Kubernetes Plugins
The Akeyless Kubernetes plugins enable containerized applications to use Static, Dynamic, and Rotated secrets as well as Certificates sourced from the Akeyless Platform.
The following plugins are available for Kubernetes:
- Akeyless Kubernetes Secrets Injector
- Kubernetes External Secret Operator (ESO)
- Kubernetes Secrets Store Container Storage Interface (CSI)
- Kubernetes Cert Manager
Note: The documentation, configuration and examples for Akeyless Kubernetes plugins are also applicable to Red Hat OpenShift environment.
Feature Compatibility Matrix
Akeyless provides multiple ways to consume secrets from Kubernetes. The following matrix compares the most common integrations:
| Capability / Feature | External Secrets Operator (ESO) | Akeyless Kubernetes Secrets Injector | Akeyless Secrets Store CSI Provider | Cert Manager (Akeyless issuer) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primary use case | Sync Akeyless secrets into Kubernetes Secrets | Inject secrets directly into pods at runtime | Mount secrets as volumes in pods | Issue TLS certs from Akeyless |
| Secret storage in Kubernetes | Yes (Kubernetes Secret objects) | No (file/env in pod only) | No (mounted files only) | Partial (only certificates as Kubernetes secrets) |
| Secret injection method | Controller reconciles ExternalSecret CRDs | Mutating Admission Webhook (init and optional sidecar) | CSI driver mounts secrets into container filesystem | Certificate issuance & renewal |
| Supported Secret Types | Static, Rotated, Dynamic, Certificates | Static, Rotated, Dynamic, Certificates, USC | Static, Rotated, Certificates | Certificates |
| Push secrets from Kubernetes to Akeyless | Yes (PushSecret) | No | No | No |
| Native JSON extraction and templating | Yes (dataFrom.extract, templating support) | No (app reads raw file/env values) | No | N/A |
| Ideal for | GitOps, configurations as code, multi-tenant clusters | App-centric injection with no Kubernetes Secret persistence | File-based consumption, legacy apps expecting files | TLS for Ingress and Service objects |
Tutorial
Check out our tutorial video on Injecting Secrets into a Kubernetes Cluster.
Updated 4 days ago
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