head to head · open source
certificates vs Zen
certificates has 8,885 GitHub stars, 597 forks, 299 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. Zen has 4,225 stars, 143 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. certificates leads on adoption by 110% (8,885 vs 4,225 stars). certificates is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Zen is written in Go under MIT. certificates has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Zen 3%. Zen was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (go), 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 | Zen | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 8.9K | ★ 4.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 597 | ⑂ 143 |
| 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 Zen if
- You want the Zen feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and Zen 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 Zen
Zen is an open source desktop application written in Go for Windows, macOS, and Linux under the MIT license. It operates as a system wide ad blocker and privacy guard, so it applies to traffic from applications on the machine rather than only to browser tabs. It lives in the desktop security and privacy ecosystem, where users want filtering without browser extensions.
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Frequently asked questions
Is certificates or Zen more popular?
certificates has 8,885 GitHub stars and Zen has 4,225. certificates has the larger community by that measure.
Are certificates and Zen free?
Both are open source. certificates is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Zen under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between certificates and Zen?
certificates is written in Go and Zen in Go. 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 Zen?
Choose certificates if you want the larger community (8,885 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Zen if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.