Dogtag Certificate System vs step-ca
Dogtag Certificate System
dogtagpki.orgstep-ca
smallstep.comSide by side
| Figure | Dogtag Certificate System | step-ca |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | Yes |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 3 |
| Spec score · Public Key Infrastructure Software | 7.9 (#11) | 8.2 (#7) |
| License | The project README identifies the software license as GPL-2.0. | The certificates repository is distributed under the Apache-2.0 license. |
| Purpose | Dogtag is an enterprise-class open source certificate authority for deploying PKI at scale. | step-ca is an online Certificate Authority for secure, automated X.509 and SSH certificate management. |
Plans
step-ca
- step-ca (open source)Free
- step-ca open sourceFree
- Smallstep PlatformPriced on request
In their own words
Dogtag Certificate System
Dogtag Certificate System has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.
step-ca
step-ca is an online Certificate Authority for automating X.509 and SSH certificate management. It issues X.509 certificates for TLS, mutual TLS, document signing and authentication, as well as SSH certificates for users and hosts. Provisioners can authorize issuance through ACME challenges, OIDC tokens, cloud instance identity documents and short-lived JWK tokens. Automated issuance and renewal are supported for clients, servers and Kubernetes workloads, alongside passive revocation. Templates can customize SANs or OIDs, restrict domains or key sizes, and create longer certificate chains. For CA signing-key protection, step-ca integrates with Google Cloud KMS, AWS KMS, Azure Key Vault, PKCS#11 HSMs, TPM 2.0 and YubiKey PIV. Its intended PKI design uses an offline root CA and a configured intermediate CA that issues end-entity certificates. Installation options include macOS, Windows, Linux, Kubernetes and Docker, and database choices include Badger, BoltDB, MySQL and PostgreSQL. The open-source plan costs nothing. Community help is available through Discord, with dedicated support contracts from Smallstep.