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AWS Certificate Manager vs Azure Key Vault comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Feb 8, 2026

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

AWS Certificate Manager
Ranking in Certificate Management Software
3rd
Average Rating
9.8
Reviews Sentiment
8.7
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
Azure Key Vault
Ranking in Certificate Management Software
1st
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
7.1
Number of Reviews
52
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Password Managers (1st), Microsoft Security Suite (20th), Secrets Management Tools (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of June 2026, in the Certificate Management Software category, the mindshare of AWS Certificate Manager is 12.1%, down from 30.2% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Azure Key Vault is 16.8%, down from 31.7% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Certificate Management Software Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Azure Key Vault16.8%
AWS Certificate Manager12.1%
Other71.1%
Certificate Management Software
 

Featured Reviews

SK
Senior IT Auditor at Ernst & Young
Have experienced several challenges while managing certificate lifecycle processes
The renewal function and automated certificate renewal are very helpful for our operations. AWS Certificate Manager provides central control of certificate lifecycle management, which helps to improve security. It streamlines the process and reduces human error. I use ACM Private Certificate Authority for additional security measures. I see benefits of using AWS Certificate Manager in integration with AWS for secure data transmission. I see a positive impact in managing SSL and TLS certificates, which simplifies compliance and reduces risk.
Rajthilak BS - PeerSpot reviewer
Associate Vice President (Data Security & Protection - Confidential AI) at Standard Chartered Bank
Have addressed compliance challenges but still struggle with seamless integration of certificate issuance between environments
In terms of Azure Key Vault improvements, we have to compare the competitor. If we consider AWS, our bank has Microsoft PKI, which is a Microsoft product, for the entire digital certificate infrastructure. Even in the cloud, when it is AWS, the internal certificates are MS PKI. When we had a problem, users had to come to on-premise to get a certificate and import it to AWS Certificate Manager and assign it. We wondered why we could not issue the certificate directly from the cloud for cloud users. There was a simple way in AWS. They have a Private Certificate Authority (PCA) and Amazon Certificate Manager. Private Certificate Authority issues certificates to Amazon services. They also provide Amazon Certificate Manager to store and deploy certificates. These are two neat components - one is an issuer and another is storage and deployment solutions for certificates. With PCA, I can directly enable it and get certificates from AWS itself. AWS can issue SSL/TLS certificates if you enable it directly. If you consider Azure, it is not very clear. Even the naming convention, Key Vault, might not suggest that this is a PKI or certificate manager. You cannot issue certificates directly. They have app certificates and did not have a clear-cut certificate management solution in the cloud when I worked at that time. I am not sure whether they have updated Azure Key Vault as a full-fledged PKI solution now. From what I saw, it was not a full-fledged PKI solution. We are not majorly using Azure Key Vault because it is only for storing secrets. If some solutions can provide guidance on how we can maximize leverage, we can immediately look forward to doing that. We already have some business problems we want to solve. While our primary focus is AWS, many of the services such as ADO are running on Azure, and the secondary services are growing bigger.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"It is easy to generate, easy to use, easy to integrate, and very cost-effective."
"It offers encryption with specific algorithms for better management."
"The solution has an import dashboard where we can import the certificates or create new certificates."
"The most valuable features are definitely the alerts."
"AWS Certificate Manager provides central control of certificate lifecycle management, which helps to improve security."
"The integration management of access to Key Vault is beneficial for me."
"There is advanced data protection available. We're working in a highly regulated environment, and this is essential to us."
"We use Azure Key Vault to store secrets."
"Its customer service is excellent."
"It helps me increase my security posture and assists with regulatory and compliance requirements."
"The most valuable aspect of the product is its ability to keep our admin password accounts for keys and a lot of our high-value assets."
"The best feature is the integrity of the .NET applications in our company."
"The access policy feature helps secure content and resources."
 

Cons

"Currently, there is no option to customize beyond the default settings, and it would be beneficial to have the ability to customize certificates to fit specific requirements."
"One potential improvement could be enabling the extraction of the certificate as a file to be used outside of AWS, even with an additional charge."
"Maybe more integration with third-party certificate authorities would be useful."
"Better reporting features would be beneficial."
"The AWS Certificate Manager's technical support team is sometimes unavailable."
"The solution needs to improve reliability and protection."
"If multiple clouds are to be used it can be difficult and a third party should assist in the implementation."
"However, if you're not looking to have your application tied to one cloud provider, then you should stay away from this solution."
"The initial setup could be less complex for first-time users."
"The slow response from the support team is one of the shortcomings of the solution that needs to be improved."
"Inability to access the solution on the phone."
"The whole problem of password rotation could be improved."
"Microsoft Azure Key Vault could improve by enhancing the security of credentials. Without the security or the use of key vaults, we would have to configure our credentials into the source code as plain text without the encryption or security."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

Information not available
"Pricing is quite reasonable and support is included, although premium support is available for an additional fee."
"Azure is cheaper than CyberArk... CyberArk is good, but it's quite expensive."
"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."
"There are no extra costs beyond the standard fees, beyond maybe data transfer charges. It's $0.025 per 10,000 data transactions, so it is quite cheap."
"Azure Key Vault is expensive."
"Currently, the solution's pricing is based on the number of transactions, which is very high in some cases."
"I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten."
"We use a pay-as-you-go license for the solution, which is not very expensive."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Computer Software Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Computer Software Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
No data available
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business15
Midsize Enterprise11
Large Enterprise27
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with AWS Certificate Manager?
While AWS Certificate Manager works well within AWS, one limitation is that it is tightly coupled with AWS services. Exporting certificates for use outside AWS is not straightforward unless you use...
What is your primary use case for AWS Certificate Manager?
My primary use case for AWS Certificate Manager is to manage SSL/TLS certificates for securing applications running on AWS services like Application Load Balancer, CloudFront, and API Gateway. In d...
What advice do you have for others considering AWS Certificate Manager?
My advice would be to use AWS Certificate Manager if you are already operating within AWS, as it simplifies certificate management significantly. I would also recommend using Route 53 for DNS valid...
Which is better - Azure Key Vault or AWS Secrets Manager?
Azure Key Vault is a SaaS solution. You can easily store passwords and secrets securely and encrypt them. Azure Key Vault is a great solution to ensure you are compliant with security and governanc...
What needs improvement with Microsoft Azure Key Vault?
Based on my three years of experience, I believe there have been no updates to Azure Key Vault. I think the product needs upgrades in terms of access control and certification improvements. While A...
 

Also Known As

No data available
Microsoft Azure Key Vault, MS Azure Key Vault
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Expedia, Intuit, Royal Dutch Shell, Brooks Brothers
Adobe, DriveTime, Johnson Controls, HP, InterContinental Hotels Group, ASOS
Find out what your peers are saying about AWS Certificate Manager vs. Azure Key Vault and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
900,747 professionals have used our research since 2012.