Secret Server (originally from Thycotic, now from Delinea since the 2021 Thycotic merger with Centrify) is an enterprise password management application, which is available with either a cloud-based or on-premise deployment which emphasizes fast deployment, scalability, and simplicity.
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HashiCorp Vault
Score 8.5 out of 10
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HashiCorp offers Vault, an encryption tool of use in the management of secrets including credentials, passwords and other secrets, providing access control, audit trail, and support for multiple authentication methods. It is available open source, or under an enterprise license.
Great for managing access to secrets and servers and is more secure than storing passwords in a browser. The browser plugin to autofill passwords works well. Being able to schedule access ahead of time is a big plus for me as I can be forgetful. If you want a lightweight password vault, however, it may not be the best choice.
HashiCorp Vault, in my opinion, is a defacto standard for any cloud or automation implementation. They're the best of the best as far as products for secrets management and the ability to use it against relatively any service you have is unheard of for other products. HashiCorp has really taken out all the stops when it comes to creating a nice, extensible tool that people can use to suit their needs.
Password Management: Its entire purpose, really. Secret Server stores passwords in an incredibly easy to use way. They can be organized in groups, they contain all the information about the site or system the password is used for (including URLs for websites), and even a notes field. You can set up specific policies for expirations and complexity, and Secret Server can even generate strong passwords for you. Using a password is simple, too, since you can just click a button to add it to your clipboard; you don't even have to unmask the password.
Security: The passwords are stored encrypted in a SQL database, and the application requires an authenticated login. This could be local, but we tie it into Active Directory. Each folder of passwords has groups assigned (in our case, again, AD, but you can make them local groups) with different permission levels, so we can compartmentalize passwords. Desktop technicians don't have access to network switch passwords, etc.
Easy Setup: It took me about an hour to get the server running, from spinning up the VM to importing our old password list. It took a little longer to organize the passwords into proper folders, and then assigning groups, but it was easy to do.
Personal Passwords: Each user also gets a personal folder, where they can keep their own, unshared passwords. This is nice for sites or systems with individualized logins (e.g., a firewall, VPN, etc.)
Favorites: Secret Server lets you tag passwords as "favorites" so you can easily find ones you use constantly. The search feature is nice, but this is nicer.
The sharing functionality NEEDS improvement. We share most passwords at a group level, but then it becomes impossible to share them with a dynamic group and one or two one-off people as well. This is a major shortcoming.
I don't love the interface. I feel like there is an attempt at a dashboard, but it is really not effective.
I've heard, but never seen, that the software can actually change passwords in the target systems. If this is part of its deliverable, I do not know how to use it, and I don't know how you would do that. Seems like a great feature for password management.
HashiCorp Vault is the best there is out there, and it has become critical to our secret management use cases. It would be difficult to find anything that would suit our needs better and that would be beneficial for us to switch over to.
We spent a little more time than we imagined to conceptually understand how HashiCorp Vault operates, as well as how it is configured. This is not trivial, and keep in mind that you will need to take some time to get a thorough understanding of the tool. The documentation could be more helpful in this regard.
Hashicorp has been very responsive to our questions and inquiries up to this point. We are currently working on them to develop a more granular permissions model within Vault. We are very close to achieving our objectives with the help of their support team. We do not seem to be in the same time zone which makes it hard for escalated issues.
There were not very many solutions that provided the entire package of taking an account from creation and deactivating it when no longer needed, as well as providing the discovery of unknown service accounts. Other solutions like RoboForm and LastPass did not offer the ability to manage your service accounts and added layers of complication to ensure security.
