Alternatives
Products that do what SelfCertForge, manage root CAs and self-signed certs on macOS/Windows does
Hi, HN! I recently published SelfCertForge, an open source desktop app for creating and managing self-signed certificates on macOS and Windows: https://github.com/rbonestell/SelfCertForge/ I know, I know... this isn't an earth-shattering invention. This came from a place of years of personal annoyance. I’ve been maintaining scripts that wrapped OpenSSL for local certificate workflows: create a long-lived root cert, add it to the trust store, then generate and sign child certificates for local services. The scripts work but the workflow was clunky. Used infrequently…
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2019 · blog.filippo.io
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2018 · github.com
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2014 · tinycert.org
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2015 · github.com
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I tend to create a private certificate authority for every side project, in order to create TLS certs for local development. I find it useful to have local development closely resemble production when at all possible, and "real" certificates are an important element. Anyway I got tired of having these CA private keys on my local machine, especially as I started thinking about setting up a private CA for my company (https://riza.io). So I started thinking about what the simplest way to host a private CA might be. You really only need two things: 1) secret storage, to hold the CA's…
2024 · github.com
- 8OS
I built this as a small side project to learn and experiment, and I ended up with this! I used a subdomain from my personal portfolio, and everything else runs on free tiers. The project uses Nuxt, SVG, Cloudflare Workers, D1 (SQL), KV, Terraform, and some agentic coding with OpenAI Codex and Claude Code. What started as a joke among friends turned into a fun excuse to build something end to end, from zero to production, and to explore a few things I’d never touched before. I’d really appreciate any feedback or suggestions.
Jan 2026 · certificate.brendonmatos.com
- 9KS
Hi HN! I built KeyPub.sh to solve the problem of user verification for CLI applications. It's essentially OAuth for the terminal, but using SSH keys that developers and users already have. - No installation needed - works with existing SSH setup - Privacy-focused: users control what email info is shared - Simple email verification process - Free public service - Perfect for CLI app developers who don't want to build user verification Try it with: `$ ssh keypub.sh about` Source code: https://github.com/skariel/keypub
2024 · keypub.sh
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2016 · github.com
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TLDR, Let's Seal gives the finger to Adobe and every doc signing tool (docusign, google, etc) who pay to play with the Adobe Approved Trust List and then charge you for something that should be free. Currently even the person checking if a document/contract is sealed or code is authentic has to also be inside the same Adobe walled garden too. Verification, the part that should be free is the part everyone charges for. Thats the shape Let's Encrypt fixed for TLS, and I wanted the same thing for documents and files. The core idea therefore needed to go a bit beyond e signatures and i…
Jul 2026 · github.com
- 13GS
2014 · indutny.github.io
- 14SA
2017 · github.com
- 15WF
If you're developing locally and need to use HTTPS for whatever, then this tool is hopefully useful to you. I made it because there's a lot of bad info online about generating self-signed certificates. For instance, a lot of guides don't use the SAN list extension or show you how to create a proper certificate chain. Firefox doesn't allow a CA certificate to be used as an end certificate. Getting a working certificate can get pretty confusing, especially for newcomers to certificates or webdev. Having a website for this also means the process of getting a certificate is the same, no matter…
2024 · dexter.xn--dpping-wxa.eu
- 16SS
2013 · lolroot.ca
- 17AR
From the cryptic terminal commands to the innumerable ways to shoot yourself in the foot, I always struggled to use TLS certificates. I love how much easier (and cheaper) Let's Encrypt made it to get certificates, but there are still plenty of things to struggle with. That's why we built Relay: a free, browser-based tool that streamlines the ACME workflow, especially for tricky setups like homelabs. Relay acts as a secure intermediary between your ACME client and public certificate authorities like Let's Encrypt. Some ways Relay provides a better experience: - really fast, streamlined…
2025 · anchor.dev
- 18BO
Hi HN, we’re the co-founders of Bearer, and today we launch an open-source alternative to code security solutions such as Snyk Code, SonarQube, or Checkmarx. Essentially, we help security & engineering teams to discover, filter and prioritize security risks and vulnerabilities in their codebase, with a unique approach through sensitive data (PII, PD, PHI). Our website is at https://www.bearer.com and our GitHub is here: https://github.com/bearer/bearer We are not originally Security experts but have been software developers and engineering leaders for over 15…
2023
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- 20MN
Hello HNers. I'm launching my new service, Certician, and I'd love some feedback from HN users. A while back, I asked if anyone knew of any good, simple tools or services for monitoring SSL certificates [1]. I didn't find any compelling services, so I decided to build one. I tried to keep it simple, since it's self-run and bootstrapped. I know my landing page needs help. It's a lot harder to distill down a service (even a simple one) into compelling, actionable copy than I thought! I have to work at my real job today, so I'll only be able to reply when I have time to take a break for a…
2011
- 21IR
Back in 2012 I built https://cert-depot.com as a weekend project. Node.js + Express + jQuery, shelling out to OpenSSL for certificate generation. It worked but I eventually let it rot. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4766743 Rewrote it from scratch in Go. The entire thing is a single binary with no external dependencies: 1. Certificate generation uses Go's crypto/x509 (no OpenSSL) 2. Certificates are generated in memory and streamed directly — nothing is stored on the server 3. RSA 2048/4096 and ECDSA P-256/P-384 4. Subject Alternative Names…
Apr 2026
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Certo is open-source infrastructure for issuing, managing, verifying, and exchanging digital credentials. It implements Open Badges 3.0[1] and W3C Verifiable Credentials[2] which are the open standards that make credentials portable, machine-verifiable, and vendor-independent. It is designed to be: - Self-hosted: run it inside your own infrastructure, air-gapped network, or sovereign cloud - Standards-compliant: credentials it issues work with any OB3/VC-compatible system - API-first: everything the UI can do, the API can do - Exportable: your data is always yours, in open formats -…
Aug 2026 · github.com
- 24AL
2019 · github.com
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