head to head · open source
certificates vs AutomatedLab
certificates has 9,037 GitHub stars, 616 forks, 299 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. AutomatedLab has 2,235 stars, 382 forks, 31 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. certificates leads on adoption by 304% (9,037 vs 2,235 stars). certificates is written in Go under Apache-2.0; AutomatedLab is written in PowerShell under MIT. certificates has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, AutomatedLab 17%. certificates was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (pki), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| certificates | AutomatedLab | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.0K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | PowerShell |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-07-06 |
| Forks | ⑂ 616 | ⑂ 382 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick certificates if
- You weight community size — 9.0K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick AutomatedLab if
- You want the AutomatedLab feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PowerShell
- You evaluated both and AutomatedLab fits your workflow better
About certificates
step ca step ca is an online certificate authority for secure, automated certificate management for DevOps. It's the server counterpart to the step CLI tool for working with certificates and keys. Both projects are maintained by Smallstep Labs. You can use step ca to: Issue HTTPS server and client certificates that work in browsers (RFC5280 and CA/Browser Forum compliance) Issue TLS certificates for DevOps: VMs, containers, APIs, database connections, Kubernetes pods... Issue SSH certificates: For people, in exchange for single sign on identity tokens For hosts, in exchange for cloud instance identity documents…
read the full certificates overview →
About AutomatedLab
AutomatedLab Build Status Last Commit Latest Release Develop Master Project Summary AutomatedLab (AL) enables you to setup test and lab environments on Hyper v or Azure with multiple products or just a single VM in a very short time. There are only two requirements you need to make sure: You need the DVD ISO images and a Hyper V host or an Azure subscription. Sponsors Huge thanks to our regular sponsor @chocolatey! In case you have lived under a rock (or worked mainly on non Windows systems) for the past decade, Chocolatey is a brilliant package management system with a public binary package gallery as well as…
read the full AutomatedLab overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is certificates or AutomatedLab more popular?
certificates has 9,037 GitHub stars and AutomatedLab has 2,235. certificates has the larger community by that measure.
Are certificates and AutomatedLab free?
Both are open source. certificates is licensed under Apache-2.0 and AutomatedLab under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between certificates and AutomatedLab?
certificates is written in Go and AutomatedLab in PowerShell. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, certificates or AutomatedLab?
Choose certificates if you want the larger community (9,037 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose AutomatedLab if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.