head to head · open source
certificates vs helm-secrets
certificates has 8,885 GitHub stars, 597 forks, 299 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. helm-secrets has 2,029 stars, 154 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. certificates leads on adoption by 338% (8,885 vs 2,029 stars). certificates is written in Go under Apache-2.0; helm-secrets is written in Shell under Apache-2.0. certificates has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, helm-secrets 8%. certificates was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | helm-secrets | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.9K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-11 |
| Forks | ⑂ 597 | ⑂ 154 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick certificates if
- You weight community size — 8.9K 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 helm-secrets if
- You want the helm-secrets feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and helm-secrets fits your workflow better
About certificates
step ca is an open source online certificate authority that issues X.509 and SSH certificates and runs as an ACME server, built for DevOps teams that need automated certificate management without a commercial PKI contract.
read the full certificates overview →
About helm-secrets
helm secrets is a Helm plugin that decrypts encrypted Helm value files on the fly, built for teams that keep Kubernetes secrets in Git or a cloud native secret manager and deploy charts with Helm or a GitOps operator such as ArgoCD.
read the full helm-secrets overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is certificates or helm-secrets more popular?
certificates has 8,885 GitHub stars and helm-secrets has 2,029. certificates has the larger community by that measure.
Are certificates and helm-secrets free?
Both are open source. certificates is licensed under Apache-2.0 and helm-secrets under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between certificates and helm-secrets?
certificates is written in Go and helm-secrets in Shell. 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 helm-secrets?
Choose certificates if you want the larger community (8,885 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose helm-secrets if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.