# Keeper Secrets Manager vs Phase

> Keeper Secrets Manager scores 69.4 (B) on agent readiness against Phase's 68 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Phase leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do secrets store. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/keeper-secrets-manager-vs-phase
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/keeper-secrets-manager-vs-phase.md (~2,600 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/keeper-secrets-manager-vs-phase.min.md (~730 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/keeper-secrets-manager-vs-phase.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

Keeper Secrets Manager scores 69.4 (B) on agent readiness against Phase's 68 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Phase leads on reliability and payments & pricing. Both do secrets store.

- 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
- Phase: grade B, 68/100, rank #194 of 722. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/phase.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/phase.json

## Which one, for what

### 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:
- Schema & documentation, 71 against 58
- Agent ergonomics, 63 against 56
- Maintenance & community, 92 against 83
- Transparency & trust, 78 against 73

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

### Phase (B)

Good for: Small teams that want an open-source secrets manager hosted in the EU or self-hosted, with coding agents kept away from values through the CLI.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 91 against 76
- Payments & pricing, 25 against 20

Also in its favour:
- A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install
- Open source

Watch for: No OpenAPI document was found. The REST reference is prose with examples, covering 47 operations


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Keeper Secrets Manager | Phase | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 76 | 91 | Phase +15 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 71 | 58 | Keeper Secrets Manager +13 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 63 | 56 | Keeper Secrets Manager +7 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 86 | 83 | Keeper Secrets Manager +3 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 25 | Phase +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 92 | 83 | Keeper Secrets Manager +9 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 78 | 73 | Keeper Secrets Manager +5 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **69.4 · B** | **68 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Keeper Secrets Manager | Phase |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Keeper Security, Inc. | Phi Security Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://api.phase.dev` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Paid | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under Keeper's SaaS Terms of Use. The SDKs, CLI, MCP server and agent kit on GitHub are MIT | MIT outside the `ee/` directories, which are under the proprietary Phase Console Enterprise licence |
| Tools exposed | 19 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | yes | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| Last release | 2026-10-06 | 2026-10-04 |
| Terms last updated | no date given | 2025-10-06 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no date given | 2026-03-11 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 117 stars, 52k npm/wk, 45k PyPI/wk | 928 stars, 2.5k npm/wk, 235 PyPI/wk |

## Verdicts

**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.

**Phase.** Service account tokens can be minted with an expiry over the API, every secret read is logged, and the CLI redacts values when it detects an AI agent. No OpenAPI document or pagination was found in the reviewed documentation, and the Free plan keeps audit logs for 24 hours.

## Before you call either

### 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

### Phase

1. Enable server-side encryption on the app before calling `/v1/secrets`. Without it the REST API cannot read or write that app's secrets
2. Send `Authorization: Bearer ServiceAccount <token>` for a service account and `Bearer User <token>` for a personal access token. The token type is part of the header
3. Stay under 120 requests a minute per account on Free and 240 on Pro, and wait the seconds in the `retry-after` header on a 429
4. Treat a 409 on `POST /v1/secrets` as the key already existing at that path, and use `PUT` to change it. Rotating secrets reject `PUT` and `DELETE`
5. Have a person run `phase ai enable` and choose masked values. The CLI blocks an agent from running `phase ai enable` or `phase ai disable` itself

## Questions

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

Keeper Secrets Manager scores 69.4 (B) on agent readiness against Phase's 68 (B), and leads in 5 of 7 scored categories. Phase leads on reliability and payments & pricing.

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

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

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

Keeper Secrets Manager runs on your own machine, with no hosted endpoint listed. Phase has a hosted endpoint at https://api.phase.dev.

### Are Keeper Secrets Manager and Phase open source?

No open-source release is listed for Keeper Secrets Manager. Phase is open source (MIT outside the `ee/` directories, which are under the proprietary Phase Console Enterprise licence).


## For agents

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

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