Straight answers, no sales fluff.

Traditional encryption protects data at rest (on disk) and in transit (on the network), but it is usually decrypted in memory when applications need to use it. Encryption-in-use keeps data protected even while it's being queried and processed, so plaintext is never exposed to the database or underlying infrastructure. This significantly reduces the blast radius of a breach, insider threat, or misconfiguration because sensitive data is never sitting around in readable form.

CipherStash uses a cryptographic approach that allows you to perform equality, free text search and range queries over encrypted fields. Your app interacts with CipherStash through our SDKs, which handle encrypting queries and decrypting results directly in your application. The database only ever sees encrypted values and encrypted indexes, so it never has access to plaintext data.

No. You don't need a full re-architecture. You introduce CipherStash at the boundaries where data is created, queried, or returned to your application. That typically means: updating your data models to mark encrypted fields, routing read/write paths through CipherStash SDKs, and performing a migration for existing data you want to protect. Most teams adopt it incrementally, starting with a high-risk table or dataset, then expanding coverage.

All of the CipherStash SDKs are built with a developer-first approach on top of Rust binaries. We currently support JavaScript/TypeScript, Rust, and Go, but it's easy to add support for other languages. Additional language SDKs are on the roadmap and in development, designed to deliver the same "drop-in" experience across stacks.

A traditional KMS is usually a central service that stores and manages keys. Applications must trust that central point and call into it for cryptographic operations. CipherStash's ZeroKMS architecture removes that central dependency. Keys are derived and used in a distributed, threshold-based way so there's no single "god box" holding all secrets. This helps reduce single points of failure and align with zero-trust principles.

We currently don't support BYOK with CipherStash. It's on our roadmap to support this in the future on the Enterprise plan. If you're interested in BYOK, please contact us and we'll be happy to discuss your use case.

No. A core design principle is that keys are never centralized in a single place that CipherStash (or anyone else) can access. On-demand key derivation and distributed trust mean keys are derived and used in controlled contexts, not stored as static long-lived secrets inside a vendor service.

No. Many teams adopt CipherStash specifically to reduce their reliance on heavy HSM or vault infrastructure. If you already have HSMs or a KMS in place, CipherStash can work alongside them, but it's not a requirement to get started.

CipherStash handles key rotation automatically by design. Every encrypted value is protected with its own unique data-encryption key, so rotating keys doesn’t require bulk re-encryption of stored data. These data keys are derived using key-encryption keys (KEKs) managed by ZeroKMS, which rotates them seamlessly in the background. CipherStash uses HMAC-based key-derivation and wrapping schemes that are resistant to key wear-out, ensuring that even with very high request volumes, KEKs remain safe to use for long periods without compromising security. This gives you continuous key freshness with no operational burden and no downtime.

No, CipherStash does not use Homomorphic Encryption. Instead, it employs a combination of advanced cryptographic techniques such as searchable and functional encryption. This approach provides a practical balance between security and performance for real-world applications and is many orders of magnitude more efficient than HE.

CipherStash is designed to augment, not fight your existing setup. For many customers, AWS KMS or Vault remains in use for certain use-cases, while CipherStash handles encryption-in-use, searchable encryption, and fine-grained access control at the data layer.

It depends on your environment. Most customers see CipherStash as an upgrade or replacement for parts of their KMS/Vault footprint, especially where they struggle with tokenization or per-field encryption.

Most teams adopt CipherStash incrementally. You do not have to tear down your architecture. You identify high-value tables or datasets, define which fields should be encrypted, and integrate CipherStash at those points. Over time, you can extend coverage to more systems as your team gets comfortable.

Integration timelines vary by complexity, but CipherStash is designed to feel like a "drop-in" developer experience. Many teams get a proof-of-concept running in days or weeks, not months, because schema-defined encryption and language specific SDKs remove a lot of boilerplate and custom cryptography work.

Yes. Legacy environments often benefit the most from improved data protections. You'll typically introduce CipherStash at the API or service layer that interfaces with your legacy database, then migrate sensitive fields into encrypted schemas over time. We can help design a step-by-step path that minimizes risk and downtime.

CipherStash is built for production workloads. There is a small fixed overhead (typically a few milliseconds) to performing cryptographic operations and encrypted search, but the system is engineered to keep this overhead low and predictable even as datasets scale. Because searchable encryption eliminates the need to decrypt entire datasets for queries, in most cases, you'll see latency that is well within the bounds of normal application SLAs, especially compared to the complexity and cost of building similar functionality in-house.

Encrypted search will always be somewhat heavier than plain-text lookups, but CipherStash uses indexes and query planning tailored for encrypted data to keep performance highly usable. Many common operations, such as exact lookups on IDs or JSON-path filters, perform similarly to what you'd expect from a well-indexed database, but without exposing the underlying sensitive values.

Yes. CipherStash is designed to run in AWS-native and other modern cloud environments, and to fit into microservices and distributed architectures. The system's operational model supports automated key rotation, horizontal scaling, and integration with your existing observability and deployment pipelines.

A key benefit is reducing operational overhead compared to managing bespoke tokenization systems, custom crypto, and HSM-heavy workflows. You gain centralized, declarative control over what's encrypted, how keys are rotated, and who can access what, without your team having to design, maintain, and audit that logic from scratch.

CipherStash aligns with modern compliance frameworks and zero-trust data strategies by ensuring sensitive data remains encrypted throughout its lifecycle. That supports controls related to data classification, least privilege, key management, access review, and breach impact reduction. It also makes it easier to demonstrate that only the right identities can access specific data fields at specific times.

Yes. CipherStash provides the same capabilities that map cleanly to those requirements. It also helps demonstrate that protections extend beyond simple "encryption-at-rest" checkboxes.

Yes. By centralizing and codifying how sensitive fields are encrypted and who can access them, CipherStash gives GRC and audit teams a clear, auditable story. You can show which data is protected, how keys are rotated, and how access is enforced at a level of granularity that is difficult to achieve with traditional KMS/Vault-only architectures.

Absolutely. Many customers come to CipherStash specifically because they have immediate security and compliance initiatives around key rotation, secret governance, and zero-trust data. We help translate those initiatives into concrete controls at the data layer, so you can show real progress, not just policies on paper.

CipherStash pricing is designed to scale with actual usage and value, rather than forcing you into rigid tiers that don't match your reality. Factors such as environments, keysets, and usage patterns influence the overall cost. We work with you to align pricing with the risk you're reducing and the initiatives you're enabling. You can view our pricing page for more details. Contact us for enterprise pricing.

A KMS or Vault alone doesn't give you encryption-in-use, searchable encryption, or granular identity-bound access for live application data. CipherStash reduces the need for homegrown crypto, tokenization systems, and manual governance processes. The ROI comes from lower breach exposure, less engineering time spent on security plumbing, and smoother compliance and audit cycles.

The intent is the opposite: to replace fragile, custom, and expensive security mechanisms with a purpose-built platform. While there is a subscription cost, many customers find that they save significant engineering and operational time, and meaningfully reduce the potential cost of security incidents.

KMS, Secrets Manager, and Vault are primarily about storing and managing secrets. CipherStash is about what happens when those secrets are used to protect real application data. We provide encryption-in-use, searchable encryption, and identity-bound access controls at the data layer, so sensitive fields remain protected even while they are actively queried and processed.

In many cases, yes. CipherStash is often adopted to replace homegrown tokenization vaults or ad-hoc field-level encryption that are hard to scale and audit. You gain a consistent, well-structured model for protecting and querying data, instead of a patchwork of scripts and one-off services.

If you're satisfied with static encryption-at-rest and coarse-grained access, you may not need more. But if you're facing pressure around zero-trust, key rotation, secret governance, or fine-grained access control, or if your teams are struggling to implement those capabilities securely, CipherStash fills that gap.

Most teams start with a focused proof-of-concept on a high-value dataset: for example, a customer table, a financial ledger, or a set of high-risk PII fields. From there, they validate performance, developer experience, and compliance benefits before rolling out to additional services and environments.

Successful deployments usually include Security/CISO, DevSecOps, application engineering, and compliance or GRC. CipherStash touches policy (who should see what), implementation (how apps access data), and assurance (proving controls work), so alignment across these groups leads to faster, smoother rollout.

No. CipherStash is intentionally built so that product engineers can use it safely without being crypto experts. You define schemas and access rules; the platform handles the hard parts of key management, encryption, and secure querying. Security and platform teams retain control over policy, while developers maintain velocity.

The easiest next step is to identify a concrete initiative, such as upcoming audits, zero-trust data goals, or encryption modernization, and pick a dataset that represents that need. From there, we can help you design a proof-of-concept, run realistic tests, and build the internal business case for rollout.