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AWS Secrets Manager VS Amazon ECS

Compare AWS Secrets Manager VS Amazon ECS and see what are their differences

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AWS Secrets Manager logo AWS Secrets Manager

AWS Secrets Manager to Rotate, Manage, Retrieve Secrets

Amazon ECS logo Amazon ECS

Amazon EC2 Container Service is a highly scalable, high-performance​ container management service that supports Docker containers.
  • AWS Secrets Manager Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-15
  • Amazon ECS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-05

AWS Secrets Manager features and specs

  • Automated Secret Rotation
    AWS Secrets Manager provides built-in support for automatic rotation of secrets, which enhances security by frequently changing passwords and other sensitive information.
  • Centralized Secret Management
    You can manage all your secrets from a single location, simplifying the process of keeping track of credentials, API keys, and other sensitive data across various applications and services.
  • Integration with AWS Services
    AWS Secrets Manager is well integrated with other AWS services such as RDS, Redshift, and IAM, making it easier to manage and retrieve secrets within the AWS ecosystem.
  • Fine-Grained Access Control
    Utilizes AWS IAM to provide fine-grained access control policies, allowing you to precisely define who can access specific secrets, enhancing security.
  • Secure Secret Storage
    Secrets are stored securely using encryption standards provided by AWS Key Management Service (KMS), ensuring that the data is protected both at rest and in transit.
  • Audit and Compliance
    AWS Secrets Manager facilitates compliance with regulatory requirements by providing logging and monitoring capabilities, enabling you to track access and changes to secrets.

Possible disadvantages of AWS Secrets Manager

  • Cost
    AWS Secrets Manager can be more expensive compared to other secret management solutions, especially as the number of stored secrets and API requests increase.
  • Vendor Lock-In
    Relying on AWS Secrets Manager can increase dependency on AWS services, which might be a drawback if you are considering a multi-cloud strategy.
  • Complexity
    The integration and setup process can be complex, especially for organizations without prior AWS experience, potentially requiring a steep learning curve.
  • API Limits
    AWS imposes API request limits, which might be restrictive for applications with high-frequency secret access needs, potentially resulting in throttling issues.
  • Regional Availability
    Not all AWS regions may support Secrets Manager, which can be a constraint for global applications that require multi-region deployments.

Amazon ECS features and specs

  • Cost-Effective
    Amazon ECS allows you to run only the computing resources you need. You can scale your services up or down based on demand, optimizing costs efficiently.
  • Integration with AWS Services
    ECS seamlessly integrates with other AWS services like IAM, VPC, CloudWatch, and more, providing a cohesive and robust ecosystem for your applications.
  • Ease of Use
    ECS is managed by AWS, reducing the complexity of setting up, operating, and scaling containerized applications. It handles orchestration tasks, simplifying deployment and management.
  • Security
    Offers strong security features like IAM roles for tasks, fine-tuned network policies, and encrypted traffic between services, ensuring robust security for your applications.
  • High Availability
    ECS leverages AWS’s global infrastructure, enabling you to deploy applications across multiple availability zones for high availability and fault tolerance.

Possible disadvantages of Amazon ECS

  • Complexity in Hybrid Environments
    Integrating ECS with non-AWS components in a hybrid cloud setup can be complex, requiring additional configuration and management effort.
  • Vendor Lock-In
    Being tightly integrated with AWS services means that migrating away from ECS to another container orchestration platform could be challenging and time-consuming.
  • Learning Curve
    While ECS simplifies many tasks, users still need to understand AWS services and best practices, creating a learning curve for those new to the AWS ecosystem.
  • Limited Multi-Cloud Support
    Unlike Kubernetes, which can be deployed in multi-cloud environments, ECS is mainly optimized for AWS, limiting its flexibility in multi-cloud strategies.
  • Dependency on AWS Infrastructure
    The performance and availability of ECS are dependent on AWS infrastructure, making it less appealing for organizations that need infrastructure independence.

Analysis of AWS Secrets Manager

Overall verdict

  • Yes, AWS Secrets Manager is a good choice for managing secrets.

Why this product is good

  • AWS Secrets Manager provides a secure and convenient way to store and manage sensitive information such as database credentials, API keys, and other secrets.
  • It supports automatic rotation of secrets, which enhances security by reducing the risk of exposure.
  • The service is integrated with AWS Identity and Access Management (IAM) to control access, ensuring that only authorized applications and users can access secrets.
  • It can seamlessly integrate with other AWS services, providing a cohesive and streamlined experience for users within the AWS ecosystem.
  • The pay-as-you-go pricing model makes it cost-effective for businesses of all sizes.

Recommended for

  • Companies using AWS services that need to manage a variety of secrets, from database credentials to API keys.
  • Organizations looking for a robust, scalable, and secure solution for secret management.
  • Development teams that require frequent secret updates and benefit from automated secret rotation.
  • Businesses that want to leverage AWS's security features, such as encryption and IAM integration, for protecting sensitive data.

Analysis of Amazon ECS

Overall verdict

  • Amazon ECS is a good choice for organizations that are heavily invested in the AWS ecosystem and require a managed container orchestration service. It is a stable and reliable option with comprehensive features and excellent performance, especially for large-scale deployments.

Why this product is good

  • Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) is a highly scalable and fast container management service that simplifies running, stopping, and managing containers on a cluster. ECS provides seamless integration with the AWS ecosystem, offering robust security, scalability, and reliability. It eliminates the need for cluster management, allowing teams to focus on their applications. Additionally, ECS is deeply integrated with Amazon services like IAM, CloudWatch, ALB, VPC, and others, making it a preferred choice for AWS users.

Recommended for

    ECS is recommended for development teams that prefer AWS-managed solutions, organizations seeking to streamline container deployments, and companies looking for secure and scalable orchestration without the overhead of managing Kubernetes. It is also ideal for enterprises that require tight integration with other AWS services.

AWS Secrets Manager videos

Understanding AWS Secrets Manager - AWS Online Tech Talks

More videos:

  • Review - AWS Secrets Manager
  • Tutorial - Python - How to access DB credentials from AWS Secrets Manager? | AWS Secrets Manager Tutorial

Amazon ECS videos

Amazon ECS: Core Concepts

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to AWS Secrets Manager and Amazon ECS)
Identity And Access Management
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Identity Provider
100 100%
0% 0
Cloud Computing
0 0%
100% 100

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare AWS Secrets Manager and Amazon ECS

AWS Secrets Manager Reviews

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Amazon ECS Reviews

The Top 7 Kubernetes Alternatives for Container Orchestration
Amazon ECS is a flexible, high-performing, scalable container management solution compatible with Docker containers that let you run your applications on a controlled group of Amazon EC2 instances. Through Amazon ECS, you don’t have to set up and manage the cluster’s management infrastructure or set up tasks. You can use the management tools of AWS Console or SDKs, AWS CLI...
Top 10 Best Container Software in 2022
If you are looking for great backup recovery and building cloud-native applications, then AWS Fartgate is one of the best tools. If you initially want to do POCs without investing much in infrastructure, then Amazon ECS is a good choice because of its pay per use pricing model.

Social recommendations and mentions

AWS Secrets Manager might be a bit more popular than Amazon ECS. We know about 77 links to it since March 2021 and only 52 links to Amazon ECS. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

AWS Secrets Manager mentions (77)

  • Do You Really Know Where Your API Keys End Up? A Security Guide for Fintech Developers
    Step 3. Use a Secrets Manager Environment variables have some limitations in production environments. Consider using a specialized secrets manager such as AWS Secrets Manager, Google Secret Manager, HashiCorp Vault, or Azure Key Vault. - Source: dev.to / 1 day ago
  • Your Plaintext Email is a DevSecOps Blind Spot
    A Hardened Channel for Sensitive Communication: While dedicated secrets management tools (like HashiCorp Vault, AWS Secrets Manager, etc.) are essential for storing and managing application secrets, secure E2EE email provides a significantly safer channel for human-to-human communication that might involve discussing sensitive topics, sharing unavoidable one-off credentials (with immediate rotation plans), or... - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Building Custom Kendra Connectors and Managing Data Sources with IaC
    Some data sources are protected by some form of credentials. Unless the data source is a public website or stored in another AWS resource such as Amazon S3, Kendra or your custom data source will need credentials to fetch data. In either case, AWS Secrets Manager can be used to securely manage your credentials. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Deploy AWS Lambda Functions and Amazon DynamoDB with AWS CDK on LocalStack
    In this example, we need to set up two AWS Lambda, AWS Secrets Manager and Amazon DynamoDB resources. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Enhancing Your CI/CD Security: Tips and Techniques to Mitigate Risks
    You have to handle secrets like API keys and passwords carefully. Instead of hardcoding them into your code, you should use secure secrets management tools like HashiCorp Vault or AWS Secrets Manager. Additionally, following API key authentication best practices ensures secure handling of sensitive credentials. This keeps sensitive information protected and reduces the risk of accidental leaks. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
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Amazon ECS mentions (52)

  • AWS ECS vs Sliplane
    Amazon's Elastic Container Service (ECS) and Sliplane both simplify deployment, management, and scaling of containerized applications. However, there are some key differences, and both platforms serve different users and use cases. Let's compare them side by side. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Top 8 Docker Alternatives to Consider in 2025
    AWS Elastic Container Service (ECS) and Elastic Kubernetes Service (EKS) provide managed container orchestration platforms integrated with AWS infrastructure. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • Day 3: What is Docker and why should I care?
    Most cloud platforms support Docker containers. Sliplane, Fly.io, AWS, Google Cloud, etc. This means that you can easily switch between cloud providers if you want to, without having to change your software. If you ever migrated from one cloud provider to another, you probably know how much work this can be. With Docker, you can just take your container image and run it on the new platform. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • The New Dev's Guide to Externalizing App Config
    In containerized environments like Kubernetes or Amazon ECS, configuration is often injected as environment variables or mounted as files. Your app starts up with fresh values every time—no rebuilds needed. - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
  • Large-scale Data Processing with Step Functions : AWS Project
    The workers in this example are containers, running in Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS) with an Amazon Fargate Capacity Provider . Though the workers could potentially run almost anywhere so long as they had access to poll the Step Functions Activity and report SUCCESS/FAILURE back to Step Functions. - Source: dev.to / 7 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing AWS Secrets Manager and Amazon ECS, you can also consider the following products

Microsoft Azure Active Directory - Azure Active Directory is a comprehensive identity and access management cloud solution that provides a robust set of capabilities to manage users and groups and help secure access to applications including Microsoft online services like Office 365 …

Google Kubernetes Engine - Google Kubernetes Engine is a powerful cluster manager and orchestration system for running your Docker containers. Set up a cluster in minutes.

SecureLink for Enterprise - Privileged Access Management

Docker - Docker is an open platform that enables developers and system administrators to create distributed applications.

JumpCloud - Cloud-based directory services. Alternative to Microsoft Active Directory.

Kubernetes - Kubernetes is an open source orchestration system for Docker containers