head to head · open source
certificates vs Tongsuo
certificates has 9,037 GitHub stars, 616 forks, 299 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Tongsuo has 1,552 stars, 265 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. certificates leads on adoption by 482% (9,037 vs 1,552 stars). certificates is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Tongsuo is written in C under Apache-2.0. certificates has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Tongsuo 17%. certificates was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 3 topic tags (pki, security, tls), 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 | Tongsuo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.0K | ★ 1.6K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-10-26 |
| Forks | ⑂ 616 | ⑂ 265 |
| 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 Tongsuo if
- You want the Tongsuo feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C
- You evaluated both and Tongsuo 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 Tongsuo
OpenAtom 铜锁/Tongsuo ========================= [![tongsuo logo]][www.tongsuo.net] [![github actions ci badge]][github actions ci] ![GitHub Release][github release] [![GitHub Downloads (all assets, all releases)][github downloads]]( 铜锁/Tongsuo是一个提供现代密码学算法和安全通信协议的开源基础密码库，为存储、网络、密钥管理、隐私计算等诸多业务场景提供底层的密码学基础能力，实现数据在传输、使用、存储等过程中的私密性、完整性和可认证性，为数据生命周期中的隐私和安全提供保护能力。 铜锁获得了国家密码管理局商用密码检测中心颁发的商用密码产品认证证书，助力用户在国密改造、密评、等保等过程中，更加严谨地满足我国商用密码技术合规的要求。可在此处下载资质原始文件。 特性 ========================= 铜锁提供如下主要的功能特性： 技术合规能力 符合 GM/T 0028《密码模块安全技术要求》的"软件密码模块安全一级"资质 符合 GM/T 0005 2021《随机性检测规范》 零知识证明（ZKP） Bulletproofs range Bulletproofs R1CS 密码学算法…
read the full Tongsuo overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is certificates or Tongsuo more popular?
certificates has 9,037 GitHub stars and Tongsuo has 1,552. certificates has the larger community by that measure.
Are certificates and Tongsuo free?
Both are open source. certificates is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Tongsuo under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between certificates and Tongsuo?
certificates is written in Go and Tongsuo in C. 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 Tongsuo?
Choose certificates if you want the larger community (9,037 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Tongsuo if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.