Infisical vs. GCP Secret Manager
GCP Secret Manager only manages secrets on Google Cloud. Infisical manages secrets for any infrastructure, rotates them automatically, and syncs into Secret Manager.
The Secret Manager way
Work on Google Cloud only and write rotations yourself.
- Create secret
- laptop
- rotate-stripe-key: Permission 'secretmanager.versions.add' denied
- Grant access
- laptop
- Enable Data Access audit logs
- Prod secret access for the data team: Waiting on a role grant in payments-prod
- Sam, data team: Our AWS jobs need the Stripe key too. Do we copy it over by hand?
The Infisical way
Secrets for every environment in one place.
What's the difference between Infisical and GCP Secret Manager?
Secret Manager stores secrets for Google Cloud. Infisical automates secrets management across Google Cloud projects, other clouds, and on-prem.
Deploy/integrate
Infisical- Use managed cloud, or self-host on Docker, Kubernetes, Linux, AWS ECS, or Google GKE
- Sync into Secret Manager in any project, globally or per region
GCP Secret Manager- Create a project for each environment, as Google recommends
Migrate/onboard
Infisical- Import secrets from Secret Manager
- Add secrets from .env files or other stores
GCP Secret Manager- Grant IAM roles to each new app in every project it reads from
Control access
Infisical- Scope roles to projects, environments, and folders
- Define secret change approval policies
GCP Secret Manager- Grant IAM roles per project or per secret
- No approval before a secret changes
Operate
Infisical- See all secrets, projects, and environments in one dashboard
- Run apps locally with secrets injected by the CLI
GCP Secret Manager- Switch projects in the console to find a secret
- Pin version numbers or move aliases to roll back
Automate
Infisical- Rotate database passwords, GCP service account keys, and SaaS API keys out of the box
- Sync secrets to 52+ destinations, Secret Manager included
GCP Secret Manager- Write and maintain a function for every rotation
- Script copies to other clouds and CI yourself
Audit
Infisical- See every secret read and change in the audit log
- Stream audit logs to Splunk, Datadog, and other SIEMs
GCP Secret Manager- Enable Data Access logs before secret reads are recorded
Scale
Infisical- Give workloads on AWS, Azure, Kubernetes, or on-prem their own identities
- Manage certificates, privileged access, KMS, and AI agent access in the same platform
GCP Secret Manager- Set up Workload Identity Federation for every workload outside Google Cloud
Infisical vs. GCP Secret Manager at a glance
Secret Manager holds secrets for Google Cloud services. Infisical manages secrets on Google Cloud and beyond it for any team or environment.
| Feature |  | GCP Secret Manager |
|---|---|---|
| Open sourceWhether the source code is public and auditable for your team. | MIT-licensed, 30,000+ GitHub stars | |
| Self-hostingRunning the product in your dedicated cloud or on-premises infrastructure. | Docker, Kubernetes, Linux, AWS ECS, or Google GKE | Google Cloud only |
| Managed cloudA version the vendor hosts and operates for you. | US and EU regions | |
| Product scopeWhat Infisical and GCP Secret Manager cover beyond secrets management. | Secrets, certificates, privileged access, AI agents, and KMS | Secrets only |
| Secret structureHow secrets are organized. | Projects with environments, folders, and references | A flat list per project, a project per environment |
| Secret rotationRevoking the old credential and issuing a new, valid one (on a schedule or on demand). | Built in for dozens of credentials | Write and maintain your own code |
| Dynamic secretsShort-lived credentials created on demand and revoked automatically when they expire. | GCP IAM, databases, Kubernetes, and more | |
| Syncs and integrationsPushing secrets wherever apps run e.g. cloud secret stores and CI/CD. | 52+ destinations, including GCP Secret Manager | Kubernetes Secrets on GKE, nothing outside Google Cloud |
| KubernetesDelivering secrets into workloads running on Kubernetes. | Operator, CSI provider, or agent injector | GKE only |
| Access controlRules for who can see things or make changes. | Roles scoped to environments and folders, plus ABAC | IAM roles per project or secret |
| Workload authenticationHow apps and pipelines prove their identity. | Native AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes, OIDC, and SPIFFE identities | IAM, federated outside Google Cloud |
| Approval workflowsRequiring sign-off for sensitive changes or access. | Access grants only, through Privileged Access Manager | |
| SAML SSOSigning in through an identity provider like Okta or Microsoft Entra ID. | Through Cloud Identity or workforce federation | |
| SCIMCreating and removing user accounts via your identity provider. | Through Cloud Identity | |
| Audit log retentionHow long audit logs are kept and where. | Searchable, and streams to SIEMs like Splunk, Datadog, and others | Secret reads logged only once enabled, 30 days by default |
| Agent security productWhether the vendor has a dedicated product built to secure AI agents. | Agent Vault, plus agent access in PAM | Agent Identity and its auth manager |
| Credentials kept from the agentWhether an agent holds plaintext credentials or not. | Agent never sees any secret | |
| Agent access to infrastructureHow agents reach sensitive infrastructure. | Databases, servers, and clusters, with approvals and session recording | IAM roles on the agent's identity |
Use GCP Secret Manager and Infisical together
Keep GCP Secret Manager for Google Cloud workloads, but use Infisical to manage secrets.
Secrets sync in
Manage secrets in Infisical, but sync into Secret Manager so Google Cloud services keep reading as they used to.
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know. Can't find an answer? Talk to our team.
GCP Secret Manager has a small free tier. Organizations exceeding it get charged per active secret version per location per month, per 10,000 access operations, and per rotation notification. Each location in a user-managed replication policy is billed separately. The larger cost is usually the work around it: the rotation functions, Pub/Sub subscribers, and IAM grants a team writes and maintains across projects. Infisical rotates and syncs secrets out of the box and has a free tier.
On Google Cloud, you can use both. Google Cloud services read secrets from Secret Manager, and Infisical syncs into it. This combines the native connection between Secret Manager and Google Cloud services with the upsides of Infisical: automated rotation, environments, self-hosting, and multi-cloud functionality.
Not without manual workarounds you need to write and maintain. A rotation schedule sends a Pub/Sub message, and you need to write code to create the new credential, add it as a version, and roll it out. Infisical rotates database passwords, GCP service account keys, and SaaS API keys out of the box and syncs the new values into Secret Manager.
No. Secrets sit in a flat list per project, and Google recommends a separate project for each environment, so dev, staging, and prod each need their own secrets and IAM grants. Infisical keeps each app in one project with environments and folders.
Yes, but every workload outside Google Cloud needs Workload Identity Federation: a workload identity pool, a provider, attribute mappings, and IAM grants. Secret Manager doesn't sync to other clouds or CI/CD platforms. Infisical authenticates AWS, GCP, Azure, Kubernetes, and OIDC workloads natively and syncs secrets to 52+ destinations, Secret Manager included.
Only once you turn it on. Reading a secret is recorded in Data Access audit logs, which Google Cloud disables by default, and enabling them can add logging charges. Infisical records every secret read and change in its audit log and streams it to SIEMs like Splunk and Datadog.
Google Cloud offers Agent Identity, whose auth manager stores API keys and OAuth tokens and hands them to the agent at runtime. Infisical Agent Vault uses a credential brokering approach to give agents access to services without holding credentials. For databases, servers, and clusters, Infisical PAM gives agents the same roles, approvals, and session recording as people.
How to migrate from GCP Secret Manager to Infisical
Most teams keep Secret Manager in place for Google Cloud and move secret management to Infisical one app at a time.
- 01
Connect Google Cloud
Add a GCP connection in Infisical through a service account Infisical impersonates.
- 02
Import one app
Create a Secret Manager sync for a first, non-critical app and import the secrets it already holds.
- 03
Manage it in Infisical
Edit and rotate the app's secrets in Infisical. Infisical syncs with Secret Manager.
- 04
Repeat for every app
Bring other apps over the same way and retire their rotation functions. Workloads outside Google Cloud read from Infisical directly.
Our team can help you plan and run the migration.
Start managing secrets, then add certificates, privileged access, KMS, or agent access.
Add products when you need them, on the platform you already run.
- OpenAI: API, Codex
- Let's Encrypt
- Vercel
- Gemini CLI
- Apache Airflow
- Spring Boot
- OpenCode
- DigiCert
- Jenkins
- Terraform: Terraform, Terraform Cloud
- Render
- Azure: Key Vault, App Configuration, DevOps, Entra ID, CLI
- NetScaler
- Databricks
- KMIP
- GoDaddy
- Pulumi
- Okta
- Ansible
- Cloudflare: Workers, Pages, Custom certificates
- Sectigo
- Laravel
- Hermes
- SAP HANA
- ClickHouse
- OpenRouter
- Supabase
- Docker
- Snowflake
- Venafi
- Rails
- Humanitec
- Tailscale
- 1Password
- OpenClaw
- Cassandra
- Northflank
- Redis
- Datadog
- Google Cloud: Secret Manager, Certificate Manager, IAM, KMS
- Dell PowerEdge
- Bitbucket
- Claude Code
- Railway
- dbt Cloud
- Windows Server
- Chef
- .NET
- PostgreSQL
- AWS: Secrets Manager, Parameter Store, Certificate Manager, Elastic Load Balancing, Private CA, IAM, KMS, CloudHSM, ECS, Amplify
- Linux servers
- Auth0
- Oracle: Oracle Database, OCI Vault
- Octopus Deploy
- Fly.io
- MySQL
- F5 BIG-IP
- LDAP
- TeamCity
- Qovery
- Nutanix Prism Central
- Microsoft: Active Directory, AD CS
- Windmill
- LiteLLM
- Netlify
- RabbitMQ
- Spacelift
- Kubernetes
- CircleCI
- GitLab
- SQL Server
- Stripe
- DigitalOcean
- GitHub: GitHub, GitHub Actions
- Couchbase
- MongoDB: MongoDB, MongoDB Atlas
- Heroku
- SSH
- Salesforce
- HashiCorp Vault
- Travis CI
- Kemp LoadMaster
- Next.js
- Django
- Sigstore Cosign
- Elasticsearch
- Secrets ManagementToday
- Certificate ManagementWhen you need it
- Privileged Access ManagementWhen you need it
- KMSWhen you need it
- Agent VaultWhen you need it
Talk to our team
Starting with Infisical is simple, fast, and free.
- Secures 10 billion secrets every day
- SOC 2, HIPAA, and FIPS 140-3 compliant
- Open source, in our cloud or yours
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