head to head · open source
Zen vs Certipy
Zen has 4,347 GitHub stars, 145 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Certipy has 3,715 stars, 490 forks, 25 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. Zen leads on adoption by 17% (4,347 vs 3,715 stars). Zen is written in Go under MIT; Certipy is written in Python under MIT. Zen has attracted 3% as many forks as stars, Certipy 13%. Zen 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
| Zen | Certipy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 4.3K | ★ 3.7K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Python |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-07-30 |
| Forks | ⑂ 145 | ⑂ 490 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Zen if
- You weight community size — 4.3K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Certipy if
- You want the Certipy feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Certipy fits your workflow better
About Zen
Zen: Your Comprehensive Ad Blocker and Privacy Guard There is, simply, no way, to ignore privacy. Because a citizenry’s freedoms are interdependent, to surrender your own privacy is really to surrender everyone’s. Edward Snowden, Permanent Record Website • Mastodon • Bluesky • Discord • Documentation Zen is an open source system wide ad blocker and privacy guard for Windows, macOS, and Linux. It works by setting up a proxy that intercepts HTTP requests from all applications, and blocks those serving ads, tracking scripts that monitor your behavior, malware, and other unwanted content. By operating at the system…
About Certipy
Certipy AD CS Attack & Enumeration Toolkit Certipy is a powerful offensive and defensive toolkit for enumerating and abusing Active Directory Certificate Services (AD CS). It helps red teamers, penetration testers, and defenders assess AD CS misconfigurations including full support for identifying and exploiting all known ESC1 ESC17 attack paths. [!WARNING] Use only in environments where you have explicit authorization. Unauthorized use may be illegal. 🔍 Features 🔎 Discover Certificate Authorities and Templates 🚩 Identify misconfigurations 🔐 Request and forge certificates 🎭 Perform authentication using…
read the full Certipy 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 Zen or Certipy more popular?
Zen has 4,347 GitHub stars and Certipy has 3,715. Zen has the larger community by that measure.
Are Zen and Certipy free?
Both are open source. Zen is licensed under MIT and Certipy under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Zen and Certipy?
Zen is written in Go and Certipy in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Zen or Certipy?
Choose Zen if you want the larger community (4,347 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Certipy if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.