LastPass vs Vault#
Overview#
When managing sensitive information, a common question always comes up: When do you use a password manager such as LastPass vs HashiCorp Vault? While both deal with secrets, they serve very different purposes and are designed for distinct use cases.
- LastPass: A password manager primarily for individuals and teams to store and share credentials securely.
- HashiCorp Vault: An enterprise-grade secrets management system designed for dynamic infrastructure, applications, and automated workflows.
Key Differences#
| Feature | LastPass | HashiCorp Vault |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Use Case | Storing and managing user passwords | Managing application secrets, tokens, and encryption keys |
| Target Audience | Individuals, small teams, businesses | DevOps, IT teams, enterprises with dynamic infrastructure |
| Secret Types | Passwords, login credentials | API keys, certificates, dynamic secrets, encryption keys |
| Integration | Browser extensions, mobile apps | CI/CD pipelines, Kubernetes, cloud providers, CLI access |
| Access Control | Role-based sharing for users | Fine-grained policies, dynamic access tokens |
| Automation | Limited | Extensive (API-driven, dynamic secret generation) |
| Compliance | Consumer/business-level security | Enterprise compliance (HIPAA, PCI-DSS, etc.) |
LastPass Use Cases#
- You need a simple way to store and share user credentials across a team.
- Your environment is static (e.g., employees logging into SaaS apps).
- You need a simple password manager to store personal passwords or easily input them for you in the web browser
HashiCorp Vault Use Cases#
- You manage infrastructure or applications that require secure access to secrets within an automated workflow (eg. CI/CD pipelines)
- You require fine-grained access control to your secrets and how you can interact with them
Summary#
Note that Vault does not provide any browser extensions to quickly grab credentials and input them for you in the same way that LastPass can. Although Vault can still store passwords like a traditional password manager, it is not Vault's main functionality. A summary of the use for these is below:
- LastPass is ideal for human-centric password management.
- HashiCorp Vault is designed for machine-centric secrets management in complex, automated environments.