ZeroSSL vs acme.sh
A detailed comparison to help you choose between ZeroSSL and acme.sh.
Quick Verdict
3.5/5
ZeroSSL
0 reviews
4.2/5
acme.sh
0 reviews
acme.sh is rated higher (4.2 vs 3.5). OV/EV and full certificate lifecycle management are offered through parent company HID Global's Enterprise SSL product, not as standard ZeroSSL plans. Lightweight shell script that automates ACME certificate issuance and renewal across Let's Encrypt, ZeroSSL, Google Trust Services and more. Integrates with 100-170+ DNS providers (counts vary by source) without requiring root or external dependencies.
ZeroSSL Free SSL alternative to Let's Encrypt | acme.sh Free ACME client for automated SSL/TLS certificate management | |
|---|---|---|
| Overview | ||
| Rating | 3.5 (0 reviews) | 4.2 (0 reviews)✓ |
| Pricing model | freemium | free |
| Starting price | Free tier available | Free |
| Best for | Freelancers and agencies managing certificates across many client domains who want a browser console, email validation, a REST API and one invoice — or teams wanting a second CA for diversification | DevOps engineers and sysadmins automating free TLS certificates across many domains and DNS providers — especially wildcards, scripted fleets, and resource-constrained Unix environments where Python-based clients do not fit. |
| Features | ||
| IPv6 | ||
| DDoS protection | ||
| Automated backups | ||
| Snapshots | ||
| Managed option | ||
| Bare metal | ||
| GPU available | ||
| S3-compatible | ||
| Hourly billing | ||
| Free tier | ✓ | |
| Tags | ||
| Tags | free tierapi access | free tieropen source |
| Visit ZeroSSL → | Visit acme.sh → | |
ZeroSSL
Pros
- + Genuine free tier with no credit card: 3 × 90-day certificates plus multi-domain, wildcard and ACME support
- + Strong automation story for a UI-first CA: REST API, ACME clients, monitoring and installation checks
- + Vienna-founded CA (2016) backed by HID Global since 2024, with a clear enterprise path for OV/EV and lifecycle management
- + Transparent published pricing including fixed Platinum tiers up to $6,719.90 per year
Cons
- - Paying for DV certificates is hard to justify when Let's Encrypt is free and equally trusted in browsers
- - Vendor's own pages disagree on free certificate count and on issuance/client volume
- - No published uptime SLA outside HID's enterprise offering; support priority scales with plan price
- - Credit-based annual certificate quotas and Basic/+ Protect variants make the plan matrix hard to compare
acme.sh
Pros
- + Free GPLv3 tool with no runtime dependencies beyond a POSIX shell — runs on servers, routers, NAS boxes, and containers alike
- + Broadest DNS-01 provider coverage of any ACME client, plus DNS alias and stateless modes for awkward zones
- + Wildcard, SAN, RSA and ECDSA (default) certificates with HTTP-01, DNS-01 and TLS-ALPN-01 challenge support
- + Multi-CA support (Let's Encrypt, ZeroSSL default, Google Trust Services, SSL.com, Actalis) with a single --server flag
- + Self-installing daily renewal cron and deploy hooks with service reload commands — automation once configured
Cons
- - No support contract, no SLA, and community-only help (wiki, GitHub issues, Gitter) when renewals break
- - Learning curve beyond the basic case: shell flags, environment credentials, DNS propagation behavior
- - DNS API tokens stored on the renewing host are a standing credential — scoping and protecting them is on you
- - GPLv3 copyleft complicates embedding in closed commercial products
- - High maintainer concentration and the curl|sh install idiom warrant release pinning and verification in production
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