What's the Difference Between AWS KMS and AWS Secrets Manager?

Compare AWS KMS and AWS Secrets Manager side by side — features, pricing, and ideal use cases to help you choose the right product.

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Compare side-by-side

Comparisons	AWS KMS	AWS Secrets Manager
Category	Security, Key & secrets management	Security, Key & secrets management
Description	Managed creation and control of keys to encrypt or digitally sign data	Rotate, manage, and retrieve database credentials, API keys, and other secrets throughout their lifecycle.
Best for	Data encryption Digital signing Key management Regulatory compliance	Database credentials API keys OAuth tokens SSH keys Certificate management
Key features	Symmetric & asymmetric keys Automatic key rotation CloudTrail integration Custom key stores Multi-Region keys	Automatic rotation Fine-grained access control Cross-account access CloudFormation integration Audit with CloudTrail
Pricing model	Pay per key + API requests	Pay per secret per month + API calls
Free tier	Yes	No
Expert take	“KMS integrates with 100+ AWS services for encryption at rest and in transit. Use AWS-managed keys for simplicity or customer-managed keys when you need rotation control, cross-account access, or audit granularity. Key policies are the primary access control; IAM policies are secondary.” — Riku Kobayashi, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]	“Secrets Manager eliminates hardcoded credentials. Automatic rotation via Lambda functions means database passwords change on schedule without application downtime. The caching SDK reduces API calls and latency by storing secrets in memory with configurable TTLs.” — Oleksii Bebych, re:Post Top Contributor [profile]
Product page	Learn more about AWS KMS »	Learn more about AWS Secrets Manager »

When to use AWS KMS or AWS Secrets Manager

Use AWS KMS when:

Data encryption
Digital signing
Key management
Regulatory compliance

Learn more about AWS KMS »

Use AWS Secrets Manager when:

Database credentials
API keys
OAuth tokens
SSH keys
Certificate management

Learn more about AWS Secrets Manager »

Next steps with AWS for Security

Create a free account

Start building with AWS KMS and AWS Secrets Manager on the AWS Free Tier.

Get started with AWS KMS

Managed creation and control of keys to encrypt or digitally sign data

Get started with AWS Secrets Manager

Rotate, manage, and retrieve database credentials, API keys, and other secrets throughout their lifecycle.

Go to AWS Secrets Manager

AWS product comparisons

What's the difference between Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS?

Both are fully managed relational database services on AWS, but Aurora is a cloud-native engine built for higher performance and availability, while RDS gives you familiar open-source and commercial engines with less operational overhead than self-managed.

What's the difference between Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon RDS?

DynamoDB is a serverless NoSQL database for applications with well-defined access patterns that need consistent single-digit millisecond performance. RDS is a managed relational database for applications that need SQL, joins, and transactional integrity across multiple engines.

What's the difference between Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon Keyspaces?

Both are fully managed, serverless-capable NoSQL databases on AWS. DynamoDB is AWS-native with its own API and data model; Keyspaces is Apache Cassandra-compatible, letting you use existing Cassandra drivers, tools, and expertise.

What are the differences between Amazon DynamoDB and Amazon DocumentDB?

Both are fully managed NoSQL databases on AWS, but they serve different data models. DynamoDB is a key-value store optimized for known access patterns at massive scale; DocumentDB is a document database for flexible JSON schemas with MongoDB compatibility.

What's the difference between Amazon DocumentDB and Amazon Neptune?

Both handle semi-structured data, but they're optimized for different query patterns. DocumentDB stores and queries JSON documents; Neptune stores and traverses relationships between entities.

What's the difference between Amazon Aurora and Amazon RDS?

Both are fully managed relational database services on AWS, but Aurora is a cloud-native engine built for higher performance and availability, while RDS gives you familiar open-source and commercial engines with less operational overhead than self-managed.

What's the difference between Amazon Aurora and Amazon Neptune?

Both are purpose-built, fully managed AWS databases, but they solve fundamentally different problems. Aurora handles structured relational data with SQL; Neptune handles highly connected data where relationships between entities are the primary query pattern.

What's the difference between Amazon Aurora and Amazon DynamoDB?

Both are fully managed AWS database services, but they serve fundamentally different data models and access patterns. Aurora is a relational database for structured data with relationships; DynamoDB is a NoSQL key-value store built for single-digit millisecond performance at any scale.

What's the difference between Amazon RDS and Amazon Redshift?

Both run SQL queries, but they're optimized for fundamentally different workloads. RDS handles transactional operations (inserts, updates, lookups) for your application. Redshift handles analytical queries (aggregations, scans, joins across billions of rows) for your data team.

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