KMS vs CloudHSM: Choosing Correctly
~8 min read
A direct decision framework for the most commonly confused pair in the AWS security-services toolkit.
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Key points
- •KMS: fully managed, natively integrated everywhere, the correct default for nearly all encryption needs
- •CloudHSM: dedicated single-tenant hardware, direct PKCS#11/JCE/CNG interface access, higher cost and operational burden
- •Choose CloudHSM only for explicit compliance/dedicated-hardware/standard-interface requirements
- •'Dedicated hardware' or a named crypto standard interface in a scenario is the signal pointing toward CloudHSM over KMS