In 2026 I Am Still Asked Why You Need a Centralized Secrets Manager

It’s 2026 and I still get the same question from customers and colleagues: we already encrypt our secrets with git-crypt (or SOPS, or sealed-secrets), why do we need a full secrets manager on top of that? I hear it from platform teams that are otherwise mature, from developers who are genuinely trying to do the right thing, and from managers who see a centralized secrets manager as one more piece of infrastructure to buy, run, and justify. ...

July 17, 2026 · 9 min · 1824 words · Matteo Bisi