head to head · open source
certspotter vs ejbca-ce
certspotter has 1,197 GitHub stars, 104 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 7 days ago. ejbca-ce has 967 stars, 166 forks, 19 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. certspotter leads on adoption by 24% (1,197 vs 967 stars). certspotter is written in Go under MPL-2.0; ejbca-ce is written in Java under LGPL-2.1. certspotter has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, ejbca-ce 17%. certspotter 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
| certspotter | ejbca-ce | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.2K | ★ 967 |
| License | MPL-2.0 | LGPL-2.1 |
| Written in | Go | Java |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 104 | ⑂ 166 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick certspotter if
- You weight community size — 1.2K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick ejbca-ce if
- You want the ejbca-ce feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the LGPL-2.1 license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You evaluated both and ejbca-ce fits your workflow better
About certspotter
Cert Spotter Certificate Transparency Monitor Open Source Edition Cert Spotter is a Certificate Transparency log monitor from SSLMate that alerts you when an SSL/TLS certificate is issued for one of your domains. Cert Spotter is easier to use than other open source CT monitors, since it does not require a database. It's also more robust, since it uses a special certificate parser that ensures it won't miss certificates. Cert Spotter is available as a hosted service by SSLMate that also provides monitoring for expiring and incorrectly installed certificates, Slack notifications, and a Web dashboard for tracking…
read the full certspotter overview →
About ejbca-ce
EJBCA Community Note: We take the security of EJBCA and the trust of our users seriously. If you believe you have identified a security vulnerability in EJBCA, please report it responsibly by contacting us at security@primekey.com. EJBCA Community Edition is not intended for production use. For PKI production deployments, use Keyfactor EJBCA Enterprise Edition. Welcome to the EJBCA Community EJBCA is a public key infrastructure (PKI) and certificate authority (CA) solution and one of the longest running CA software projects. It is platform independent and covers the full certificate lifecycle, from enrollment…
read the full ejbca-ce overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is certspotter or ejbca-ce more popular?
certspotter has 1,197 GitHub stars and ejbca-ce has 967. certspotter has the larger community by that measure.
Are certspotter and ejbca-ce free?
Both are open source. certspotter is licensed under MPL-2.0 and ejbca-ce under LGPL-2.1. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between certspotter and ejbca-ce?
certspotter is written in Go and ejbca-ce in Java. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, certspotter or ejbca-ce?
Choose certspotter if you want the larger community (1,197 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose ejbca-ce if its feature set, stack or LGPL-2.1 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.