head to head · open source
certspotter vs routinator
certspotter has 1,197 GitHub stars, 104 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped 8 days ago. routinator has 580 stars, 90 forks, 34 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. certspotter leads on adoption by 106% (1,197 vs 580 stars). certspotter is written in Go under MPL-2.0; routinator is written in Rust under BSD-3-Clause. certspotter has attracted 9% as many forks as stars, routinator 16%. routinator 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 | routinator | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 1.2K | ★ 580 |
| License | MPL-2.0 | BSD-3-Clause |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-10-29 | 2026-11-04 |
| Forks | ⑂ 104 | ⑂ 90 |
| 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 routinator if
- You want the routinator feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and routinator 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 routinator
Routinator Routinator 3000 is free, open source RPKI Relying Party software. The project is written in Rust, a programming language designed for performance and memory safety. Lightweight and portable Routinator has minimal system requirements and it can run on almost any hardware and platform, with packages available for most. You can also easily run with Docker or Cargo, the Rust package manager. Full featured and secure Routinator runs as a service that periodically downloads and verifies RPKI data. The built in HTTPS server offers a user interface, API endpoints for various file formats, as well as logging…
read the full routinator overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is certspotter or routinator more popular?
certspotter has 1,197 GitHub stars and routinator has 580. certspotter has the larger community by that measure.
Are certspotter and routinator free?
Both are open source. certspotter is licensed under MPL-2.0 and routinator under BSD-3-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between certspotter and routinator?
certspotter is written in Go and routinator in Rust. 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 routinator?
Choose certspotter if you want the larger community (1,197 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose routinator if its feature set, stack or BSD-3-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.