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CyberArk Secrets Management vs HashiCorp Vault comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

CyberArk Secrets Management
Ranking in Enterprise Password Managers
17th
Ranking in Secrets Management Tools
5th
Average Rating
7.2
Reviews Sentiment
5.9
Number of Reviews
5
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
HashiCorp Vault
Ranking in Enterprise Password Managers
4th
Ranking in Secrets Management Tools
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
27
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of January 2026, in the Enterprise Password Managers category, the mindshare of CyberArk Secrets Management is 0.7%, up from 0.0% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of HashiCorp Vault is 7.7%, down from 13.2% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Enterprise Password Managers Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
HashiCorp Vault7.7%
CyberArk Secrets Management0.7%
Other91.6%
Enterprise Password Managers
 

Featured Reviews

RJ
Senior Member Of Technical Staff at a energy/utilities company with 10,001+ employees
Helps with compliance and improves operational flexibility
We have had both on-premises and SaaS models. The on-premise setup was a little difficult, but now that it has been moved to the SaaS model, everything is controlled by CyberArk. We just go and do our work. The initial on-premises setup took two weeks because it was an integrated effort. I had to spin up the servers and bring in the CyberArk Secrets Management resource to deploy the scripts. I then had to open networks and firewalls between CyberArk Secrets Management's on-premise servers and the application server. In the initial phase, it took two to three weeks, but it became easier when moving to the SaaS model. In terms of maintenance, it requires patching or upgrades, which happens one day in a month. If there is a failure, we have to roll back and try once again, which takes more time, but if everything goes smoothly, there is three to five hours of downtime.
Manish Indupuri - PeerSpot reviewer
senior DevOps engineer at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Centralized secret management has strengthened security and simplified compliance across cloud-native environments
Configuring HashiCorp Vault since we are mainly using it in Kubernetes or OpenShift clusters took some time and effort to align with our deployment. The initial setup can be a little confusing and complex for someone who is newer. However, it is not impossible to achieve, but it will take some time to understand the product. The ACLs within HashiCorp Vault, such as policies and AppRole authentication, were not intuitive at first. However, we slowly became habituated to the product once we began using it. Once we moved past the learning curve of these challenges, HashiCorp Vault becomes a critical security layer of our workloads. The only minor challenge is the initial setup complexity, especially for teams new to HashiCorp Vault's authentication methods and storage backends. Other than that, it works flawlessly.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"One of the most important features for us is the system's performance, particularly its speed of retrieving secrets."
"The automatic rotation of the password is the top feature."
"It's vital for effectively managing and securing my credentials."
"The audit trails have been extremely important for us in helping our organization meet regulatory requirements."
"With CyberArk Secrets Management, we were able to resolve the automatic change of the passwords based on timelines. We were also able to retrieve the passwords in an encrypted format by utilizing the CyberArk platform, which was not provided to us by UiPath."
"CyberArk's support team is knowledgeable and helpful, consistently responding on time."
"CyberArk Secrets Management is a critical solution for strengthening our security posture."
"The granular controls of CyberArk Secrets Management are very niche in their development and very secure from the overall secret management perspective, offering high-level functionalities where we have control over user access, which can be tracked and monitored."
"HashiCorp Vault has positively impacted security governance that we have by greatly reducing the risk of a leak and then a bypass, but overall, it's increased the security of our organization."
"It can still be configured by a separate team other than developers. That's why I think it's more secure."
"The most valuable feature of HashiCorp Vault is the management of tickets in the pipeline."
"It is user-friendly and easy to implement from any application point."
"HashiCorp Vault has positively impacted my organization because several teams use it in the same way for an automated process with GitHub Actions or other pipeline tools."
"For me, the most valuable features include that it's easy to manage and maintain the password API for retrieving passwords and other things."
"It is a good product to consider for companies who are looking to build on-premise or hybrid infrastructure."
"We were using it because we have compliance requirements around secret management. Having a secure vault and encrypting data was an additional requirement. When we looked at it first, we were just looking for a vault, like a lockbox. The greatest benefit of HashiCorp is its ability to manage encryption on the fly. It provides encryption of data at rest, in use, in transit, on the fly, and linked with applications, which was really attractive."
 

Cons

"We occasionally experience incidents that delay password injection back into the script."
"There is room for improvement with better documentation and less need for CyberArk Secrets Management personnel to assist us with their presence."
"Implementing it and ensuring seamless password rotations present challenges."
"Improvements for CyberArk Secrets Management include enhanced documentation with more use cases and step-by-step integration guides."
"Implementation was complex and required professional services."
"The password search feature and integration between different vaults could be enhanced. For instance, when updating passwords in both lower and higher environment vaults, improvement is required in search and upgrade functions."
"We did not have a good experience with technical support because their numerous processes caused delays in engaging, leading to project delays or issues with production."
"The technical support was hard to get a hold of and lacking in service."
"The solution could be much easier to implement."
"We could use more documentation, primarily to do with integrations."
"HashiCorp Vault is quite complex to use for new users and has a steep learning curve; I would consider the tool very good for highly advanced teams who manage huge numbers of credentials, but it's probably not very appropriate for smaller teams with maybe less experience using vaults such as this."
"The onboarding is a challenge. It should be more self-service, but it involves reviews and approvals."
"One of the challenges we had was that we used a really old version, so part of what we plan for this year is to migrate it to at least a supported version."
"The solution's initial setup process is complicated."
"In my opinion, HashiCorp Vault could improve its user interface. Right now, they don't offer much in terms of a graphical interface, which means you usually have to manage things manually through API calls. I think CyberArk has a better approach because it provides a UI that integrates features across all its components, making it easier, especially for new users or those from organizations with strict licensing policies."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"CyberArk Secrets Management has a moderate pricing structure based on a per-tenant licensing model rather than a per-user account model like their PAM solution."
"It is in the middle. It is neither very cheap nor very expensive, so I would place it in the middle."
"The solution's cost is reasonable."
"It could do everything we wanted it to do and it is brilliant, but it is super pricey. To be fair to HashiCorp, we drove the price up with our requirements around resiliency. Because of the nature of our company, we don't really operate in the cloud."
"The product is expensive."
"In my case, the open-source version works well. It's advisable for small to medium-scale organizations, but for large-scale organizations, you should go with the enterprise version."
"The AWS version is much cheaper than HashiCorp Vault."
"I am using the open-source version of Vault and I would have to buy a license if I want to get support."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Insurance Company
12%
Legal Firm
9%
Computer Software Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
19%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Large Enterprise6
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise4
Large Enterprise16
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with CyberArk Secrets Management?
The tool is very good, but the commercialized training, which is paid, could be improved. Regularizing those trainings as part of a global alliance between the customer, SI partner, and CyberArk wo...
What is your primary use case for CyberArk Secrets Management?
The main use case for CyberArk Secrets Management is application integrations and the CI and CD part. In CyberArk Secrets Management, there are a variety of tools that they cover, one being the Cre...
Which is better - HashiCorp Vault or AWS Secrets Manager?
HashiCorp Vault was designed with your needs in mind. One of the features that makes this evident is its ability to work as both a cloud-agnostic and a multi-cloud solution. As a cloud-agnostic sol...
What do you like most about HashiCorp Vault?
The feature I find most beneficial in HashiCorp Vault is the secret engine. It integrates smoothly with many applications, making it easy to set up and implement quickly. This allows you to test it...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for HashiCorp Vault?
The experience with pricing, setup costs, and licensing for HashiCorp Vault is generally managed by the client. They take care of all those aspects, and after onboarding HashiCorp Vault for our app...
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Information Not Available
Adobe, SAP Ariba, Citadel, Spaceflight, Cruise
Find out what your peers are saying about CyberArk Secrets Management vs. HashiCorp Vault and other solutions. Updated: January 2026.
881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.