head to head · open source
jenkins vs certimate
jenkins has 26,559 GitHub stars, 9,834 forks, 3,610 open issues and last shipped today. certimate has 9,309 stars, 901 forks, 51 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. jenkins leads on adoption by 185% (26,559 vs 9,309 stars). jenkins is written in Java under MIT; certimate is written in Go under MIT. jenkins has attracted 37% as many forks as stars, certimate 10%. jenkins was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (devops), 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
| jenkins | certimate | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 27K | ★ 9.3K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | Java | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 9.8K | ⑂ 901 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick jenkins if
- You weight community size — 27K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Java
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick certimate if
- You want the certimate feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and certimate fits your workflow better
About jenkins
Jenkins is an open source automation server built with Java and released under the MIT license. It lives in the continuous integration and continuous delivery ecosystem, where it has served as a central automation hub for roughly sixteen years. The project is developed in the open on GitHub, where it has accumulated 26,546 stars and 9,833 forks, and it is distributed through the official jenkins.io website alongside documentation, plugin listings, and release notes. Two release lines are maintained: a weekly line that carries all new features, improvements, and bug fixes, and a Long Term Support line that receive…
read the full jenkins overview →
About certimate
Certimate is an open source, MIT licensed, self hosted ACME client that automates the full lifecycle of SSL/TLS certificates — issuance, deployment, renewal, and monitoring — through a visual workflow, and it is built for DevOps engineers and infrastructure teams who manage certificates across many domains, registrars, and hosting providers.
read the full certimate overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is jenkins or certimate more popular?
jenkins has 26,559 GitHub stars and certimate has 9,309. jenkins has the larger community by that measure.
Are jenkins and certimate free?
Both are open source. jenkins is licensed under MIT and certimate under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jenkins and certimate?
jenkins is written in Java and certimate 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, jenkins or certimate?
Choose jenkins if you want the larger community (26,559 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose certimate if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.