Alternative to using Secret Manager for secretArn?

[tahaerden]

Hi, just a small question.

I only use the Secret Manager service for my RDS DB connections using data-api-client. Every time an API Gateway api is called, my lambda calls require('data-api-client') with the secretArn. I am guessing this is the only place that Secret Manager service is triggered.

I noticed in Billing service that the Secret Manager cost is around 5 times more than the RDS, and placed on the top of my cost list.

I was just wondering if this is absolutely necessary, or whether there is an alternative way to store the DB passwords for data-api-client to use. Environment variables maybe?

Thanks.