head to head · open source
certificates vs Tongsuo
certificates has 8,885 GitHub stars, 597 forks, 299 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Tongsuo has 1,535 stars, 260 forks, 160 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. certificates leads on adoption by 479% (8,885 vs 1,535 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| certificates | Tongsuo | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.9K | ★ 1.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | C |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 597 | ⑂ 260 |
| 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 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 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 Tongsuo
Tongsuo (铜锁) is an open source C library of modern cryptographic primitives and secure communication protocols, developed under the OpenAtom Foundation, and it is built for teams that need Chinese commercial cryptography, TLS, PKI, and privacy preserving primitives from a single dependency.
read the full Tongsuo 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 Tongsuo more popular?
certificates has 8,885 GitHub stars and Tongsuo has 1,535. 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 (8,885 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.