AWS KMS or AWS CloudHSM: Choose the right key management solution

This article compares AWS KMS and AWS CloudHSM, two HSM-backed key management services, to help organizations choose the right solution for their cryptographic key management needs.

• AWS KMS is fully managed, integrates with all AWS services, and costs $1/key plus $0.03 per 10,000 requests monthly
• AWS CloudHSM provides dedicated HSM instances for legacy applications and costs approximately $1.60/hour per instance
• Both services offer FIPS 140-3 Level 3 validation, support standard algorithms, and meet major compliance requirements
• Choose AWS KMS for most cloud workloads due to lower costs, operational simplicity, and seamless AWS integration
• Choose AWS CloudHSM only for lift-and-shift migrations requiring PKCS#11, JCE, OpenSSL interfaces or deprecated algorithms like 3DES
• AWS KMS typically costs 35-99% less for workloads under 500 million monthly operations

AWS KMS delivers enterprise-grade security with lower costs and zero operational overhead for most organizations, while CloudHSM addresses specialized legacy application requirements.