Your codebase is at risk. It doesn’t have to be this way.

If you’re currently using GitLab to manage your application’s secrets, think again! Your codebase is at risk.

We love Gitlab. We use it over Github for most of our private projects. But when it comes to managing secrets, GitLab falls short.

Here’s why.

Simple secret management

If you use Gitlab CI, you’re familiar with variables to use sensitive secrets like API keys and tokens in deployment pipelines. You probably even use masked variables to prevent these secrets from being exposed in logs.

But here’s the catch: while GitLab attempts to protect these variables, these masked variables can be easily exposed with a simple print command.

To mitigate this risk, GitLab itself recommends integrating with third-party tools like Hashicorp Vault, Google Cloud Secret Manager, Azure Key Vault, or using OIDC authentication to interface with other providers like AWS Secret Manager.

But these solutions are either too complex, requiring additional setup, expertise, and costs, or too limited in features to meet all your secret management needs.

Onboardbase hits the right balance between feature-completeness and good developer experience with a simple installation process that can be set up in just a few minutes. It only takes 3 CLI commands to integrate Onboardbase in a Javascript codebase:

onboardbase login # authenticate to your account
onboardbase setup # configure your project and environment
onboardbase run "node app.js" # run your code with secrets injected

Your secrets are stored with the highest level of security through end-to-end encryption. AES-256-GCM at rest, and ECC / RSA in transit.

Onboardbase is designed for versatility and ease of use. Whether you prefer working with a command-line interface (CLI), leveraging API access, or integrating directly into your development workflow via SDKs, Onboardbase has you covered. Regardless of your development workflow, we have a guide to help you.

But that’s not all: Onboardbase offers integrations with a wide array of CI/CD tools, web frameworks, and development tools, without the hassle of switching to a new CI/CD platform. This includes Gitlab CI!

Bring the team together

Another challenge with GitLab is its approach to access control. While GitLab provides a robust role-based access control model and even allows the creation of custom roles, managing secrets across multiple projects with varying levels of access can become cumbersome, especially as your team grows.

Onboardbase is team-centric.

One of the standout features of Onboardbase is its user-friendly approach to team authentication:

Unlike GitLab, where configuring access permissions can be a daunting task due to the intricate details of IAM policies, Onboardbase provides predefined roles tailored to common team structures―whether you’re an Owner, Admin, or Employee, these roles are designed to cater to your specific needs without requiring deep dives into policy configurations. This makes it incredibly straightforward to assign the appropriate level of access and permissions, ensuring that every team member has just the right amount of control.

You can easily organize your team into different project and environment-level groups, which allows for a more granular approach to managing permissions without leaving room for confusion or misconfigurations that could compromise your security posture.

Prevent and protect

GitLab’s audit events API is another area that leaves much to be desired. While these events do capture activities related to tokens and keys created within GitLab, the level of detail and the user-friendliness of these logs may not always meet the needs of your security or compliance teams.

Ensuring that all secret accesses are thoroughly tracked and easily reviewed is crucial, yet GitLab’s current auditing capabilities fall short.

Onboardbase offers out-of-the-box real-time monitoring to keep a close eye on the usage of your secrets as they happen.

This proactive approach is vital in identifying and mitigating potential vulnerabilities before they escalate into serious issues―whether you’re concerned about unauthorized access or accidental exposure, Onboardbase provides an elegant solution tailored to both root-cause analysis and human-error prevention.

You can also leverage webhooks to integrate this auditing feature in your custom workflows to ensure you are immediately informed of any suspicious activity.

The device management feature adds an extra layer of security: you can restrict access to secrets based on the specific device being used, significantly reducing the risk of unauthorized access. This is particularly important in modern work environments where team members may use multiple devices or work from various locations.

By ensuring that secrets can only be accessed from trusted devices, Onboardbase helps to protect your organization even if credentials are compromised. This forward-thinking approach to security is designed to give you peace of mind, knowing that your secrets are safe, regardless of where or how your team operates.

Future-proof your devops

Software development and security are constantly evolving, and it’s crucial to choose tools that not only meet your current needs but also scale with your future requirements.

Onboardbase grows with your organization, whether you’re onboarding new team members, integrating new tools in your tech stack, or taking on compliance requirements.

We regularly push new tools and features to address the latest security threats:

• Share secrets securely with your team members with Pastebin
• Securelog provides an open-source secure console logging experience, to detect and prevent the leaking of secrets and API tokens into your logs.
• Get an instant security report to protect your website at inspect.new

Our team makes sure you’re always ahead of the curve to keep your secrets safe and your team productive.

Don’t wait for an emergency

GitLab recognizes these shortcomings and plans to launch a native secret management solution in late 2024. But here’s the question: why wait? Can you be certain that this future solution will meet your needs or be any better than the current third-party integrations they recommend? Betting on an untested feature that’s still months away leaves your projects vulnerable.

Onboardbase offers an alternative that addresses these issues head-on.You get a secure, straightforward, and easy-to-use solution for managing your app secrets, without the need to change your entire development workflow or wait for future updates.

You not only get the peace of mind that your secrets are safe but also the confidence that your team can focus on building great software with faster secret maintenance and collaboration.

Why not make the switch now? Onboardbase integrates with Gitlab CI is just a few minutes. You can get it done today, just have a look at our Gitlab CI integration guide.