrets management tools has emerged to solve — and in 2026, the ecosystem has matured significantly. This guide covers the six most important tools for managing secrets in Kubernetes environments: what they do, what they don’t do, and which one fits your team’s maturity level.

Related reading: If you’re concerned about secrets leaking through your CI/CD pipeline, see our best CI/CD pipeline tools roundup. For the broader container security picture, check out our vulnerability scanning tools guide.

Why Kubernetes Default Secrets Fall Short

Before diving into tools, it’s worth being precise about what Kubernetes Secrets lack — because understanding the gap is what lets you pick the right solution.

No encryption at rest by default. etcd stores Kubernetes Secrets as base64, not encrypted. Enabling Encryption at Rest is a cluster-level configuration step that managed Kubernetes providers (EKS, GKE, AKE) handle differently, and many self-managed clusters skip it entirely.

No secret rotation. There’s no built-in mechanism for a Kubernetes Secret to know that its backing credential has changed. You rotate a database password externally, and your pods keep using the old one until you manually update the Secret and restart the affected pods.

No audit log for secret access. Standard Kubernetes audit logging records Secret object modifications, but most configurations don’t log individual reads — meaning you can’t answer “which service accessed this token and when?”

Git-hostile by design. The standard advice is “never commit Secrets to Git.” But in a GitOps world where everything-as-code is the goal, that’s a painful exception to maintain.

RBAC as a blunt instrument. Kubernetes RBAC lets you grant or deny access to Secret objects at the namespace level. It can’t express “Service A can read secret X but not secret Y,” or “this Secret expires in 24 hours.”

None of these are reasons to abandon Kubernetes — they’re reasons to use dedicated secrets management tooling on top of it.

TL;DR — Feature Comparison

⚠️ = requires additional components

1. HashiCorp Vault — The Gold Standard for Enterprise Secrets

HashiCorp Vault is the benchmark against which every other secrets management tool gets measured. It’s been battle-tested in enterprise environments for nearly a decade, and its feature set reflects that depth.

Vault’s core capability is dynamic secrets — credentials that are generated on-demand and automatically expire. Instead of storing a static PostgreSQL password, Vault generates a unique username/password pair for each requesting service, valid for a configurable lease period (e.g., one hour). When the lease expires, the credential is revoked. This eliminates entire classes of credential sprawl and makes breach containment dramatically easier.

For Kubernetes, the Vault Agent Injector or Vault Secrets Operator are the integration paths. The injector runs as a mutating webhook that automatically sidecars a Vault agent into your pods, which authenticates to Vault using the pod’s Kubernetes service account and writes secrets to a shared in-memory volume. The Vault Secrets Operator (VSO), the newer approach, syncs Vault secrets into native Kubernetes Secret objects — more familiar to operators, at the cost of secrets briefly existing in etcd.

Vault’s secret engines cover an impressive range:

• Database credentials (PostgreSQL, MySQL, MongoDB, and more)
• AWS, GCP, Azure dynamic credentials
• PKI and TLS certificate generation
• SSH certificate signing
• Kubernetes service account tokens

What Vault does well: Dynamic credentials, fine-grained access policies, a comprehensive audit log, and a mature plugin ecosystem. If you need compliance-grade secret management with full trail of who-accessed-what-when, Vault is often the only reasonable option.

What to watch out for: Vault has operational complexity. Running it in high-availability mode requires careful attention to storage backends (Raft is now the recommended choice), unsealing procedures, and upgrade paths. The learning curve is real. Budget for platform engineering time.

Pricing: The open-source version is free and covers most needs. HashiCorp Cloud Platform (HCP) Vault is the managed offering with pricing based on cluster hours and secret operations. The BSL license change from 2023 led to the OpenTofu fork for Terraform, but Vault’s fork equivalent (OpenBao) is still maturing.

📚 Recommended reading: Hacking Kubernetes by Andrew Martin and Michael Hausenblas — excellent coverage of Kubernetes attack surfaces including secret exfiltration scenarios.

2. External Secrets Operator (ESO) — The K8s-Native Integration Layer

External Secrets Operator takes a fundamentally different architectural stance: rather than being a secrets store itself, it’s a bridge between Kubernetes and whatever external store you already have. ESO syncs secrets from AWS Secrets Manager, GCP Secret Manager, Azure Key Vault, HashiCorp Vault, 1Password, Doppler, and a growing list of other backends into native Kubernetes Secret objects.

The core abstraction is the ExternalSecret custom resource:

apiVersion: external-secrets.io/v1beta1
kind: ExternalSecret
metadata:
  name: database-credentials
spec:
  refreshInterval: 1h
  secretStoreRef:
    name: aws-secrets-manager
    kind: ClusterSecretStore
  target:
    name: db-creds
  data:
    - secretKey: password
      remoteRef:
        key: production/db/password

ESO watches this resource, fetches the secret from AWS Secrets Manager (or wherever), and creates a standard Kubernetes Secret. Your application reads db-creds just like any other Kubernetes Secret — no code changes required. When refreshInterval ticks, ESO re-fetches and updates the Secret automatically.

Why ESO is so popular in 2026: It plays well with existing investments. Your organization already has AWS Secrets Manager (or Vault, or GCP Secret Manager) — ESO just makes those secrets consumable in Kubernetes without changing your application code or your existing secret rotation workflows.

ESO or Vault Secrets Operator? If you’re running Vault, the VSO has tighter Vault-specific integration (Vault dynamic secrets, Vault PKI). If you’re on a cloud provider’s native secret store, ESO is the cleaner choice. Many teams run both — ESO for cloud-stored static secrets, VSO for Vault-managed dynamic credentials.

Pricing: ESO is free and open source (Apache 2.0), maintained by a CNCF sandbox project with strong community backing.

3. Sealed Secrets — GitOps-Friendly Encrypted Secrets

Sealed Secrets by Bitnami solves a specific problem: how do you store Kubernetes Secret manifests in Git without storing the actual plaintext? The answer is asymmetric encryption.

The Sealed Secrets controller runs in your cluster and holds a private key. The kubeseal CLI encrypts a Kubernetes Secret manifest with the cluster’s public key, producing a SealedSecret CRD. This encrypted manifest can be committed to Git safely — only the cluster’s private key can decrypt it, and it can only be decrypted in that specific cluster (by default, the ciphertext is bound to namespace + name).

# Encrypt a secret for Git storage
kubectl create secret generic db-creds \
  --from-literal=password=s3cr3t \
  --dry-run=client -o yaml | \
  kubeseal --format=yaml > db-creds-sealed.yaml

# This file is safe to commit
git add db-creds-sealed.yaml

When you apply the SealedSecret to the cluster, the controller decrypts it and creates the corresponding Secret object.

What Sealed Secrets does well: GitOps workflows. If you’re using Argo CD or Flux and want every cluster resource (including secrets) declaratively stored in Git, Sealed Secrets fits that model perfectly. It requires zero external dependencies beyond the in-cluster controller.

What it doesn’t do: Rotation, dynamic credentials, or audit logging beyond standard Kubernetes events. Sealed Secrets is a Git-storage solution, not a full secrets management platform. If your password changes, you re-encrypt and commit again.

Private key backup is critical. If you lose the controller’s private key, you lose the ability to decrypt your sealed secrets. Back up the sealed-secrets-key secret in a separate, secure location.

Pricing: Fully free and open source (Apache 2.0).

4. AWS Secrets Manager with Kubernetes

If your workloads run primarily on EKS (or connect heavily to AWS services), AWS Secrets Manager paired with the Secrets Store CSI Driver or External Secrets Operator is a natural fit. You keep secrets in AWS’s managed, encrypted, audit-logged store and pull them into Kubernetes when needed.

The Secrets Store CSI Driver (SSCSID) is the CNCF-maintained approach: secrets are mounted directly into pods as files via a CSI volume, never written to etcd as Kubernetes Secret objects. This is the highest-security path — secrets exist in pod memory but not in the Kubernetes Secret store.

volumes:
  - name: secrets-store
    csi:
      driver: secrets-store.csi.k8s.io
      readOnly: true
      volumeAttributes:
        secretProviderClass: aws-secrets

AWS Secrets Manager’s native capabilities include automatic rotation for supported services (RDS, Redshift, DocumentDB, and via Lambda for custom rotation), cross-account access, and deep CloudTrail integration for compliance audit trails.

Cost consideration: AWS Secrets Manager charges per secret per month and per API call. For large fleets with many small secrets, costs can add up. See our cloud cost optimization guide for strategies on managing secret-related AWS spend.

Best for: EKS-native teams already invested in the AWS ecosystem who want tight IAM integration and native RDS credential rotation.

5. Doppler — Developer-First SaaS Secrets Platform

Doppler takes a SaaS-first approach that prioritizes developer experience over operational complexity. You define secrets in Doppler’s UI (or via CLI/API), organize them by environment (dev, staging, production), and the Doppler Kubernetes operator syncs them into Kubernetes Secrets automatically.

The operator polls Doppler for changes and updates the corresponding Kubernetes Secret, optionally triggering pod restarts when secrets change. Setup is a single Helm chart install:

helm repo add doppler https://helm.doppler.com
helm install --generate-name doppler/doppler-kubernetes-operator

Where Doppler shines: Local development and CI/CD integration alongside Kubernetes. The Doppler CLI replaces environment files entirely (doppler run -- your-command), giving the same secrets across local, CI, and production environments. For CI/CD pipelines, Doppler’s native integrations with GitHub Actions, CircleCI, and others eliminate the need to copy secrets into pipeline environment variables.

What Doppler doesn’t cover: Dynamic database credentials. Doppler is a static secrets store with version history and audit logging — it’s not a secret-generation engine like Vault.

Pricing: Doppler offers a free tier for small teams. Paid plans add SSO, access requests, and compliance features. Check Doppler’s pricing page for current tiers (pricing changes; verify before budgeting).

6. Infisical — Open-Source Vault Alternative

Infisical is the strongest open-source challenger to the Vault/Doppler duopoly. It provides a web UI, CLI, SDKs, and a Kubernetes operator — deployable self-hosted or consumed as a cloud service.

Infisical added dynamic secrets support in 2024, targeting database credential generation similar to Vault’s database secrets engine. The Infisical Kubernetes operator syncs InfisicalSecret CRDs to native Kubernetes Secrets, with configurable refresh intervals.

For teams that want SaaS-level UX (web dashboard, access request workflows, audit logs) but can’t use external SaaS due to compliance requirements, Infisical self-hosted is compelling. It’s significantly easier to operate than Vault and has a more developer-friendly onboarding experience.

Pricing: Open-source core is free. The cloud-hosted version has a free tier and paid plans for advanced features. Self-hosted enterprise license is available for compliance-heavy environments.

📚 For a deeper dive into Kubernetes security architecture: Kubernetes Security and Observability on Amazon covers secrets, RBAC, network policy, and runtime security in one cohesive framework.

Implementation Tips

Start with encryption at rest. Before adding any additional tooling, enable Kubernetes etcd encryption at rest. For managed clusters, this is often a single checkbox. For self-managed clusters, follow the official guide. This immediately raises your baseline security posture.

Adopt least-privilege RBAC for Secrets. Audit which service accounts have get, list, or watch permissions on Secret objects. Default service accounts in many Helm charts are over-provisioned. Tighten RBAC before rotating to an external store.

Plan your secret naming conventions early. Secrets proliferate fast. A consistent hierarchy ({env}/{service}/{credential-type}) makes automation, RBAC policies, and rotation workflows dramatically simpler across all tools.

Don’t skip secret rotation testing. Whichever tool you choose, run a rotation drill before you need it. Verify that your application picks up new credentials without downtime. Dynamic secrets with Vault or ESO make this significantly easier than manually-updated static secrets.

Monitor for secret sprawl. As your platform grows, secrets accumulate. Integrate secrets management reporting into your platform engineering dashboards. See our Kubernetes monitoring tools guide for observability tooling that can track secret access patterns.

Which Tool for Which Team?

Small team, cloud-native (AWS/GCP/Azure): Start with External Secrets Operator connecting to your cloud provider’s native secret store. Minimal operational overhead, solid audit integration, free.

GitOps-first team (Argo CD / Flux): Sealed Secrets for GitOps-stored configuration, combined with ESO for sensitive runtime credentials that shouldn’t be in Git even encrypted.

Enterprise with compliance requirements (SOC 2, PCI, HIPAA): HashiCorp Vault — either self-hosted Raft cluster or HCP Vault managed. The audit log, dynamic credentials, and fine-grained policy engine are hard to replicate elsewhere.

Developer-experience focused, mixed environment (K8s + local + CI/CD): Doppler for the unified DX across environments, or Infisical self-hosted if data residency matters.

Large platform team managing multi-cluster environments: External Secrets Operator as the K8s-side abstraction layer, backed by Vault or a cloud-native store. Centralizing the source of truth in one store while using ESO as a universal adapter across clusters is a well-proven pattern in 2026.

Related: For the security risks introduced by AI coding tools into your Kubernetes manifests and CI/CD pipelines, see our guide on vibe coding security risks in 2026.

FAQ

Are Kubernetes Secrets encrypted by default?

No. Kubernetes Secrets are base64-encoded by default — encoding, not encryption. The data is stored in etcd without encryption unless you explicitly enable Encryption at Rest. Always verify your cluster configuration and consider external secrets management tooling for production workloads.

What is the difference between Sealed Secrets and External Secrets Operator?

Sealed Secrets encrypts Secret manifests for safe Git storage — it’s a GitOps solution. External Secrets Operator fetches live secrets from external stores (Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, etc.) and creates native Kubernetes Secrets from them. They solve different problems and are often used together.

What are dynamic secrets and why do they matter?

Dynamic secrets are credentials generated on-demand with automatic expiry — rather than static passwords stored indefinitely. HashiCorp Vault is the primary source of dynamic secrets for Kubernetes. If a dynamic credential is compromised, it expires on its own schedule. This dramatically limits breach blast radius compared to long-lived static secrets.

Should I use Doppler or HashiCorp Vault for Kubernetes?

Doppler wins on developer experience and fast adoption. Vault wins on enterprise compliance — dynamic credentials, granular audit logs, and fine-grained policy. For small to mid-size teams, Doppler is often the faster path. For SOC 2, PCI DSS, or HIPAA environments, Vault is typically the more defensible choice.

How do I prevent secrets from leaking into container logs?

Mount secrets as files rather than environment variables (environment variables can be exposed through /proc and debug endpoints). Use the Secrets Store CSI Driver to bypass etcd entirely. Scan for accidental secret commits in your CI/CD pipeline with tools like Trivy’s secret scanner — see our vulnerability scanning tools guide for setup details.

What is the best secrets management tool for a small Kubernetes team?

Start with External Secrets Operator backed by your cloud provider’s native secret store. Minimal ops overhead, solid audit logging, free. Add Doppler’s free tier if you also want a unified dev/CI/production secrets experience.

How do I integrate AWS Secrets Manager with Kubernetes?

Use External Secrets Operator with a ClusterSecretStore pointing at AWS Secrets Manager. On EKS, use IRSA (IAM Roles for Service Accounts) for pod-level IAM authentication — no static credentials needed. On non-EKS clusters, use an IAM user with secretsmanager:GetSecretValue scoped to your specific secret ARNs.