GeoTrust vs Let's Encrypt

GeoTrust Horizon is a security platform for SSL certificates, certificate automation and monitoring, and vulnerability management. GeoTrust says it is intended for small and medium businesses and fast-moving builders. It offers DV, OV, and EV certificates issued from DigiCert trusted roots. AutoInstall SSL automates certificate installation, re-issuance, and renewal, supporting Apache, NGINX, IIS, LiteSpeed, cPanel, Kubernetes, Docker, and more. With automatic renewal enabled, certificates renew 28 days before expiry. SSL Monitor checks domains and subdomains daily for certificate expiry, trust issues, HTTPS vulnerabilities, and more than 110 SSL issues. Vulnerability Manager scans servers daily for more than 375,000 vulnerabilities and provides remediation instructions; scans can be internal with an installed agent or external without one. GeoTrust says the tool uses Qualys vulnerability detection technology. SSL Monitor costs $2 a month per standard domain, and Vulnerability Manager costs $12 a month per server. Technical chat support is available 24/7; email support uses tickets and phone support is available five days a week.

Let’s Encrypt is a global Certificate Authority that provides SSL/TLS certificates for HTTPS connections. The ACME protocol verifies control of a domain, and compatible clients can automate issuance, management, and renewal. Its client directory includes Apache HTTP Server, Caddy, nginx, Kubernetes, Docker, and Windows/IIS environments. Certificates are Domain Validation only; Let’s Encrypt says it does not plan to issue Organization Validation or Extended Validation certificates. Wildcard certificates are available through the DNS-01 challenge. Standard certificates last 90 days, with an optional six-day lifetime; these periods cannot be adjusted. Subscribers generate and manage private keys on their own servers. Issued and revoked certificates are publicly recorded, and the service says its certificates are trusted by most browsers and operating systems. Certificates cost nothing. A registered domain can receive up to 50 certificates every seven days under published rate limits. Direct subscriber support is not offered.