# Google Cloud Secret Manager vs Keeper Secrets Manager

> Google Cloud Secret Manager scores 76.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Keeper Secrets Manager's 69.4 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Keeper Secrets Manager leads on maintenance & community. Both do secrets store. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-secret-manager-vs-keeper-secrets-manager
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-secret-manager-vs-keeper-secrets-manager.md (~2,700 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-secret-manager-vs-keeper-secrets-manager.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/google-secret-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

Google Cloud Secret Manager scores 76.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Keeper Secrets Manager's 69.4 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Keeper Secrets Manager leads on maintenance & community. Both do secrets store.

- Google Cloud Secret Manager: grade BB, 76.5/100, rank #28 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/google-secret-manager.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/google-secret-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

### Google Cloud Secret Manager (BB)

Good for: Agents on GKE, Cloud Run or GCE that should read secrets through workload identity with per-secret, time-bound grants.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 87 against 76
- Schema & documentation, 83 against 71
- Agent ergonomics, 82 against 63
- Transparency & trust, 83 against 78

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

Watch for: Managed rotation only covers Cloud SQL; other rotation is a Pub/Sub notification you handle

### 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 87

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 | Google Cloud Secret Manager | Keeper Secrets Manager | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 87 | 76 | Google Cloud Secret Manager +11 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 83 | 71 | Google Cloud Secret Manager +12 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 63 | Google Cloud Secret Manager +19 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 85 | 86 | Keeper Secrets Manager +1 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 20 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 87 | 92 | Keeper Secrets Manager +5 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 83 | 78 | Google Cloud Secret Manager +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **76.5 · BB** | **69.4 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Google Cloud Secret Manager | Keeper Secrets Manager |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Google Cloud | Keeper Security, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://secretmanager.googleapis.com/v1` | no (local only) |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Paid |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 (client libraries) | 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 | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-09-14 | 2026-10-06 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-09-02 | no date given |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-10-01 | no date given |
| Customer content may train models | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 4.2M npm/wk, 13.6M PyPI/wk | 117 stars, 52k npm/wk, 45k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 3.6/5 (8) | none |

## Verdicts

**Google Cloud Secret Manager.** Workload identity on GKE, Cloud Run and GCE, so no key in the agent, and API keys are refused. Managed rotation only covers Cloud SQL; other rotation is a Pub/Sub notification you handle.

**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

### Google Cloud Secret Manager

1. Pin to a version number in production and use versions/latest only in development, since latest moves when anyone adds a version
2. Grant roles/secretmanager.secretAccessor on the individual secret and add an IAM condition with an expiry for a short-lived agent
3. Turn on Data Access audit logs for secretmanager.googleapis.com if you need a record of each read
4. Read once per run and cache; accesses past 10,000 a month are metered
5. Use a regional secret (projects/*/locations/*/secrets/*) when the data must stay in one place, and note the higher write quota there

### 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, Google Cloud Secret Manager or Keeper Secrets Manager?

Google Cloud Secret Manager scores 76.5 (BB) on agent readiness against Keeper Secrets Manager's 69.4 (B), and leads in 4 of 7 scored categories. Keeper Secrets Manager leads on maintenance & community.

### Do Google Cloud Secret Manager and Keeper Secrets Manager need an API key?

Google Cloud Secret Manager uses an OAuth sign-in. Keeper Secrets Manager needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Google Cloud Secret Manager and Keeper Secrets Manager without installing anything?

Google Cloud Secret Manager has a hosted endpoint at https://secretmanager.googleapis.com/v1. Keeper Secrets Manager runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed.


## For agents

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

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