EJBCA Community Edition is an LGPL-licensed, Java-based public key infrastructure and certificate authority package for anyone who wants to learn, test, or prototype certificate and PKI workflows without committing to a commercial PKI product.

What it is

EJBCA is a public key infrastructure and certificate authority solution, and one of the longest-running CA software projects. It is platform-independent and covers the full certificate lifecycle, from enrollment and management through to validation. The software is written in Java and runs on a JVM such as OpenJDK, which makes it available on most platforms, including Linux and Windows. The project is published under the LGPL license and is certified by the Open Source Initiative.

The concrete problem it solves is access to certificate authority functionality without a commercial contract. EJBCA Community Edition is an open-source subset of EJBCA Enterprise, and it exists so that developers and operators can build and exercise certificate and PKI workflows locally or in a lab. It lives in the Java and PKIX ecosystem, alongside the surrounding topics the project tags itself with: cryptography, PKI applications, and PKI tools. The specific thing it replaces for that audience is the entry cost of standing up a commercial CA simply to learn how one behaves.

Key capabilities

• Covers the full certificate lifecycle: enrollment, management, and validation.
• Platform-independent Java implementation that runs on a JVM such as OpenJDK, on Linux and Windows.
• Published as a container image, keyfactor/ejbca-ce, on Docker Hub.
• Distributed as a Helm chart, ejbca-ce, on Artifact Hub for automated deployment.
• Licensed under the LGPL and certified by the Open Source Initiative, with the license text in LICENSE.
• Holds an OpenSSF Best Practices badge, registered as project 9419.
• Supported by a best-effort community through EJBCA Discussions, the Issues tab, and pull requests under CONTRIBUTING.md.

Who uses it and how

• Developers learning or prototyping certificate and PKI workflows, which is the stated design intent of the Community Edition.
• Teams evaluating PKI concepts before deciding whether a production deployment is warranted.
• Operators who prefer containers: the keyfactor/ejbca-ce image runs directly from Docker Hub.
• Automation-minded deployments that drive the ejbca-ce Helm chart rather than installing from source.
• Contributors who work through the Issues tab and pull requests, or who report vulnerabilities privately to [email protected].

Getting started

Deploy from source by cloning the ejbca-ce repository and following the EJBCA Installation documentation, or run the keyfactor/ejbca-ce container image from Docker Hub. A Helm chart, ejbca-ce, is available on Artifact Hub for automated deployment.

How it compares

No comparable open-source PKI tools are named in the facts, and the only named counterpart is EJBCA Enterprise, which is the same project's commercial edition rather than a rival product. EJBCA Community Edition therefore stands alone in this registry as the open-source entry point to the EJBCA family. The distinction that matters is edition, not vendor: Community is an LGPL-licensed subset, while Enterprise is the licensed edition built for production with security certifications, high assurance features, enterprise-grade operations, and commercial support backed by SLAs.

When to use it — and when not to

Use it for learning, testing, and prototyping certificate and PKI workflows, where the LGPL source and container images are enough. Do not use it for production, because it is explicitly not intended for production deployment; production PKI typically requires certifications, high assurance features, SLAs, support, and operational assurances that only EJBCA Enterprise provides. Be aware that Community Edition is community-supported with no support SLA, that it is deliberately a subset of Enterprise, and that its issue count is low (19 open issues) with the repository last pushed on 2026-09-15.