head to head · open source
certificates vs docker-nginx-certbot
certificates has 9,037 GitHub stars, 616 forks, 299 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. docker-nginx-certbot has 1,211 stars, 195 forks, 8 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. certificates leads on adoption by 646% (9,037 vs 1,211 stars). certificates is written in Go under Apache-2.0; docker-nginx-certbot is written in Shell under MIT. certificates has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, docker-nginx-certbot 16%. docker-nginx-certbot was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (acme, certificate-authority), 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 | docker-nginx-certbot | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.0K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Go | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 616 | ⑂ 195 |
| 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 docker-nginx-certbot if
- You want the docker-nginx-certbot feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and docker-nginx-certbot 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 docker-nginx-certbot
docker nginx certbot Automatically create and renew website SSL certificates using the [Let's Encrypt][1] free certificate authority and its client [ certbot ][2]. Built on top of the [official Nginx Docker images][9] (both Debian and Alpine), and uses OpenSSL/LibreSSL to automatically create the Diffie Hellman parameters used during the initial handshake of some ciphers. :information source: The very first time this container is started it might take a long time before it is ready to respond to requests. Read more about this in the Diffie Hellman parameters section. :information source: Please use a specific…
read the full docker-nginx-certbot overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is certificates or docker-nginx-certbot more popular?
certificates has 9,037 GitHub stars and docker-nginx-certbot has 1,211. certificates has the larger community by that measure.
Are certificates and docker-nginx-certbot free?
Both are open source. certificates is licensed under Apache-2.0 and docker-nginx-certbot under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between certificates and docker-nginx-certbot?
certificates is written in Go and docker-nginx-certbot in Shell. 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 docker-nginx-certbot?
Choose certificates if you want the larger community (9,037 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose docker-nginx-certbot if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.