head to head · open source
certificates vs certstrap
certificates has 9,037 GitHub stars, 616 forks, 299 open issues and last shipped yesterday. certstrap has 2,462 stars, 212 forks, 32 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. certificates leads on adoption by 267% (9,037 vs 2,462 stars). certificates is written in Go under Apache-2.0; certstrap is written in Go under Apache-2.0. certificates has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, certstrap 9%. certificates was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (certificate-authority, 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.
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Side by side
| certificates | certstrap | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.0K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Go | Go |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 616 | ⑂ 212 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick certificates if
- You weight community size — 9.0K 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 certstrap if
- You want the certstrap feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and certstrap fits your workflow better
About certificates
step ca step ca is an online certificate authority for secure, automated certificate management for DevOps. It's the server counterpart to the step CLI tool for working with certificates and keys. Both projects are maintained by Smallstep Labs. You can use step ca to: Issue HTTPS server and client certificates that work in browsers (RFC5280 and CA/Browser Forum compliance) Issue TLS certificates for DevOps: VMs, containers, APIs, database connections, Kubernetes pods... Issue SSH certificates: For people, in exchange for single sign on identity tokens For hosts, in exchange for cloud instance identity documents…
read the full certificates overview →
About certstrap
certstrap A simple certificate manager written in Go, to bootstrap your own certificate authority and public key infrastructure. Adapted from etcd ca. certstrap is a very convenient app if you don't feel like dealing with openssl, its myriad of options or config files. Common Uses certstrap allows you to build your own certificate system: 1. Initialize certificate authorities 2. Create identities and certificate signature requests for hosts 3. Sign and generate certificates Certificate architecture certstrap can init multiple certificate authorities to sign certificates with. Users can make arbitrarily long…
read the full certstrap overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is certificates or certstrap more popular?
certificates has 9,037 GitHub stars and certstrap has 2,462. certificates has the larger community by that measure.
Are certificates and certstrap free?
Both are open source. certificates is licensed under Apache-2.0 and certstrap under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between certificates and certstrap?
certificates is written in Go and certstrap 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 certstrap?
Choose certificates if you want the larger community (9,037 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose certstrap if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.