secrets-store-csi-driver-provider-azure VS vault-secrets-operator

The driver can also sync changes to secrets. The driver currently supports Vault, AWS, Azure, and GCP providers. Secrets Store CSI Driver can also sync provider secrets as Kubernetes secrets; if required, this behavior needs to be explicitly enabled during installation.

Azure SS-CSI driver

Azure Key Vault Provider for Secrets Store CSI Driver allows you to get secret contents stored in an Azure Key Vault instance and use the Secrets Store CSI driver interface to mount them into Kubernetes pods.

Key vault is a good Azure native option. Take look at the secret store CSI driver for Azure https://github.com/Azure/secrets-store-csi-driver-provider-azure

For home use, I wouldn't bother with Vault unless that's really what you want to learn. Then it's worth looking into setting something up where you could use vault secrets, using one of the available options (I haven't seen the vault-secrets-operator being mentioned).

It is but it affects vault-secrets-operator too, see https://github.com/ricoberger/vault-secrets-operator/issues/104 (and no, I’ve only use vault-secrets-operator)

If you are using an external KMS in any case, then there are other options, such as the kubernetes-external-secrets operator that was originally started by GoDaddy and the externalsecret-operator from Container Solutions. If you use HashiCorp Vault, you also have the option of using the Vault Secrets operator. This works similarly to the Sealed Secrets Operator, but instead of managing its own key material, it retrieves the secrets from Vault. The CNCF Technology Radar from January 2021 provides an overview of the types of tools that are available for secrets management.