Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

AWS CloudHSM VS Vault by HashiCorp

Compare AWS CloudHSM VS Vault by HashiCorp and see what are their differences

AWS CloudHSM logo AWS CloudHSM

Data Security

Vault by HashiCorp logo Vault by HashiCorp

Tool for managing secrets
  • AWS CloudHSM Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-02-02
  • Vault by HashiCorp Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-26

AWS CloudHSM features and specs

  • Compliance Requirements
    AWS CloudHSM is compliant with various industry standards and regulations, such as FIPS 140-2 Level 3, enabling organizations to meet specific compliance requirements with ease.
  • Dedicated Hardware
    CloudHSM provides dedicated hardware Security Modules (HSMs) for enhanced security, offering physical and logical isolation from other users.
  • Customer Control
    Customers retain full control over the cryptographic keys and operations within the HSM, ensuring that AWS staff cannot access or manage these keys.
  • High Availability
    AWS CloudHSM can be configured for high availability, with automatic clustering and redundancy to ensure continuous operation and minimal downtime.
  • Scalability
    Users can add and remove HSMs on-demand, allowing for scalable performance and capacity that aligns with their needs.
  • Easy Integration
    CloudHSM integrates with various AWS services and third-party applications, allowing for seamless deployment of cryptographic operations.

Possible disadvantages of AWS CloudHSM

  • Cost
    CloudHSM can be more expensive compared to other AWS managed key services, as it involves the cost of dedicated hardware and additional management overhead.
  • Management Complexity
    The requirement for customer management of the HSMs introduces complexity, particularly for organizations without specialized staff or knowledge in cryptographic operations.
  • Hardware Dependencies
    Being dependent on physical hardware may limit the ability to quickly adapt to certain changes compared to entirely software-based solutions.
  • Region Availability
    AWS CloudHSM may not be available in all AWS regions, potentially limiting its usage for global applications that require region-specific deployments.
  • Initial Setup
    The initial setup and configuration process can be intricate and time-consuming, potentially requiring specialized expertise.

Vault by HashiCorp features and specs

  • Comprehensive Security
    Vault provides a high level of data security by using end-to-end encryption and secure access protocols, ensuring sensitive data is well-protected.
  • Dynamic Secrets
    Vault allows for dynamic generation of secrets and credentials, reducing the risk of secret sprawl and enabling better lifecycle management.
  • Audit Capabilities
    Vault offers extensive audit logging capabilities, which help organizations monitor access and changes to sensitive data, enhancing compliance and security monitoring.
  • Multi-cloud Support
    Vault supports various cloud providers and infrastructures, making it suitable for multi-cloud and hybrid environments.
  • Access Control
    Fine-grained access control policies can be defined in Vault, enabling precise management of who can access what secrets and under what conditions.

Possible disadvantages of Vault by HashiCorp

  • Complex Setup
    The initial setup and configuration of Vault can be complex, requiring a good understanding of its components and operational requirements.
  • Learning Curve
    Due to its extensive features and capabilities, there is a significant learning curve associated with effectively using Vault.
  • Performance Overhead
    The added security and features can introduce performance overhead, especially in large-scale systems with numerous secrets and transactions.
  • Cost
    While the open-source version is free, the enterprise version with additional features and support can be costly for organizations.
  • Dependency Management
    Organizations might need to adapt their existing systems to integrate Vault, which could involve significant changes and management of additional dependencies.

AWS CloudHSM videos

AWS re:Inforce 2019: Achieving Security Goals with AWS CloudHSM (SDD333)

Vault by HashiCorp videos

No Vault by HashiCorp videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to AWS CloudHSM and Vault by HashiCorp)
Security & Privacy
53 53%
47% 47
Password Management
40 40%
60% 60
Network & Admin
100 100%
0% 0
Password Managers
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Vault by HashiCorp might be a bit more popular than AWS CloudHSM. We know about 5 links to it since March 2021 and only 5 links to AWS CloudHSM. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

AWS CloudHSM mentions (5)

Vault by HashiCorp mentions (5)

  • Running the OpenTelemetry Demo App on HashiCorp Nomad
    Before you start, just a friendly reminder that HashiQube by default runs Nomad, Vault, and Consul on Docker. In addition, we’ll be deploying 21 job specs to Nomad. This means that we’ll need a decent amount of CPU and RAM, so Please make sure that you have enough resources allocated in your Docker desktop. For reference, I’m running an M1 Macbook Pro with 8 cores and 32 GB RAM. My Docker Desktop Resource... - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Running cron jobs in the cloud — Amazon EC2 vs AWS Lambda
    When running cron jobs on Amazon EC2, you can, for example, use a secrets store like Vault. With Vault, your cron jobs can dynamically get the credentials they need. The secrets don’t get stored on the machine that’s running the cron jobs, and if you change a secret, the cron jobs will automatically receive that change. The downside of implementing a solution like Vault, however, is the overhead of managing the... - Source: dev.to / about 3 years ago
  • How do you document your smart home stuff?
    Vaultproject.io handles secrets management, so dynamic policies deal with database creds etc. "Manual" creds are stored in 1password or lastpass and added manually to Vault if it needs rebuilding. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Whare are your preferred platforms and tools/services for self hosting?
    It's all in the blog series, including sample configuration, but it's vaultproject.io and it allows you to do everything from managing simple secrets to auto-rotation of database credentials or even run your own KPI setup. Source: over 3 years ago
  • How to backup Hashicorp Vault with Raft storage on Kubernetes
    Our team is experimenting with Hashicorp Vault as our new credentials management solution. Thanks to the offical Vault Helm Chart, we are able to get an almost production-ready vault cluster running on our Kubernetes cluster with minimal effort. - Source: dev.to / almost 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing AWS CloudHSM and Vault by HashiCorp, you can also consider the following products

Azure Key Vault - Safeguard cryptographic keys and other secrets used by cloud apps and services with Microsoft Azure Key Vault. Try it now.

Doppler - Doppler is the multi-cloud SecretOps Platform developers and security teams trust to provide secrets management at enterprise scale.

Egnyte - Enterprise File Sharing

KeePass - KeePass is an open source password manager. Passwords can be stored in highly-encrypted databases, which can be unlocked with one master password or key file.

GnuPG - GnuPG is a complete and free implementation of the OpenPGP standard as defined by RFC4880 (also known as PGP).

Infisical - Infisical is an open source, end-to-end encrypted platform that lets you securely sync secrets and configs across your engineering team and infrastructure