head to head · open source
Ente vs certstrap
Ente has 28,956 GitHub stars, 1,805 forks, 229 open issues and last shipped yesterday. certstrap has 2,454 stars, 212 forks, 32 open issues and last shipped 8 months ago. Ente leads on adoption by 1,080% (28,956 vs 2,454 stars). Ente is written in Dart under AGPL-3.0; certstrap is written in Go under Apache-2.0. Ente has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, certstrap 9%. Ente was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (golang), 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.
← all 15422 open source comparisons
Side by side
| Ente | certstrap | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 2.5K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Dart | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-02-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.8K | ⑂ 212 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Ente if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- 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 Ente
Ente is a fully open source, end to end encrypted platform for storing photos, documents and credentials in the cloud, packaged as a monorepo of client apps and a server, and intended for people who want the features of Google Photos, Apple Photos and Authy without having to trust the service provider with their data.
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 →
More in Security & Privacy
Related comparisons
More Data Security & Privacy projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Data Security & Privacy field.
Frequently asked questions
Is Ente or certstrap more popular?
Ente has 28,956 GitHub stars and certstrap has 2,454. Ente has the larger community by that measure.
Are Ente and certstrap free?
Both are open source. Ente is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and certstrap under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Ente and certstrap?
Ente is written in Dart 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, Ente or certstrap?
Choose Ente if you want the larger community (28,956 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose certstrap if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.