head to head · open source
certificates vs helm-secrets
certificates has 9,037 GitHub stars, 616 forks, 299 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. helm-secrets has 2,037 stars, 156 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. certificates leads on adoption by 344% (9,037 vs 2,037 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| certificates | helm-secrets | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.0K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-10-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 616 | ⑂ 156 |
| 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 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 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 helm-secrets
helm secrets ⭐ Don't forget to star this repository! ⭐ About helm secrets is a Helm plugin to decrypt encrypted Helm value files on the fly. Use sops to encrypt value files and store them in git. Store your secrets in a cloud native secret manager like AWS SecretManager, Azure KeyVault or HashiCorp Vault and inject them inside value files or templates. Use helm secret in your favorite deployment tool or GitOps Operator like ArgoCD Who’s actually using helm secrets? If you are using helm secrets in your company or organization, we would like to invite you to create a PR to add your information to this file…
read the full helm-secrets overview →
More in Security & Privacy
Related comparisons
More Data Security & Privacy projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Security & Privacy field.
Frequently asked questions
Is certificates or helm-secrets more popular?
certificates has 9,037 GitHub stars and helm-secrets has 2,037. 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 (9,037 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.