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lego vs acme.sh: catalog facts
lego	acme.sh
Best for: Administrators automating TLS certificates from scripts or servers	Best for: Administrators automating certificate issuance and renewal
Free Free and open source under the MIT licence.	Free Free and open source under the GPL-3.0 license.
Windows, Command line	Command line
Single Go binary that is simple to deploy Works with Let's Encrypt and other ACME authorities All 4 strengths for lego Single Go binary that is simple to deploy Works with Let's Encrypt and other ACME authorities Also usable as a Go library Actively maintained	Issues and renews certificates through ACME Supports wildcard and ECDSA certificates All 3 strengths for acme.sh Issues and renews certificates through ACME Supports wildcard and ECDSA certificates Runs with Bash, dash, or sh
Command line only Requires understanding of ACME challenges and DNS or HTTP setup	Requires a Unix shell environment. Certificate issuance and renewal require access to an ACME service.
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: MIT	License: GPL-3.0-only
No account needed	Not stated if an account is needed
Needs internet	Not stated if it works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Sources for lego go-acme.github.io/lego github.com/go-acme/lego Catalog checked October 2, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Sources for acme.sh github.com/acmesh-official/acme.sh Catalog checked October 8, 2026

“Not stated” means we have not confirmed it. Features can vary by device and plan.