Infisical
Open-core secrets platform for apps, CI, machines and AI agents, hosted or self-hosted.
What is Infisical?
Infisical is a secrets platform with a web app, an API and a CLI. Secrets live in projects split into environments and folders. People and machine identities (CI jobs, services, Kubernetes workloads) authenticate to read them, `infisical run` injects them as environment variables, and syncs push them to GitHub, Vercel, AWS and others. The same platform runs private certificate authorities, privileged access to databases and servers, and Agent Vault, a proxy that adds credentials to an AI agent's outbound requests so the agent never holds them.
Infisical Inc. sells it as open core: the code is MIT except the `ee/` directories, and you can self-host it on PostgreSQL and Redis. Infisical Cloud bills per identity, human or machine. SSO, rotation and dynamic secrets are paid, and self-hosters unlock them with a licence key.
On 27 October 2026 it raised a $40M Series B at a $600M valuation, led by Elad Gil. Server releases are still numbered 0.x (v0.167.10, 13 November 2026). It sits between Doppler, a hosted service with on-prem only for Enterprise, and HashiCorp Vault, a BUSL-licensed server that takes more work to operate.
Our review
4.0The best fit for small and mid-sized teams that want a Doppler-style workflow they can also self-host, under a licence they can read. Two catches: Cloud pricing counts every machine identity as a seat, and the controls a security team asks for first (SSO, rotation, dynamic secrets, SCIM) are paid on Cloud and need a licence key when self-hosted. The issue tracker shows plenty of small sharp edges, mostly in self-hosted setups and CLI login.
Pros
- + MIT core you can self-host, with Cloud as the easy path
- + Secrets, syncs, PKI, privileged access and agent credential brokering in one platform
- + Free plan covers 5 identities with unlimited projects and 100+ integrations
Cons
- − Per-identity pricing counts CI jobs and services, not just people
- − SSO, rotation, dynamic secrets and SCIM sit behind paid plans or a licence key
- − Docs and CLI defaults sometimes differ from actual behaviour (see gotchas)
Reviewed by SeekDeploy Editorial · updated 2026-11-15. Reviews are independent — we don’t accept payment for coverage or ratings.
Should you use Infisical?
A good fit if you're…
- Teams moving off .env files who want the option to self-host later without changing tools
- Organisations that need secrets, internal certificates and database or server access under one set of identities and audit logs
- Developers running AI coding agents who want API keys brokered by a proxy instead of sitting in the agent's environment
Probably not for you if you're…
- Setups with many services and pipelines but few people, on Cloud: every machine identity is billed like a person
- Teams that need SCIM, approval workflows or SSO but won't pay: those are Enterprise or paid-plan features, self-hosted included
- Platform teams whose main need is mature dynamic credentials and encryption-as-a-service at large scale
Pick something else if…
- you're happy with a hosted service and most of your identities are machines; Doppler prices per user → Doppler
- short-lived database and cloud credentials, transit encryption and PKI at scale are the core requirement and you can operate it → HashiCorp Vault
Gotchas to know before you commit
- Machine identities count towards the bill. Before you pick a plan, count CI pipelines, services and Kubernetes workloads as well as people.
- Universal Auth access tokens default to a 30-day TTL, and client secrets never expire unless you set a TTL (Universal Auth docs, checked 2026-11-15). A docs issue describing these tokens as short-lived was closed (#7808). Set both TTLs yourself.
- Two CLI and webhook defaults catch people: `infisical secrets delete` defaults to `--type personal`, so deleting a shared secret returns 404 unless you pass `--type shared` (#7805, open as of 2026-11-15), and a webhook path of `/` fires only for the root folder, not subfolders; use `/**` (#8483, open as of 2026-11-15).
- Self-hosted paid features check a licence key against Infisical's licence server (offline keys exist), and switch off if the licence expires while the core keeps running. One former user on Hacker News says features he relied on moved behind the enterprise licence over time.
- The standalone open-source Agent Vault repo now tells new users to use Agent Vault inside Infisical, which is billed separately: 5,000 brokered requests a month free, then $1 per 10,000.
Infisical pricing
Free covers 5 identities. Above that you pay per identity per month: $20 on Pro and $40 on Advanced, billed annually ($23 and $46 monthly). An identity is any human or machine that authenticates, so cost tracks your services and pipelines as much as your headcount. Self-hosting the MIT core is free; paid features need a licence.
- Up to 5 identities, human or machine
- Unlimited projects, 100+ integrations
- 10 secret syncs, secret sharing and references
- Limit: 3 environments
- Limit: No access controls, SSO, versioning or rotation
- Access controls, SAML SSO
- Secret rotation (public databases only; gateways for private ones are Advanced)
- Versioning, point-in-time recovery
- 30-day audit log retention
- Limit: 6 environments per project, 25 syncs
- Limit: No dynamic secrets or custom roles
- Dynamic secrets, gateways
- Custom roles, temporary access, SSO/MFA enforcement
- 90-day audit log retention, higher rate limits
- Limit: 12 environments per project, 50 syncs
- Limit: No SCIM, LDAP or approval workflows
- SCIM, LDAP, approval workflows, user groups
- Audit log streaming, external KMS/HSM
- Self-hosted or dedicated infrastructure, 99.99% SLA
- MIT-licensed core
- Docker, Helm or native install on PostgreSQL and Redis
- Limit: Paid features need a licence key; they switch off when it expires
What it costs in practice
| 3 developers, CI and one app | $0 3 people + 2 machine identities (CI pipeline, production app) = 5 identities, the Free limit. A sixth identity moves you to Pro. |
|---|---|
| 10 developers, 15 machine identities on Pro | ~$500 / month 25 identities x $20 = $500 / month billed annually ($6,000 / year). Monthly billing: 25 x $23 = $575. |
| Same team needing dynamic secrets | ~$1,000 / month Dynamic secrets need Advanced: 25 x $40 = $1,000 / month billed annually. Every new service or pipeline with its own identity adds $40. |
Estimates in USD from list prices. Your bill depends on usage, region, and discounts.
Health & activity
From Infisical/infisical. Counts cover the last 90 days unless noted.
Downloads
- npm ·
@infisical/cli842k last 30 days - PyPI ·
infisicalsdk2.9M last 30 days - Homebrew ·
infisical1.2k installs, last 30 days - Docker Hub ·
infisical/infisical5.6M all-time pulls
What the community says
Most of the Hacker News talk is about using Infisical to keep API keys out of reach of AI coding agents, plus Infisical's own engineering posts and its Series B. The GitHub issues are mostly small bugs in CLI login, self-hosted deployments, integrations and docs that don't match behaviour.
What people like
- A place to keep secrets away from AI agents · 5 sources
Several developers say they run coding agents in VMs or sandboxes and keep credentials in Infisical or its Agent Vault proxy, so the agent never sees the real keys. One runs a self-hosted instance for exactly this.
- Treated as the mature default · 2 sources
In a launch thread for a newer agent-access startup, a commenter names Infisical as the existing mature tool to beat, and the founder agrees that for plain secret storage you can just use Infisical.
What people complain about
- Self-hosted rough edges · 6 sources
Self-hosters report enforced OIDC SSO still asking for an email code, the Kubernetes operator ignoring a custom CA, expired sessions not refreshing, ACME secrets that Traefik can't decode, CRLs that fail validation under an externally signed CA, and a hard-coded captcha key (since closed).
- Docs and CLI defaults that don't match behaviour · 4 sources
Issues point out docs calling machine-identity tokens short-lived when the default lasts 30 days (closed), a webhook hint saying '/' matches all paths when it only matches the root, a documented service-token command that doesn't exist, and `secrets delete` defaulting to personal secrets.
- CLI login friction · 3 sources
Users report being unable to paste the browser token into `infisical login`, 2FA emails that never arrive for interactive login, and logins failing from a server on another subnet (since closed).
- Integrations that reject least-privilege tokens · 2 sources
Cloudflare and Supabase app connections failed validation with narrowly scoped tokens because the health check asks for more than the sync needs; the Supabase one is closed.
Written by Nadia Farouk on Nov 15, 2026 after reading 30 relevant Hacker News comments, threads and GitHub issues from Aug 17, 2026 to Nov 15, 2026. Each point links to the discussions behind it, and the count shows how many sources raised it. This is a reading of public discussion, not a survey.
On Hacker News · 16 threads, 10 comments mentioning it
- How we rebuilt complex permissions without migrating to Zanzibar73 points · 16 comments · Sep 9, 2026
- Infisical Agent Vault6 points · 0 comments · Oct 8, 2026
- Infisical raises $40M Series B led by Elad Gil5 points · 0 comments · Oct 27, 2026
- How .env Works5 points · 0 comments · Sep 25, 2026
- How Secrets Work in Docker3 points · 0 comments · Sep 21, 2026
Most-reacted new GitHub issues · 59 opened in the window
- cant paste the token from the browser into login2 reactions · 4 comments · Oct 4, 2026
- Webhook Secret Path hint says `/` matches all paths, but it only matches the root folder1 reactions · 2 comments · Oct 6, 2026
- Universal auth client secrets with a usage limit of 10+ get revoked after 2 logins1 reactions · 6 comments · Oct 1, 2026
- Cloudflare App Connection rejects account-owned API tokens0 reactions · 3 comments · Oct 30, 2026
- Docs describe machine identity tokens as short-lived; the default access token lasts 30 days0 reactions · 2 comments · Aug 25, 2026
Alternatives to Infisical
HashiCorp Vault
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Doppler
Security & SecretsSecretOps platform — sync environment secrets everywhere, stop sharing .env files.
OpenBao
Security & SecretsOpen-source fork of HashiCorp Vault for secrets, PKI and encryption, governed under the Linux Foundation.
Spotted something wrong or out of date? Flag a correction on GitHub. Health and community data refresh on the 1st and 15th of every month.