External Secrets

External Secrets is a credential transport layer for Non-Human Identity (NHI) secrets like API keys, certificates, and tokens. It distributes credentials from existing vaults to clients and servers including Kubernetes, VMs, CI/CD scripts, SaaS applications, databases, and AI MCPs. The platform keeps clients, servers, and vaults synchronized and rotates credentials on demand or on schedule without causing downtime.

The company integrates with every leading Vault on the market and does not store credentials itself. Its technology ensures that every credential gets where it’s needed, stays in sync, and is rotated on demand or on schedule with zero breakage or downtime.

External Secrets is designed for organizations that need to manage non-human identity credentials across diverse environments like Kubernetes, VMs, and CI/CD scripts. It is suitable for any setup that accepts or uses a secret and requires synchronization between vaults and clients.

The website states that the unique innovation External Secrets brings is the provision of a credentials transport layer for NHI secrets, API keys, tokens, and certificates. This innovation ensures that clients, servers, and vaults stay fully synchronized on the latest, most secure set of credentials.

According to the website, NHI credentials are a factor in 84% of data breaches today, making rotation essential. External Secrets automates this difficult, time-consuming, and risky manual process to prevent breakage or downtime.

The platform works hand-in-glove with every leading Vault on the market to distribute credentials to every client and server that needs them. If a system accepts or uses a secret, External Secrets will take care of it.

External Secrets stays aware of any changes to ensure clients, servers, and the vault remain fully synchronized on the latest credentials. It performs this synchronization while making sure nothing ever breaks during the process.

The company offers an install demo and provides a blog for users to learn more. The website footer includes links to terms, privacy, license, and contact pages for further information.

The Trustburn rating is 4.4 out of 5 from 5 reviews. The reviews are recent, with the latest activity noted in 2026.

The website claims that until now, rotating non-human identity credentials has been a difficult, time-consuming, expensive, and risky manual process. External Secrets aims to solve these specific challenges.

The website mentions that the technology distributes credentials to Kubernetes, VMs, CI/CD scripts, SaaS applications, databases, and AI MCPs. These are the specific environments supported by the platform.

The company states that it integrates with every leading Vault on the market and works hand-in-glove with them. This integration allows for seamless distribution of credentials without storing them internally.

The official website of External Secrets is externalsecrets.com.