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Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

WF

24 alternatives to Website for creating self-signed certificates

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…

Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Website for creating self-signed certificates launched in 2024; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

  1. 1
  2. 2

    A pain-free service to add SSL to your site, for non-geeks

    2018 · sharphue.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3GS
  4. 4

    A bash script for generating trusted self-signed SSL certs for local development on your Mac - kingkool68/generate-ssl-certs-for-local-development

    2018 · github.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    Create and share beautiful certificates in 1 click for free

    2022 · certificates.graphy.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6

    The easiest way to create stunning certificates for free

    2024 · smashingdocs.com · its alternatives →

  7. 7AT
  8. 8
    TinyCert▲237

    Free SSL certificates for your startup.

    2014 · tinycert.org · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    Develop your apps locally with local domains and HTTPS

    2023 · localcan.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10SS
  11. 11

    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…

    May 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12AR

    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 · its alternatives →

  13. 13

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

    2019 · github.com · its alternatives →

  14. 14FS

    Free SSL certificates issued in less than a minute, for one or multiple domains, supporting wildcards and ACME with tutorials.

    2015 · sslforfree.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15TC
  16. 16MS
  17. 17

    Multi-Instance SSL certificate management system

    2021 · docs.kilossl.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18CS
  19. 19

    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 · its alternatives →

  20. 20

    Get real-time alerts for your SSL expiry

    2022 · its alternatives →

  21. 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 · its alternatives →

  22. 22

    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 · its alternatives →

  23. 23

    Curated list of 20,000+ hours and 200+ free courses with certificates in IT, CS, Design and Business. - PanXProject/awesome-certificates

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  24. 24

    Issue blockchain-powered certificates for any type of data

    2021 · its alternatives →

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Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →