What is OpenBao?
An open source, community-driven secrets manager and fork of Vault managed by the Linux Foundation's OpenSSF.
OpenBao pricing
We don't have OpenBao's full plan breakdown yet (its pricing page resisted automated reading). Here's what we could confirm. Always check live pricing for exact numbers.
What OpenBao does
The capabilities that matter for secrets management tools, normalised so it lines up with every alternative. “-” means we haven't confirmed it, not that it's missing.
- Tool type
- Secret store / engine
- Dynamic (short-lived) secrets
- ✓
- Hosting
- Self-hosted only
- Automatic secret rotation
- ✓
- Encryption as a service (transit)
- ✓
- FIPS 140-2/3 validated crypto
- -
- HSM support
- -
- Fine-grained / identity-based policy
- ✓
- Audit logging
- ✓
- Kubernetes native (CRD / CSI / K8s auth)
- ✓
- PKI / certificate authority
- -
- Open-source core
- ✓
- CNCF maturity
- Sandbox
Platform & deployment
Independently observed- CLI
- Self-hosted
OpenBao alternatives
Other secrets management tools we track, ranked by the same independent score.
The Vioscale score: one lens on the evidence
Not user reviews and not a paid placement: a confidence-weighted blend of the independent signals below (adoption, activity, security posture, and more), which you can sort and re-weight yourself. Vendors can correct their listing but can never move their rank, and stars are weighted low as a vanity metric. It is one way to read the evidence for OpenBao, not the verdict.
| Signal | Score | Weight | Contribution | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Github Activity | 63 | 0.10 | 6.6 | ✓ |
| Capabilities | 87 | 0.07 | 6.1 | ✓ |
| Release Cadence | 86 | 0.06 | 5.0 | ✓ |
| Github Stars | 72 | 0.03 | 2.1 | ✓ |
| Integrations | 0 | 0.07 | 0.0 | - |
| Security Posture | 0 | 0.23 | 0.0 | - |
| Package Downloads | 0 | 0.15 | 0.0 | - |
| Stackoverflow Activity | 0 | 0.07 | 0.0 | - |
Computed . Re-weight it by intent, or see the full method.
All data & sourcesshow ↓
Every value we hold, with its source, retrieval date, and confidence. This is the evidence behind the score: don't trust it, verify it.
Activity
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Commits last 30d | 100 | mediumsource · 2026-08-01 · 65% |
Adoption
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Github stars | 6,891 | highsource · 2026-08-01 · 90% |
Features
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Capabilities | {"hosting":"self","tool_type":"store","cncf_project":"sandbox","audit_logging":true,"dynamic_secrets":true,"secret_rotation":true,"open_source_core":true,"kubernetes_native":true,"fine_grained_policy":true,"encryption_as_a_service":true} | mediumsource · 2026-08-05 · 60% |
Language
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Primary | Go | highsource · 2026-08-01 · 90% |
License
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Spdx | MPL-2.0 | highsource · 2026-08-01 · 95% |
Pricing
Release
| Attribute | Value | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Cadence days | 26 | mediumsource · 2026-08-01 · 70% |