head to head · open source
certificates vs Stoat
certificates has 9,037 GitHub stars, 616 forks, 299 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Stoat has 3,442 stars, 409 forks, 139 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. certificates leads on adoption by 163% (9,037 vs 3,442 stars). certificates is written in Go under Apache-2.0; Stoat is written in Rust under a custom or non-standard licence. certificates has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, Stoat 12%. certificates 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
| certificates | Stoat | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 9.0K | ★ 3.4K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | Custom / other |
| Written in | Go | Rust |
| Last push | 2026-11-03 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 616 | ⑂ 409 |
| 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 Stoat if
- You want the Stoat feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches Rust
- You evaluated both and Stoat 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 Stoat
Stoat Backend The services and libraries that power the Stoat service.
read the full Stoat overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is certificates or Stoat more popular?
certificates has 9,037 GitHub stars and Stoat has 3,442. certificates has the larger community by that measure.
Are certificates and Stoat free?
Both are open source. certificates is licensed under Apache-2.0, and Stoat has no licence declared in this registry. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between certificates and Stoat?
certificates is written in Go and Stoat in Rust. 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 Stoat?
Choose certificates if you want the larger community (9,037 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose Stoat if its feature set, stack or Custom / other licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.