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reviewer1498824 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Manager at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Reasonably priced, stable, and easy to set up
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution can scale up as needed."
  • "The solution does not allow you to integrate with XML parties if it is not inside Azure itself."

What is our primary use case?

We were using the solution to store our keys that includes secrets, passwords, and also application properties.

What is most valuable?

The application properties and the ability to store our certificates too have been great aspects of the solution. 

Mainly, having the application properties where all our applications' configurations were stored in the key vault was very useful.

The initial setup is pretty simple. 

The stability is very good.

The solution can scale up as needed. 

The solution offers very reasonable pricing. 

What needs improvement?

I can't recall coming across any missing features or elements. 

The solution does not allow you to integrate with XML parties if it is not inside Azure itself.

For how long have I used the solution?

I used the solution during my previous project that I handled last year. I used it for a full year, from January to December.

Buyer's Guide
Azure Key Vault
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about Azure Key Vault. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
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What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable. I never had issues, for example, with stability, bugs or glitches, or crashing. It's reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution can scale. It is already a platform as a service, and therefore, it's already scaled up.

Our entire company is currently using the product.

How are customer service and support?

I did not use technical support when I worked with the product. Therefore, I cannot speak to how helpful or responsive they are. 

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did use HashiCorp Vault. We used to use it, and then we moved to Azure Key Vault due to the fact that it's a cloud platform as a solution and it is easy to implement.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was straightforward, however, we never used the console. We always used to use the Azure CLIs to set everything up.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is very reasonable. It's not overly expensive.

What other advice do I have?

We're a Microsoft partner.

I cannot recall which version of the solution I used for the project I worked on.

Overall, it's a great product.

There's nothing I dislike about the solution. I would rate the solution at a ten out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer. Partner
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Marios Christodoulou - PeerSpot reviewer
DB and Systems Engineer at JCC Payment Systems Ltd
Real User
Top 20
Beneficial secret data storage, reliable, and simple setup
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature of Azure Key Vault is the secret storage of data."
  • "If multiple clouds are to be used it can be difficult and a third party should assist in the implementation."

What is our primary use case?

We are using Azure Key Vault for holding secrets, such as certificates and API management. We're using it for integrating and saving secrets for web applications.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature of Azure Key Vault is the secret storage of data.

What needs improvement?

If multiple clouds are to be used it can be difficult and a third party should assist in the implementation.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Azure Key Vault for approximately six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I rate the stability of Azure Key Vault a ten out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I rate the scalability of Azure Key Vault a ten out of ten.

How are customer service and support?

I have not had issues needing support.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup of Azure Key Vault was easy.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to others is if they want to do a multi-cloud deployment it should be done by a third party.

I rate Azure Key Vault a nine out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Azure Key Vault
June 2025
Learn what your peers think about Azure Key Vault. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: June 2025.
860,592 professionals have used our research since 2012.
Konstantin K - PeerSpot reviewer
Advisory Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Useful password storing, secure, and good support
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Key Vault are the security and convenience of changing passwords in multiple places."
  • "I would rate the stability of Microsoft Azure Key Vault an eight out of ten. We use the solution in the data science field. If there is some outage, we did not notice any prolonged outage which would affect our business significantly while working with it."

What is our primary use case?

We use Microsoft Azure Key Vault to store some secrets and then we use them outside in connectors in the Data Factory.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable features of Microsoft Azure Key Vault are the security and convenience of changing passwords in multiple places.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have used Microsoft Azure Key Vault within the past 12 months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I would rate the stability of Microsoft Azure Key Vault an eight out of ten.

We use the solution in the data science field. If there is some outage, we did not notice any prolonged outage which would affect our business significantly while working with it.

How are customer service and support?

We did interact with the technical support from Microsoft and we did not have any negative experiences with them.

What other advice do I have?

My advice to others is to figure out what your needs are and then start using the solution if it fits.

I rate Microsoft Azure Key Vault a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1472058 - PeerSpot reviewer
Infrastructure Manager\Enterprise Architect - Cloud at a manufacturing company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Features tie into the app, secrets, and the passwords and encrypt them
Pros and Cons
  • "We only use the basic features and those are the ones that have the ability to tie into the app, the secrets, and the passwords and encrypt them."
  • "To make it a ten the setup should be more streamlined."

What is our primary use case?

We use it to store our secrets and passwords for our integrations and applications.

What is most valuable?

We only use the basic features and those are the ones that have the ability to tie into the app, the secrets, and the passwords and encrypt them.

What needs improvement?

So far we've had good luck with it. We haven't had any bad experiences. Once we got it set up and we got it injected into our code, we've had pretty good success.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Azure Key Vault for around a year and a half. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have about 225 applications that are using it.

How are customer service and support?

Their technical support was good when we used them.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We did not use a different solution. This is our first time using the services.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was pretty straightforward. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I thought the price was reasonable. 

What other advice do I have?

My advice would be to definitely leverage your premier support to help you get it going. Once you get going on it, it's fairly simple to use.

I would rate it an eight out of ten. 

To make it a ten the setup should be more streamlined.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1685841 - PeerSpot reviewer
System Administrator at a government with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Straightforward documentation, secure, and reasonably priced
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a managed service in Azure, you do not have to worry about security other than managing your own identities."
  • "I can see that other people are doing the infrastructure as code, they are able to easily manage and cycle their passwords as needed using their own interface they created. It would be nice if Microsoft provided more guidance in that area."

What is our primary use case?

We will likely use Microsoft Azure Key Vault for secure key management.

How has it helped my organization?

Provide a central, secure repository for keys.

What is most valuable?

It is a managed service in Azure, you do not have to worry about security other than the access. The vaults themselves are inherently secure.

What needs improvement?

It's too early for me to say with certainty, but what I'm seeing thus far is that Key Vault at face value is more of a secure store than it is a password manager. I suspect that we may be able to use logic apps to perform some actions that a password manager would, but a little more focus in this area would be beneficial.   

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Microsoft Azure Key Vault for one day.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have approximately 15 users using the solution in my organization.

How was the initial setup?

The setup of my test files has been easy and the documentation is straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

I handle the implementation of the solution.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The price of the solution is reasonable for what we are using it for.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We did not have a great solution in the past. We wanted something better, and everything that I read about Microsoft Azure Key Vault was good. We did evaluate other solutions but we were already using Azure for other things, it made sense to implement Microsoft Azure Key Vault.

What other advice do I have?

Other people's opinions of Microsoft Azure Key Vault seem to be quite good.

I rate Microsoft Azure Key Vault an eight out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1532262 - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Architect at a marketing services firm with 11-50 employees
Real User
Enables you to run infrastructure as code, to fully automate creation, management of, and access to, keys
Pros and Cons
  • "All its features are really valuable. It's really well thought-out. It's a complete turnkey solution that has all the concerns taken care of, such as access control and management. You can use it in infrastructure as code to create key vaults, APIs, PowerShells, CLIs, even Terraform."
  • "If you check the capabilities of other key management services across Amazon, HashiCorp, and Google, there are features that Key Vault doesn't have. It could be the case that when you use Key Vault, you might be forced to use a third-party solution to get certain services. If those services could be included in Key Vault, there would be diminished reasons to go for a third-party key management system."

What is our primary use case?

I have used the solution on a couple of projects for a client, mainly for storing credentials and secrets, such as API keys and application or username passwords into the vault, as well as certificates. 

It is used for anything we need to keep safe and secure and not have users access, except via applications that programmatically access Key Vault and retrieve the secrets and connect to other APIs. That way, we don't supply usernames and passwords within application code or to people. We vault them in Key Vault and those secrets can be used within an application without human intervention.

Azure Key Vault is a SaaS solution.

How has it helped my organization?

You have to have this to make sure that you're compliant with security and governance. One of the main concerns with compliance is how you manage keys and secrets in your cloud environments. You're encrypting your data at rest and in transit, but where do you store the encryption key itself to not become compromised? Key Vault addresses all those concerns. This is one of the main tools and, without it, it's hard to implement and address one of the main pillars of cloud architecture, which is security.

The whole nature of it is to help make things autonomous, because you can run infrastructure as code. That really takes away the human factor and you can fully automate the creation and management of, and access to, the keys, including the rotation of the keys. By taking away the human element, it's really secure. And, implementation-wise, when you're using Key Vault, Microsoft is behind it and they're using the best methods for encryption and ciphering of keys. You don't have to worry about those things.

It really simplifies the whole process, in contrast to needing in-house experts to help you facilitate key management. When it comes to two main concerns, encryption of the data in transit and at rest, it is a service that is with you all the time. It has a low cost and it's ready to implement. You don't have to have 10 developers build something that you don't even know will be successful, versus a service that has already been tested across global enterprise companies.

What is most valuable?

All its features are really valuable. It's really well thought-out. It's a complete turnkey solution that has all the concerns taken care of, such as access control and management. You can use it in infrastructure as code to create key vaults, APIs, PowerShells, CLIs, even Terraform.

You can also use it in different services across the board. If you have app services, or virtual machines, Kubernetes, or Databricks, they can all use Key Vault effectively. In my opinion, in a DevSecOps, DevOps, or even in a modern Azure implementation, you have to use Azure Key Vault to make sure you're addressing security and identity management concerns. By "identity" I mean usernames, passwords, cryptography, et cetera. 

It's also a regional solution and it frees you up from using third parties like HashiCorp Vault, for example.

In addition, there is a feature in Azure called managed identities, and when storing your credential or any keys or secrets in that you can have your code use managed identities to access Key Vault. That simplifies the whole process of connecting to Key Vault and retrieving your secrets, passwords, and credentials. 

It's a full-blown solution and it supports most breeds of key management: how you store keys and certify. 

I can't say that one of its features is better than others. You have to have all of them to make it a competent service, although one of the especially important features is the connection with monitoring and logging, so you can see who had access to what.

What needs improvement?

If you check the capabilities of other key management services across Amazon, HashiCorp, and Google, there are features that Key Vault doesn't have. It could be the case that when you use Key Vault, you might be forced to use a third-party solution to get certain services. If those services could be included in Key Vault, there would be diminished reasons to go for a third-party key management system.

For how long have I used the solution?

I was using Microsoft Azure Key Vault until two years ago, but since then I've been actively using it for two or three different projects.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable. There is the SLA and the resiliency that goes with Azure. Because many services are dependent on Key Vault, if it's highly available and redundant, it helps a lot. You can imagine how many times applications would go down if Key Vault were not available. It is one of the high-demand services. Anything that needs to access a key or a certification is dependent on Azure Key Vault. 

So far, compared to other services that are available in the Azure environment, I haven't seen anything surprising with the stability or availability of Key Vault.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable and global in its performance. I have implemented it for one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the whole world, a company that operates on a global scale. Key Vault is a main ingredient for every one of their infrastructure pieces that is tied to it. The scale of that company in its use of Key Vault was phenomenal.

How are customer service and technical support?

I haven't needed to contact Microsoft support about Key Vault. There have been instances when I have had to talk with Microsoft support about Graph API for Active Directory and other services, and even to the cloud adoption framework team, but never for Key Vault. It is just so straightforward.

How was the initial setup?

The complexity depends on what you're trying to do with Key Vault. It can get complex or it can be simple. You don't expect advanced scenarios to be easy to implement because it has many ingredients. If someone is simply going to Azure portal to create a secret and retrieve it, it's simple. But if you want to tie in your services, and have role-based control over who can access keys, and what services are tied to the keys, it gets complicated. But that's not just Azure. That complexity comes with the level of complexity of the scenario.

Key Vault is easy to use because there are many APIs and mechanisms to create and retrieve. The concepts are easy. I use it in many scenarios, such as building infrastructure as code, consuming it in Kubernetes. Everything seems to be straightforward. It is really the de facto for key management and vaulting secrets. 

For example, one of the applications recently we developed needed to store the username and password of the service that connects to SQL Server. I found it was super-easy to tie the credentials within the application configuration files to Key Vault to retrieve the keys. It was a no-brainer for a developer to learn and do it. It took about 15 to 30 minutes to follow the documentation. And it has really nice documentation. Performing any action using the features of Key Vault is really easy as it's user-friendly. Depending on your level of skill, the deeper you get, the more features you can use.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Key Vault, like every Azure service, has a cost associated with it, but you don't have to spend thousands of dollars to spin up an environment to build a key management system. It's already there.

You pay as you go, similar to other services in Azure.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

There are many other tools that I am still using, including AWS Secrets Manager, CyberArk, and Conjur, but none of them is close to Key Vault.

One of the benefits of Azure Key Vault is its integration with Active Directory, as is the case with most of the services in Azure. That really adds something to all the services.

Also, Managed HSM is not available in those other solutions. You have to go with HashiCorp Vault to get that. 

In addition, the key rotation feature of Key Vault is a lot better than in AWS Secrets Manager. CyberArk and Conjur, are more one-off products for specific use cases. You have to purchase a license and implement and manage them yourself, and not everything works seamlessly in CyberArk.

Conjur was good until Key Vault supported containerization. Azure created services for using blob storage, and those features of Key Vault came naturally as part of the whole cloud stack. 

Key Vault covers different problems for various personas and roles. As a developer, you get a lot of benefits that you don't get when you start developing with other tools, excluding HashiCorp Vault. HashiCorp Vault is really neat, and the only downside is that you have to manage the infrastructure yourself.

What other advice do I have?

I'm a cloud architect. If I don't see that Key Vault has been included in a proposed architecture, I don't approve it. It's a main ingredient in any cloud enterprise infrastructure and architecture. When you're using Azure, you have to have this or a third-party solution. If someone shows me a third-party solution, I have to ask, "What's the cost of owning this component that you're adding to the architecture? Is it included, like Key Vault, or do you have to pay for it like with HashiCorp Vault?" With Azure Key Vault you have something that is free, enterprise-level, global, and it just works.

I don't know if we could survive without Key Vault in a cloud implementation and still call it a secure platform. These days, you have to have Azure Key Vault or some third-party mechanism such as HashiCorp Vault. You need something that addresses key management in your cloud environment. But why should you pay for extra resources, costs, and management overhead, if everything is managed by Azure itself?

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
it_user1580196 - PeerSpot reviewer
Owner at a consultancy with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Reasonably priced with good technical support and easy scaling capabilities
Pros and Cons
  • "Technical support is helpful."
  • "It needs to offer dynamic secrets management."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use the solution for key management.

What is most valuable?

The access policies are the solution's most valuable aspect.

The solution is very stable.

The scalability is very good.

The pricing of the product is reasonable.

Technical support is helpful.

What needs improvement?

The rotation of key needs improvement. It needs to offer dynamic secrets management.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for about a year or so. It hasn't been that long.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is very stable. It doesn't crash or freeze. There are no bugs or glitches. It's reliable. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution can scale well. It's not a problem at all. If a company needs to expand it, it can.

Our clients tend to be enterprises, and aren't overly small. 

How are customer service and technical support?

You do need a support agreement, however, from what I have seen, it's quite reliable and knowledgeable. It's easy to reach them and to work with them.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup has a moderate amount of difficulty. It's neither extremely straightforward nor overly difficult.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

You do need a special agreement in order to receive technical support.

While I don't directly deal with pricing, my understanding is that it's okay, and not too expensive.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We are currently looking at other solutions in order to compare them. We are also using HashiCorp Terraform and looking into HashiCorp Vault.

What other advice do I have?

We are just a customer and an end-users. We tend to use the solution for our clients.

For those companies that want to work with the solution, I'd advise that they consider the use of and integration with Azure's pipeline.

Overall, I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten. We've largely been quite happy with its capabilities.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Founder & Principal Architect at NCompas Business Solutions Inc.
Real User
Speeds up the product development life cycle
Pros and Cons
  • "This solution speeds up the product development life cycle. That is, the time from the development of the product to the time to market is drastically reduced because of the CI/CD pipelines. You can have your code deployed within a matter of minutes."
  • "Azure has great documentation, but I would like to see more use cases pertaining to specific industries. For example, case studies on how to use HIPAA compliant solutions in the healthcare industry or how to use PCI compliant data analytics solutions in the financial technology industry would be helpful."

What is our primary use case?

We use Microsoft Azure Key Vault for the secret management side of things; that's where all our application secrets are stored.

How has it helped my organization?

This solution speeds up the product development life cycle. That is, the time from product development to market is drastically reduced because of the CI/CD pipelines. You can have your code deployed within a matter of minutes. The entire pipeline, unit testing, and insights, even on the mobile apps, are powerful. We can even obtain crash analytics. So the entire life cycle has been really fast. Also, it's pretty easy to develop and then deploy web services within a matter of minutes.

What is most valuable?

The DevOps pipelines and the ease with which you can deploy the code through the CI/CD pipelines have been valuable features.

What needs improvement?

Azure has great documentation, but I would like to see more use cases pertaining to specific industries. For example, case studies on how to use HIPAA compliant solutions in the healthcare industry or how to use PCI compliant data analytics solutions in the financial technology industry would be helpful.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for more than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I think the stability is great.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I think Microsoft Azure Key Vault is very scalable.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support has been absolutely splendid.

What other advice do I have?

Overall, I would rate this solution at nine, on a scale from one to ten. 

However, if you're not looking to have your application tied to one cloud provider, then you should stay away from this solution. Once you are tied to a particular cloud provider, coming out of it will be very difficult.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Azure Key Vault Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: June 2025
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Azure Key Vault Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.