head to head · open source
Stoat vs certstrap
Stoat has 3,336 GitHub stars, 388 forks, 139 open issues and last shipped today. certstrap has 2,454 stars, 212 forks, 32 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. Stoat leads on adoption by 36% (3,336 vs 2,454 stars). Stoat is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence; certstrap is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Stoat has attracted 12% as many forks as stars, certstrap 9%. Stoat 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.
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Side by side
| Stoat | certstrap | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 3.3K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | Custom / other | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Rust | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-02-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 388 | ⑂ 212 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Stoat if
- You weight community size — 3.3K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- 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 Stoat
Stoat is a Rust backend project that provides the services and libraries powering the Stoat group chat service. The repository is organized around core crates for configuration, database implementation, files, API models, permissions, presence, result types, and a coalesced crate.
read the full Stoat overview →
About certstrap
certstrap is a simple certificate manager written in Go that bootstraps a private certificate authority and public key infrastructure, aimed at operators and developers who need to issue TLS certificates without wrestling with openssl.
read the full certstrap overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Stoat or certstrap more popular?
Stoat has 3,336 GitHub stars and certstrap has 2,454. Stoat has the larger community by that measure.
Are Stoat and certstrap free?
Both are open source. Stoat has no licence declared in this registry, and certstrap is licensed under Apache-2.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Stoat and certstrap?
Stoat is written in Rust 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, Stoat or certstrap?
Choose Stoat if you want the larger community (3,336 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose certstrap if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.