Compare
MachineCert vs cert-manager.
Enterprise governance, cross-cluster inventory, and risk — the platform layer cert-manager doesn’t provide.
Why teams look beyond cert-manager
Where cert-manager falls short.
Cluster-scoped
Automates issuance inside one cluster, blind beyond it.
No central inventory
No unified view across clusters, clouds, and on-prem.
Multi-cluster gaps
Many clusters mean many instances with no shared picture.
No risk or ownership
Issues and renews, but no scoring, ownership, or impact analysis.
MachineCert vs cert-manager
Side by side.
| Capability | MachineCert | cert-manager |
|---|---|---|
| In-cluster automation | ||
| Cross-cluster inventory | — | |
| Public + cloud + on-prem | —K8s only | |
| Machine Trust Graph | — | |
| Risk scoring & ownership | — | |
| Works WITH cert-manager | —n/a | |
| Enterprise governance | — |
Why teams switch
The MachineCert difference.
Beyond the cluster
Unify cert-manager certs across every cluster with the rest of the estate.
Adds impact & risk
Trust Graph, blast radius, and 0–100 scoring on top of cert-manager.
Complements, not replaces
cert-manager keeps automating in-cluster; MachineCert governs it all.
FAQ
MachineCert vs cert-manager, answered.
Yes. MachineCert delivers modern certificate lifecycle management — discovery, monitoring, risk scoring, and automated renewal — as cloud-native software, typically with faster deployment, lower total cost, and capabilities like the Machine Trust Graph that cert-manager doesn’t offer.
MachineCert is discovery-first and cloud-native: agentless discovery across public, cloud, and internal systems, a unified risk-scored inventory, blast-radius analysis via the Machine Trust Graph, and automated renewal — deployable as SaaS, private cloud, on-prem, or air-gapped.
Most teams see value immediately — a footprint scan returns a complete inventory in about 60 seconds, and automated renewal can be enabled per source the same day. Existing data can be imported and reconciled.
MachineCert uses usage-based pricing with no appliances or dedicated infrastructure to license and maintain, which typically lowers total cost of ownership.
Yes. MachineCert supports SaaS, private cloud, on-premises, and air-gapped deployments to meet enterprise and regulated requirements.
MachineCert works across public CAs, private CAs, ADCS, Vault, ACME, and cloud certificate stores — it unifies and automates them rather than replacing your CAs.
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See why teams choose MachineCert.
Scan your domain and get a complete, risk-scored certificate inventory in 60 seconds.