Non-EU vendorPassword ManagerHeadquarters: US

AWS Secrets Manager: sovereignty score and 8 European alternatives

AWS Secrets Manager is a cloud service from Amazon Web Services that lets organisations manage, retrieve and rotate database credentials, application credentials, OAuth tokens, API keys and other secrets. Applications request a secret at runtime instead of embedding it in source code. Access is controlled with IAM policies, secrets are stored encrypted, and automatic rotation can run on a schedule. Events can be tracked through AWS logging and monitoring services.

AWS is part of Amazon, headquartered in the United States, and is subject to US jurisdiction, including the CLOUD Act. Customers choose the AWS Region in which data is stored, and secrets can also be replicated to other Regions. AWS offers a data processing addendum (DPA) under which standard contractual clauses apply automatically. Secrets are encrypted with keys in AWS KMS, so key management also stays within the AWS ecosystem. For European organisations with strict sovereignty requirements, this is a relevant consideration.

See the 8 European alternatives ↓Assess your stack with AWS Secrets Manager pre-selected

Mastodon LinkedIn Bluesky X Email

Sovereignty score

27 / 1000 = high exposure
100 = sovereign

Jurisdiction SOV-210
Headquartered in the US: CLOUD Act and FISA 702
Data residency SOV-350
Hosting inside and outside Europe (EU, US, OTHER)
Cryptographic key sovereignty SOV-320
Key management with a non-European vendor
Freedom from lock-in SOV-640
Closed source: switching requires data migration
Source & runtime sovereignty SOV-4 · SOV-615
Closed source, runtime with the vendor

SOV codes: the matching objective in the European Commission's Cloud Sovereignty Framework. Official source

How the score is calculated

Facts and evidence

Last checked October 11, 2026

Headquarters	US (US)Verified by hand
EU adequacy decision	Only for companies individually certified under the EU-US Data Privacy FrameworkVerified by hand
Sovereignty model	Vendor-hosted (non-EU)Verified by hand
Data hosting	EU, US, OTHERVerified by hand
Open-source	NoVerified by hand
GDPR-compliant	YesVendor-stated
Category	Password Manager
Type	Product
Website	aws.amazon.com ↗

How we verify · Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Top EU-based & GDPR-compliant alternatives to AWS Secrets Manager

The European alternatives to AWS Secrets Manager come from our knowledge base of over 6,800 vendors. We only list vendors headquartered in the EU or the EEA; fully European-owned vendors rank before vendors with a foreign owner. For each alternative you see the country, the open-source status and a short description.

Score per alternative: 0 = high exposure, 100 = sovereign

25 European Password Manager vendors are in the catalogue. View the whole category · Submit an alternative · View category on the map

Is AWS Secrets Manager one of many dependencies?

Score your whole stack in about three minutes. Free, no account needed.

Assess your stack →View a sample report (opens in a new tab)

Why digital sovereignty matters with AWS Secrets Manager

AWS Secrets Manager is headquartered in the United States. US vendors fall under the CLOUD Act and FISA 702: US authorities can compel access to data, even when that data sits in a European data centre. That is the core of the jurisdictional exposure in our model.

AWS Secrets Manager hosts data in EU, US, OTHER. Exactly what stays within the EU — and what does not — is defined by the vendor's data processing agreement and sub-processor list, not by a setting you control yourself; check those documents for the precise scope, including backups, logs and support access.

AWS Secrets Manager is closed source and hosted by the vendor. The encryption keys and the runtime sit with the vendor and switching requires data migration. Ask about bring-your-own-key, export options and open standards.

What this means for your organisation depends on your whole stack and context. The free assessment weighs AWS Secrets Manager together with your other vendors and gives a total score, a heatmap and the main risk drivers.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best European alternative to AWS Secrets Manager?

It depends on your use case. Strong EU alternatives to AWS Secrets Manager include AuthPass, Avira Password Manager and Dashlane. On this page you can compare 8 EU alternatives by jurisdiction, data residency and open-source status.

Are there open-source alternatives to AWS Secrets Manager?

Yes. Open-source EU alternatives to AWS Secrets Manager include AuthPass, gopass, KeePass and KeePassXC. These keep your data fully under your own control and let you self-host if you want to.

Is AWS Secrets Manager GDPR-compliant and where is the data hosted?

AWS Secrets Manager is headquartered in US and hosts data in EU, US, OTHER. The vendor states it is GDPR-compliant, but the data falls under non-EU jurisdiction. For full EU data residency the EU alternatives on this page usually offer more certainty.

Details and sources

Verified by handHeadquarters, owner, hosting locations and licence have been checked by us against public sources. Free of charge and for every vendor, not a paid label. Nothing in this knowledge base is taken over automatically. Last checked on October 11, 2026.

Sources

Public sources used in the latest check of this record.

Compliance evidence

The links below point to the vendor's own public documents. We only record what we found: a missing link means "not found publicly", not "not compliant".

No public compliance evidence has been recorded for this vendor yet. Do you know its DPA or subprocessor list? Something wrong? Suggest a correction

Cyber Resilience Act

Public signals that relate to the EU Cyber Resilience Act. They do not count towards the score. A missing line means "not found publicly".

We found none of these signals on the vendor's own site when we checked.

For products in scope of the CRA, CE marking is required from 11 December 2027; this cannot be checked yet.

Checked on October 11, 2026. What is the Cyber Resilience Act?

Digital sovereignty in Password Manager

Password Manager: Password vault — generate, store and autofill passwords. In this category the choice of vendor determines who has legal access to your data, where that data lives and how easily you can switch later.

Also in this category

See all →

Open in the alternatives dashboard Missing a vendor? Submit it Are you this vendor? You can also become a sponsor on the Password Manager page — with no effect on your score