Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Certify The Web VS Let's Encrypt

Compare Certify The Web VS Let's Encrypt and see what are their differences

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Certify The Web logo Certify The Web

Certify The Web provides a simple way to use Let's Encrypt and other ACME CAs on Windows and IIS, with an easy to use UI. Advanced users can use powerful Deployment Tasks and custom scripting for more complex automation scenarios.

Let's Encrypt logo Let's Encrypt

Let’s Encrypt is a free, automated, and open certificate authority brought to you by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG).
  • Certify The Web Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-18
  • Let's Encrypt Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-12

Certify The Web features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Let's Encrypt features and specs

  • Free of Charge
    Let's Encrypt provides SSL/TLS certificates at no cost, making it an economical choice for individuals and businesses.
  • Automated Certificate Issuance and Renewal
    The process of obtaining and renewing certificates can be automated using the ACME protocol, reducing manual intervention and administrative overhead.
  • Ease of Use
    Let's Encrypt simplifies the process of enabling HTTPS for websites, even for users with limited technical expertise.
  • Security
    Let's Encrypt certificates provide strong encryption, improving the security of data transmitted between clients and servers.
  • Widely Recognized
    Certificates issued by Let's Encrypt are trusted by all major web browsers and operating systems.
  • Promotes Secure Web Practices
    By making SSL/TLS certificates freely available, Let's Encrypt encourages more websites to adopt HTTPS, contributing to a more secure internet.

Possible disadvantages of Let's Encrypt

  • Short Duration of Certificates
    Let's Encrypt certificates are valid for only 90 days, requiring more frequent renewals compared to traditional certificate authorities.
  • Limited Support Options
    Let's Encrypt relies on community support and documentation, and does not offer dedicated customer support for troubleshooting and assistance.
  • No Extended Validation (EV) Certificates
    Let's Encrypt does not issue Extended Validation (EV) certificates, which provide additional verification and a higher level of trust for business websites.
  • Potential for Misuse
    Since certificates are issued for free and with minimal validation, there is a risk that cybercriminals might use them for phishing or other malicious activities.
  • No Wildcard Certificates for Multi-Level Subdomains
    While Let's Encrypt supports wildcard certificates for single-level subdomains, it doesn't support them for nested subdomains (e.g., *.sub.example.com).
  • Reliance on Third-Party Tools for Automation
    Users may need to rely on third-party tools or scripts for automation, which could introduce additional complexity or security risks.

Analysis of Let's Encrypt

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Let's Encrypt is a good choice for many website owners looking to implement HTTPS. It is trusted by major web browsers and has gained a strong reputation for reliability and ease of use.

Why this product is good

  • Let's Encrypt is widely considered a good option for SSL/TLS certificates because it provides free, automated, and open certificate issuance, which makes it accessible and convenient for website owners to secure their domains. It's designed to eliminate the complexity and costs typically associated with obtaining and renewing SSL certificates. Its easy integration with various web server software and support for automated renewals via the Certbot tool further enhances its appeal.

Recommended for

    Let's Encrypt is recommended for small to medium-sized websites, blogs, personal projects, non-commercial sites, and anyone looking to quickly and easily obtain SSL/TLS certificates without incurring costs. Larger enterprises or businesses with specific security and compliance requirements might need additional features provided by commercial certificate authorities.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Certify The Web and Let's Encrypt)
Certificate Lifecycle Management
Security & Privacy
0 0%
100% 100
Certification
100 100%
0% 0
Identity And Access Management

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Let's Encrypt seems to be a lot more popular than Certify The Web. While we know about 340 links to Let's Encrypt, we've tracked only 4 mentions of Certify The Web. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Certify The Web mentions (4)

  • TLS Certificate Lifetimes Will Officially Reduce to 47 Days
    Pretty sure this only refers to publicly trusted certs. What percentage of public certs are still being manually managed? I've been in the cert automation industry for 8 years (https://certifytheweb.com) and I do still hear of manual work going on, but the majority of stuff can be automated. For stuff that genuinely cannot be automated (are you sure you're sure) these become monthly maintenance tasks,... - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • SSL certificate lifetimes are going down. Dates proposed. 45 days by 2027
    This is largely a solved problem. On Windows https://certifytheweb.com has provided automated certificate management for the best part of a decade and we're now branching out into large scale cross-platform tools, for those interested. I was surprised by a customer yesterday who was looking to migrate thousands of manually renewed 1 year certs, I had no idea people were still using 1 yr certs to such a... - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • Running One-man SaaS for 9 Years
    Thanks :) - yes 90% of users are using the free version. It's a desktop app you install on servers. The API elements it does have are a combination of cloudflare workers, a windows server (for customer portal), linux for community discourse. Peak API use so far is 350M requests per month (was about $46 on cloudflare) but have managed to curtail that a bit. https://certifytheweb.com. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Seeking Guidance: SSL Certification for a Local Server in Windows 2019 Data Center Environment
    Option 2+: If your public DNS is hosted by a provider that has Win-ACME or Certify the Web support, use Let's Encrypt and automate the whole thing. Source: about 2 years ago

Let's Encrypt mentions (340)

  • EU OS for the Public Sector
    > speaking about it in webinars and various conferences That's unfortunately the feeling I got from the landing page, lots of talking, bureaucracy and buzzword bingo and not much "doing". I might be wrong. For comparison https://letsencrypt.org, not a single mention of "webinars" or "stakeholders". - Source: Hacker News / 5 days ago
  • Cloudflare Tunnel for Home Assistant
    The good news is that the times when SSL certificates were a luxury feature are gone. Let's Encrypt makes them available to everybody for free. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • How to Chat with Gemini 2.5 Pro from VSCode via AI Studio (Free and Unlimited)
    Create a local domain and generate SSL certificates for it using Let's Encrypt, and use it for my server. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Understanding Secure Communication: Encryption, Hashing, and Certificates
    Leverage existing trusted Certificate Authorities (Let’s Encrypt, DigiCert) or internal CAs for internal setups. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • East, west, north, south: How to fix your local cluster routes
    The ingress configurations in the cluster need to serve a certificate that is trusted by browsers and systems. One way could be registering a public (sub)domain for internal use, and use Let's Encrypt certificates, using DNS-01 challenge for verification. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Certify The Web and Let's Encrypt, you can also consider the following products

Certbot - Automatically enable HTTPS on your website with EFF's Certbot, deploying Let's Encrypt certificates.

OpenSSL - OpenSSL is a free and open source software cryptography library that implements both the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and the Transport Layer Security (TLS) protocols, which are primarily used to provide secure communications between web browsers and …

Dogtag PKI - The Dogtag Certificate System is an enterprise-class open source Certificate Authority (CA).

Ensighten - Ensighten provides enterprise tag management solutions that enable businesses manage their websites more effectively.

Mail-in-a-box - Mail-in-a-Box provides webmail and an IMAP/SMTP server for use with mobile devices and desktop mail software and also includes contacts and calendar synchronization.

AWS Certificate Manager - AWS Certificate Manager from Amazon Web Services (AWS)