Akeyless vs HashiCorp Vault (2026): which should you pick?

Pick Akeyless if

• Fits if one platform should hold both employee passwords and machine secrets
• Makes sense if you need SSO sign-in and audit trails on a vault

Look elsewhere if

• Not for you if you want a personal password manager, as it is built for companies
• Tight if you have more than 3 users or 50 passwords on the free plan
• Watch out: Enterprise pricing is not published and depends on user counts
• Watch out: going over a purchased user quota is invoiced at the end of the 12-month contract
• Skip it if you need desktop or phone apps, as only web and an extension are listed

Pick HashiCorp Vault if

• Fits if you are a platform or security team handing secrets to software
• Works for teams that mix on-premises and cloud and can run their own service

Look elsewhere if

• Not for you if you want browser autofill for personal logins
• Skip it if nobody on your team can run and secure a server
• Watch out: Enterprise features need a licence and no prices could be read
• Too light for phones, as no mobile apps are listed

Akeyless

• Enterprise pricing is not published; it is quoted per contract and depends on user counts.
• The password manager is one product in a larger platform built for companies, not for individual consumers.
• The free plan is capped at 3 users and 50 stored passwords, with audit logs kept for 3 days.
• Overage beyond a purchased user quota is invoiced at the end of the 12-month contract.

HashiCorp Vault

• No prices could be read: the vendor's pricing pages sit behind a bot check.
• It is infrastructure software for operators, not a personal password manager with browser autofill.
• Enterprise features need a license; the install docs now call the free edition IBM Vault Community Edition.
• A Community edition is installable on macOS, Windows and Linux, but is run and secured by you.

Akeyless

Passwords, passkeys and secrets together

Stores passwords, passkeys, static secrets, rotated secrets and dynamic secrets in one vault, with central password generation policies.

Rotated and dynamic secrets

Credentials can change on a schedule or on demand, or expire after use, to cut down on long-lived shared passwords.

Controlled sharing

Share credentials with employees, contractors and third parties through role- and attribute-based access, with time limits.

Identity provider sign-in

Signs users in through SAML, OIDC, Google, GitHub and other identity providers, and enforces MFA through them.

Item-level audit logs

Tracks access to each credential and can stream logs to SIEM and compliance tools; the free plan keeps audit logs for 3 days.

Personal and corporate separation

Employees keep personal credentials apart from business-owned ones, which security teams can govern.

HashiCorp Vault

Static secrets

Stores and controls access to credentials, tokens and other sensitive data, reachable through a UI, CLI or HTTP API.

Database credentials

A database secrets engine handles the credential lifecycle for database access.

Encryption as a service

Encrypts data in transit and at rest so applications need not hold raw keys or handle encryption themselves.

Certificates and identities

The docs list certificate management and identity and authentication management among the things Vault handles.

Audit logging

Audit logging is part of the platform, supporting the compliance use cases listed in the docs.

Enterprise features

Enterprise adds items such as HSM support, namespaces, Sentinel policies and disaster recovery replication.

Akeyless

• Free$0

  Password Manager limits listed: 3 users, 50 passwords (static secrets), unlimited roles and groups, 3 days of audit logs.

• EnterpriseCustom

  Contract priced by users, with limits up to 100K passwords or custom. Sold through sales.

HashiCorp Vault

Pricing could not be confirmed. See developer.hashicorp.com.