Infisical vs Doppler
Infisical and Doppler compared as secrets managers for developer teams: per-identity vs per-seat pricing, free-plan limits, machine identities, syncs, rotation, dynamic secrets, audit logs, SSO and self-hosting, with current 2026 plans.
Quick Answer
Doppler is cheaper for most small and mid-size teams on a managed service: the Developer plan is free for 3 users, Team is $21 per user per month, and machine identities are not billed. Infisical is the pick when you want to self-host an MIT-licensed platform, need dynamic secrets without an enterprise contract, or fit inside its free plan of 5 identities. On Infisical's paid cloud plans every human and machine identity is billed, which gets expensive for service-heavy setups.
Last updated October 20, 2026. Uses Infisical's current Free/Pro/Advanced/Enterprise per-identity pricing and Doppler's Developer/Team/Enterprise per-seat pricing as listed in October 2026, plus Infisical's self-hosting and licensing docs.
| Feature | Infisical | Doppler |
|---|---|---|
| Free Plan | 5 identities, unlimited projects, 3 environments, 10 syncs | Developer: free for 3 users (up to 25 at $8/additional user) |
| Entry Paid Plan | Pro $20/identity/month billed annually ($23 monthly) | Team $21/user/month |
| Pricing Model | Per identity (any human or machine that authenticates) | Per seat (user); non-human identities not billed |
| Machine Identities / Service Accounts | Billed as identities | Not billed; service accounts on Team |
| Environments | 3 Free, 6/project Pro, 12/project Advanced | 4 Developer, 15 Team, custom Enterprise |
| Native Secret Syncs | 10 Free, 25 Pro, 50 Advanced, unlimited Enterprise | 5 Developer, 100 Team (500 with add-on), unlimited Enterprise |
| Secret Rotation | From Pro | Automatic rotation on Team; proxied/on-prem rotation on Enterprise |
| Dynamic Secrets | From Advanced | Enterprise only |
| Audit Log Retention | 30 days Pro, 90 days Advanced, custom Enterprise | 3 days Developer, 90 days Team, custom Enterprise |
| SAML SSO | From Pro; SCIM and LDAP on Enterprise | SAML SSO on Team; SCIM on Enterprise |
| Self-Hosting | Yes, free MIT core; paid features need a licence key | Enterprise only (on-prem or cloud) |
| Licence | MIT outside ee/; ee/ under a separate licence | Proprietary SaaS; CLI Apache-2.0 |
Infisical
Open source secrets management platform (MIT outside its ee/ directory) with a hosted cloud and a self-hosted edition, covering secrets, syncs, rotation, dynamic secrets, certificates and privileged access.
Pros
- Core platform is MIT-licensed and documented for self-hosting on Docker, Docker Compose, Kubernetes (Helm), Linux packages, AWS and GCP
- Free cloud plan includes unlimited projects, 100+ integrations, secret sharing, references, imports and overrides
- Dynamic secrets are on the Advanced plan ($40 per identity per month, billed annually) rather than Enterprise-only
- Point-in-time recovery and secret versioning from Pro
- Native syncs to platforms such as GitHub, Vercel, AWS and Kubernetes: 10 on Free, 25 on Pro, 50 on Advanced
Cons
- Paid plans bill every identity, human or machine, so CI pipelines and services cost the same as engineers
- The 5 free identities do not carry over: after upgrading to Pro, every identity in the organisation is charged
- Free plan is capped at 5 identities and 3 environments, and the pricing page lists no audit log retention for it
- Paid features on a self-hosted instance need an enterprise licence key, and self-hosted pricing is quote-only via sales
Best For
Teams that want to self-host an open source secrets manager, need dynamic secrets below an enterprise contract, or are small enough to stay within 5 identities.
Doppler
Hosted secrets manager built around projects, environments and configs, with a CLI for local development, syncs to cloud platforms and CI, and per-seat pricing that does not bill machine identities.
Pros
- Developer plan is free for 3 users, then $8 per month per additional user
- Per-seat pricing; Doppler's pricing page says AI agents and non-human identities are not billed
- Team plan ($21 per user per month) includes SAML SSO, role-based access control, change requests, automatic secret rotation and 90 days of activity logs
- Higher structural limits on Team: 250 projects, 15 environments, 100 configs per environment and 100 config syncs
- Apache-2.0 CLI for local development, plus SDKs, webhooks, a Kubernetes operator and an official MCP server
Cons
- No self-hosted edition below Enterprise: on-prem deployment is listed only on the custom-priced Enterprise plan
- Dynamic secrets and SCIM are Enterprise-only
- Developer plan keeps only 3 days of activity logs and allows 5 config syncs
- Custom roles and user groups on Team are paid add-ons at $9 per seat per month each
Best For
Small and mid-size teams that want a managed secrets service with SSO and RBAC at a per-seat price, especially when they run many services or CI jobs.
Pricing: identities versus seats
The two products count different things, and that decides the bill more than the headline price. Infisical charges per identity, which its pricing page defines as any human or machine that authenticates. Pro is $20 per identity per month billed annually, or $23 billed monthly. Advanced is $40 annually or $46 monthly. The FAQ is explicit that the 5 free identities belong to the Free plan only: once you upgrade, every identity in the organisation is charged, with proration for mid-cycle changes. Doppler charges per seat. The Developer plan is free for 3 users and $8 per month for each additional user, up to the plan's 25-user limit. Team is $21 per user per month. Doppler's pricing page states that AI agents and non-human identities are not billed. Worked through for a team of 8 engineers with 6 machine identities (a CI pipeline and five services): Infisical Pro bills 14 identities, so $280 a month on annual billing or $322 monthly. Doppler Team bills the 8 engineers, so $168 a month. Doppler Developer would be $40 a month (5 paid users beyond the free 3) but without SSO, RBAC or rotation. Infisical Free does not fit at all, because 14 identities is above its cap of 5.
Free plans and where they stop
Both free plans are usable for real projects, but they run out in different places. Infisical Free gives 5 identities, unlimited projects, 3 environments, 10 secret syncs, 100+ integrations, secret sharing, references, imports, overrides and 2FA. Its pricing table lists no audit log retention, secret rotation, versioning or point-in-time recovery on Free; those start on Pro. For a solo developer with a couple of services that fit inside 5 identities, this is a complete setup. Doppler Developer is free for 3 users and can grow to 25 at $8 per extra user. It allows 10 projects, 4 environments, 10 configs per environment, 5 config syncs, 50 service tokens and 5 webhooks, and keeps 3 days of activity logs. It includes the CLI, integrations, secret referencing, API and webhook access. Service accounts, RBAC, SAML SSO and automatic rotation are on Team. The practical difference: Infisical's free ceiling is the identity count, which machine credentials also consume, while Doppler's free ceiling is people, projects and syncs. A small team with many services outgrows Infisical Free first; a solo developer with many projects outgrows Doppler Developer's 10-project limit first.
Rotation, dynamic secrets and audit trails
For security features, Infisical spreads them across its tiers while Doppler holds more of them for Enterprise. Secret rotation starts on Infisical Pro and on Doppler Team, so the entry paid plan on either side gives you automatic rotation. Doppler Enterprise adds proxied rotation and on-prem rotation. Dynamic secrets, short-lived credentials generated on request, are where the plans split. Infisical includes them on Advanced at $40 per identity per month billed annually. Doppler lists dynamic secrets only on Enterprise, which is custom-priced. If short-lived database or cloud credentials are a requirement, Infisical gets you there with a self-serve plan. Audit retention is close: Infisical keeps 30 days on Pro and 90 on Advanced; Doppler keeps 3 days on Developer and 90 on Team, so Doppler's entry paid plan matches Infisical's second tier. Both offer custom retention on Enterprise, and both put SCIM there too. Infisical Enterprise adds audit log streaming to a SIEM, approval workflows and access requests; Doppler Enterprise adds log forwarding, change request policies and enterprise key management. On Doppler Team, custom roles and user groups are add-ons at $9 per seat per month each.
Self-hosting and licensing
This is the clearest dividing line between the two. Infisical's repository is MIT-licensed except for anything under ee/ directories, which has its own licence. The docs cover self-hosting on a single Docker container, Docker Compose with PostgreSQL and Redis, Kubernetes via the official Helm chart, a Linux package, AWS ECS with Fargate, and GCP. The enterprise licensing page says most features are free to use, and paid features on a self-hosted instance are unlocked by setting a LICENSE_KEY; if the licence lapses, Infisical keeps running with those features disabled. Self-hosted pricing is quote-only through sales, and the pricing page lists self-hosting under Enterprise for the paid feature set. Doppler is a hosted service. Its CLI is Apache-2.0, but the platform is not open source, and the pricing page lists "Doppler On-prem or Cloud" only on the custom-priced Enterprise plan. For a team that runs its own VPS or Kubernetes cluster and wants secrets inside its own network, Infisical is the only one of the two that can do that without an enterprise deal. Budget for operating PostgreSQL and Redis, backups and upgrades yourself.
Verdict
Choose Doppler if you want a managed secrets service and your team is more than a handful of people: it is free for 3 users, Team at $21 per user per month includes SSO, RBAC, change requests and automatic rotation, and service accounts and other non-human identities are not billed, so adding CI pipelines and services does not raise the bill. Choose Infisical if you want to self-host, since its MIT-licensed core runs on your own Docker or Kubernetes for no licence fee, or if you need dynamic secrets without negotiating an enterprise contract. Infisical's free cloud plan is also the better fit for a solo developer or tiny project that stays within 5 identities. Avoid Infisical's paid cloud plans for service-heavy setups: every machine identity is billed at the same rate as a person.