Phase vs Secrets Manager

Phase is an open-source platform for managing application secrets from development through production. It runs as a managed cloud service or on your infrastructure, including in air-gapped environments. Phase says end-to-end encryption is enabled by default, with servers storing ciphertext in that mode. Its CLI keeps secrets encrypted at rest locally and can inject them while offline; it also installs skills for Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, OpenCode, and VS Code Copilot to work with secrets using natural language. Teams can assign managed or custom roles by app and environment, set IP allow-lists, review records of access and changes, and use point-in-time rollback. Integrations include AWS, Azure, HashiCorp Vault, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloudflare, GitHub, GitLab, Vercel, and Railway. Phase lists SOC 2 Type 2 and penetration testing by Oneleet. The Free plan is limited to 5 users or service accounts, 3 apps, and 3 environments. Pro costs $10 per month, billed annually at $120 ($144 shown), with a 14-day trial.

Secrets Manager is a free, open-source, self-hosted system for storing application secrets in encrypted form, managing them through a web interface, and injecting them into processes with a command-line tool. Users organize secrets by organization, project, and environment, import.env files, edit or reveal values, keep versions, roll back, and soft-delete entries. The `secrets run` command supplies environment secrets to a child process and its descendants without creating a.env file. Documented workflows cover Node.js, Python, npm, and Next.js; CI or deployment can use an API URL, token, and environment ID. User and service-account grants can be scoped to projects or environments, and revealing values requires explicit permission. AES-256-GCM envelope encryption uses a separate data key per value, while plaintext values are not stored in the database. Audit events include secret reveals, and values are withheld if audit writing fails. Docker Compose starts PostgreSQL, Redis, backend, and frontend; local Kubernetes manifests are also provided. A user-generated master key is mandatory and lost keys make secrets unrecoverable. The repository is MIT licensed.