Pulumi ESC vs Doppler
Pulumi ESC
Pulumi ESC (Environments, Secrets, Configuration) is a secrets and configuration platform that lets you compose environments from multiple secret sources (AWS, Vault, Doppler, 1Password) and expose them as environment variables, files, or direct SDK calls. ESC is tightly integrated with Pulumi's infrastructure-as-code platform but works as a standalone tool too.
Pros
- Sits cleanly on top of existing secrets stores. No migration needed
- Composition model makes multi-cloud environments simple
- Strong fit if you already use Pulumi for IaC
- OIDC-based auth eliminates static Pulumi tokens
Things to check
- Newer product; smaller community than Doppler/Infisical
- Best value only realized if you adopt Pulumi IaC too
- Per-user pricing at the Team tier is steep
- No self-hosted option
Pricing: Free tier (Pulumi Cloud Individual, $0); ESC metered per secret from $0.50/secret/mo (Team) and $0.75/secret/mo (Enterprise), on top of base tiers Team $40/mo and Enterprise $400/mo
Doppler
Doppler is a developer-first secrets management platform that centralizes environment variables and secrets across all your applications. It provides a universal secrets manager that syncs across local dev, CI/CD, staging, and production environments.
Pros
- Excellent developer experience
- Easy setup and onboarding
- Great CI/CD integration
- Free tier for individuals
- Transparent per-user pricing
Things to check
- Cloud-only, no self-hosting
- Less mature than HashiCorp Vault
- Limited enterprise compliance features
- Smaller community
Pricing: See the vendor site for current pricing.