head to head · open source
certificates vs routinator
certificates has 8,889 GitHub stars, 597 forks, 299 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. routinator has 573 stars, 86 forks, 34 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. certificates leads on adoption by 1,451% (8,889 vs 573 stars). certificates is written in Go under Apache-2.0; routinator is written in Rust under BSD-3-Clause. certificates has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, routinator 15%. routinator 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 | routinator | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.9K | ★ 573 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 597 | ⑂ 86 |
| 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 routinator if
- You want the routinator feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and routinator 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 routinator
Routinator 3000 is a free, open source RPKI Relying Party written in Rust that validates RPKI data and serves it to routers, aimed at network operators and engineers running BGP who need to check route origin authorisations.
read the full routinator overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is certificates or routinator more popular?
certificates has 8,889 GitHub stars and routinator has 573. certificates has the larger community by that measure.
Are certificates and routinator free?
Both are open source. certificates is licensed under Apache-2.0 and routinator under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between certificates and routinator?
certificates is written in Go and routinator in Rust. 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 routinator?
Choose certificates if you want the larger community (8,889 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose routinator if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.