Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Smallstep Certificates VS EJBCA

Compare Smallstep Certificates VS EJBCA and see what are their differences

Smallstep Certificates logo Smallstep Certificates

A private certificate authority (X.509 & SSH) & ACME server for secure automated certificate management, so you can use TLS everywhere & SSO for SSH.

EJBCA logo EJBCA

EJBCA® is a PKI Certificate Authority software, built using Java (JEE) technology.
  • Smallstep Certificates Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-22
  • EJBCA Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-26

Smallstep Certificates features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

EJBCA features and specs

  • Open Source
    EJBCA is open-source, which means you can access, modify, and distribute the software freely. This leads to cost savings and the flexibility to customize the software to meet your specific needs.
  • Comprehensive Features
    EJBCA offers a comprehensive set of features for certificate management, including issuance, revocation, validation, and a wide range of PKI functions. This makes it suitable for various applications and industries.
  • Scalability
    EJBCA is designed to handle large deployments, making it suitable for enterprises or organizations with extensive PKI infrastructures and the need for handling numerous certificates.
  • Standards Compliance
    EJBCA complies with numerous industry standards like X.509, RFC 5280, and others, ensuring interoperability with other systems and adherence to accepted security protocols.
  • Community Support
    As an open-source project, EJBCA benefits from an active community of users and contributors who can offer support, share knowledge, and contribute to the continuous improvement of the software.

Possible disadvantages of EJBCA

  • Complexity
    EJBCA's comprehensive feature set and flexibility can result in a steep learning curve for new users, requiring a deep understanding of PKI concepts and the software itself.
  • Resource Intensive
    Setting up and maintaining an EJBCA deployment can be resource-intensive, requiring sufficient hardware and skilled personnel to manage and optimize the system.
  • Limited User Interface
    The user interface of EJBCA may not be as polished or intuitive as some commercial CA solutions, potentially making administration tasks more challenging for less technical users.
  • Support and Documentation
    While there is community support, the quality and availability of official documentation and professional support might be less comprehensive compared to commercial software with dedicated support teams.
  • Initial Configuration
    The initial setup and configuration of EJBCA can be complex and time-consuming, necessitating careful planning and execution to ensure that security and operational needs are met.

Smallstep Certificates videos

No Smallstep Certificates videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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EJBCA videos

How to integrate PrimeKey EJBCA Enterprise with Luna SA for Government HSM

More videos:

  • Review - EJBCA Installation in Ubuntu Linux

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Smallstep Certificates and EJBCA)
Identity And Access Management
Security & Privacy
0 0%
100% 100
Web Development Tools
48 48%
52% 52
Password Management
33 33%
67% 67

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Smallstep Certificates seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 10 times since March 2021. 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.

Smallstep Certificates mentions (10)

  • A convert from Judaism to Catholicism goes to r/Catholicism to ask if it would be appropriate to pass down a century old Jewish prayer shawl to his son. Not everyone is welcoming.
    Just a little heads up https://smallstep.com/certificates/. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Looking for an open source certificate management solution.
    Step-ca: Not web based, but the CLI is pretty user friendly: https://smallstep.com/certificates/. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Using k8s-apiserver as AAA server for microservices?
    I was just looking at https://smallstep.com/certificates a few days ago. It looks like they have an operator that fits your description as well as example docs for setting up inter-microservice mtls. Source: about 2 years ago
  • What are SSH Certificate Authority solutions?
    In the quick search I learned about Ssh cert authority which looks very manual and also like a dead project Smallstep's step-ca who put together very nice article about how to begin certificate authority process Netflix' BLESS is AWS only Cashier which also looks quite ok. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Quickly prototyping and testing TLS services with valid certs
    If you want something a little fancier (I.e. Get automatic certs with all that ACME goodness) check out SmallStep. This is next on my list of homelab projects. Source: about 3 years ago
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EJBCA mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of EJBCA yet. Tracking of EJBCA recommendations started around Mar 2021.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Smallstep Certificates and EJBCA, you can also consider the following products

BastionXP - BastionXP Identity Based Infrastructure Access Platform is a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) / Certificate Authority (CA) that creates, signs and distributes SSH, SSL X.509 certificates to servers and users upon successful SSO login via OAuth or SAML

OpenXPKI - OpenXPKI is a software stack that provides all necessary components to manage keys and certificates...

PKI.js - PKIjs is a pure JavaScript library implementing the formats that are used in PKI applications (signing, encryption, certificate requests, OCSP and TSP requests/responses). It is built on WebCrypto (Web Cryptography API) and requires no plug-ins.

Portecle - Portecle is a user friendly GUI application for creating, managing and examining keystores, keys...

Smallstep SSH - Single Sign-on SSH

TinyCA - TinyCA is a simple graphical userinterface written in Perl/Gtk to manage a small CA (Certification...