# AWS Secrets Manager vs Keeper Secrets Manager

> AWS Secrets Manager scores 77.7 (BB) on agent readiness against Keeper Secrets Manager's 69.4 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Keeper Secrets Manager leads on maintenance & community. Both do secrets store. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aws-secrets-manager-vs-keeper-secrets-manager
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aws-secrets-manager-vs-keeper-secrets-manager.md (~2,650 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aws-secrets-manager-vs-keeper-secrets-manager.min.md (~830 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aws-secrets-manager-vs-keeper-secrets-manager.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-08

AWS Secrets Manager scores 77.7 (BB) on agent readiness against Keeper Secrets Manager's 69.4 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Keeper Secrets Manager leads on maintenance & community. Both do secrets store.

- AWS Secrets Manager: grade BB, 77.7/100, rank #18 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/aws-secrets-manager.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/aws-secrets-manager.json
- Keeper Secrets Manager: grade B, 69.4/100, rank #159 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/keeper-secrets-manager.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/keeper-secrets-manager.json

## Which one, for what

### AWS Secrets Manager (BB)

Good for: Agents running on AWS compute that should read credentials through a role with no key at all, and for RDS-family databases that need managed rotation.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 96 against 71
- Agent ergonomics, 90 against 63
- Security & auth, 91 against 86
- Payments & pricing, 30 against 20

Also in its favour:
- Agent-ready, a grade of BB or better
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install

Watch for: Every API call is billed, so per-request reads add up and the docs push you to cache

### Keeper Secrets Manager (B)

Good for: Companies already on Keeper's business vault that want per-device machine identities with client-side decryption and an official MCP server.

Ahead on:
- Maintenance & community, 92 against 65

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: Secrets Manager is priced by quote. The add-ons page shows Custom Pricing and Request a Quote


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | AWS Secrets Manager | Keeper Secrets Manager | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 77 | 76 | AWS Secrets Manager +1 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 96 | 71 | AWS Secrets Manager +25 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 90 | 63 | AWS Secrets Manager +27 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 91 | 86 | AWS Secrets Manager +5 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 30 | 20 | AWS Secrets Manager +10 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 65 | 92 | Keeper Secrets Manager +27 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 77 | 78 | Keeper Secrets Manager +1 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **77.7 · BB** | **69.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | AWS Secrets Manager | Keeper Secrets Manager |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Amazon Web Services | Keeper Security, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://secretsmanager.us-east-1.amazonaws.com` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Paid |
| Price for secrets store | $0.40 per month (plan) | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service under Keeper's SaaS Terms of Use. The SDKs, CLI, MCP server and agent kit on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | none | 19 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | yes |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | none | 2026-10-06 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-10-01 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-18 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | yes, with an opt-out | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 15.2M npm/wk, 578.4M PyPI/wk | 117 stars, 52k npm/wk, 45k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.9/5 (8) | none |

## Verdicts

**AWS Secrets Manager.** IAM roles support access without long-lived credentials on AWS compute services. Each API call is billed, making caching relevant to frequent reads.

**Keeper Secrets Manager.** Each client device signs requests with its own key, is locked to an IP address by default and can be revoked alone, and secrets decrypt only on the client. The add-on has no public price, no request limits were found in the reviewed documentation, and a person must create the application and device in the vault.

## Before you call either

### AWS Secrets Manager

1. Give the agent's task or instance role secretsmanager:GetSecretValue on the specific secret ARN, not a wildcard
2. Cache the value for the run, or read through the Workload Credentials Provider on localhost; each GetSecretValue is billed and logged
3. In Claude Code or Codex, install the aws-core plugin from the Agent Toolkit for AWS and pass secrets as {{resolve:secretsmanager:...}} references through asm-exec so values stay out of context
4. Pass a ClientRequestToken on PutSecretValue so a retry can't create a second version, and don't write more than once every 10 minutes
5. Read VersionStage AWSPREVIOUS if a rotation lands mid-run and the new credential isn't live yet

### Keeper Secrets Manager

1. Ask the vault owner for a new device on an application that holds only the folders the task needs. Use the Base64 configuration, not the first one-time token
2. Run commands under `ksm exec` so secrets arrive as environment variables and stay out of the model's context
3. Expect HTTP 403 with `{"error":"throttled"}` under load. The Python SDK retries five times from 11 seconds, so allow for long waits
4. A device is locked to the IP address it first connects from unless it was created with `--unlock-ip`. Check this before running from a dynamic address
5. Leave `--auto-approve` off on the MCP server. It removes confirmation for deletes and for unmasking values

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, AWS Secrets Manager or Keeper Secrets Manager?

AWS Secrets Manager scores 77.7 (BB) on agent readiness against Keeper Secrets Manager's 69.4 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Keeper Secrets Manager leads on maintenance & community.

### Do AWS Secrets Manager and Keeper Secrets Manager need an API key?

AWS Secrets Manager takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Keeper Secrets Manager needs an API key.

### Can an agent call AWS Secrets Manager and Keeper Secrets Manager without installing anything?

AWS Secrets Manager has a hosted endpoint at https://secretsmanager.us-east-1.amazonaws.com. Keeper Secrets Manager runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aws-secrets-manager-vs-keeper-secrets-manager.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/aws-secrets-manager-vs-keeper-secrets-manager.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "aws-secrets-manager", "b": "keeper-secrets-manager"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare aws-secrets-manager keeper-secrets-manager`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/aws-secrets-manager.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/keeper-secrets-manager.json

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