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  1. Stackups
  2. Utilities
  3. SSL Certificates
  4. Certificate Authority
  5. Cilium vs Let's Encrypt

Cilium vs Let's Encrypt

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Let's Encrypt
Let's Encrypt
Stacks1.6K
Followers974
Votes98
Cilium
Cilium
Stacks38
Followers81
Votes1
GitHub Stars22.8K
Forks3.4K

Cilium vs Let's Encrypt: What are the differences?

# Introduction

Cilium and Let's Encrypt are both widely used technologies, but they serve different purposes and have distinct features. Below are the key differences between Cilium and Let's Encrypt.

1. **Networking vs. Security**: Cilium is primarily a networking solution that focuses on providing secure and efficient connectivity between services in modern cloud-native environments. On the other hand, Let's Encrypt is a certificate authority that enables the automation of the process of obtaining and renewing SSL/TLS certificates for websites, emphasizing security.

2. **Layer of Operation**: Cilium operates at the network layer, offering advanced networking and security capabilities such as load balancing, network policies, and DDoS protection. In contrast, Let's Encrypt operates at the application layer, securing communication between clients and servers through SSL/TLS encryption.

3. **Scope of Usage**: Cilium is widely used in containerized environments like Kubernetes to secure microservices communication and enforce network policies. Let's Encrypt, on the other hand, is mainly used by websites and web applications to encrypt traffic, secure connections, and build trust with visitors.

4. **Open Source vs. Certificate Authority**: Cilium is an open-source project that is freely available for anyone to use, contribute to, and customize according to their needs. In contrast, Let's Encrypt is a certificate authority that issues SSL/TLS certificates for websites at no cost, enabling widespread adoption of HTTPS.

5. **Implementation Complexity**: Implementing Cilium requires a good understanding of networking concepts and container orchestration tools like Kubernetes, making it more complex to set up and manage. Let's Encrypt, on the other hand, provides simple tools and APIs that streamline the process of obtaining and renewing certificates, making it easier for website owners.

6. **Focus on Connectivity vs. Encryption**: Cilium focuses on providing secure connectivity and network policy enforcement within cloud-native environments, optimizing communication between services. Let's Encrypt focuses on encrypting data in transit between clients and servers, ensuring the confidentiality and integrity of information exchanged over the internet.

In Summary, Cilium and Let's Encrypt differ in their primary focus on networking vs. security, layer of operation, scope of usage, open-source vs. certificate authority status, implementation complexity, and focus on connectivity vs. encryption.

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Detailed Comparison

Let's Encrypt
Let's Encrypt
Cilium
Cilium

It is a free, automated, and open certificate authority brought to you by the non-profit Internet Security Research Group (ISRG).

Open source software for providing and transparently securing network connectivity and loadbalancing between application workloads such as application containers or processes.

-
Identity Based Security - Cilium visibility and security policies are based on the container orchestrator identity (e.g., Kubernetes labels). Never again worry about network subnets or container IP addresses when writing security policies, auditing, or troubleshooting.; Blazing Performance - BPF is the underlying Linux superpower to do the heavy lifting on the datapath by providing sandboxed programmability of the Linux kernel with incredible performance.; API-Protocol Visibility + Security - Traditional firewalls only see and filter packets based on network headers like IP address and ports. Cilium can do this as well, but also understands and filters the individual HTTP, gRPC, and Kafka requests that stitch microservices together.; Designed for Scale - Cilium was designed for scale, with no node-to-node interactions required when new pods are deployed, and all coordination through a highly scalable key-value store.
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
22.8K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
3.4K
Stacks
1.6K
Stacks
38
Followers
974
Followers
81
Votes
98
Votes
1
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 48
    Open Source SSL
  • 32
    Simple setup
  • 9
    Microservices
  • 9
    Free
  • 0
    Easy ssl certificates
Pros
  • 1
    Sidecarless
Integrations
MongoDB
MongoDB
Shopify
Shopify
axios
axios
Kafka
Kafka
gRPC
gRPC
Istio
Istio
Docker
Docker
Kubernetes
Kubernetes
Apache Mesos
Apache Mesos

What are some alternatives to Let's Encrypt, Cilium?

Sqreen

Sqreen

Sqreen is a security platform that helps engineering team protect their web applications, API and micro-services in real-time. The solution installs with a simple application library and doesn't require engineering resources to operate. Security anomalies triggered are reported with technical context to help engineers fix the code. Ops team can assess the impact of attacks and monitor suspicious user accounts involved.

Instant 2FA

Instant 2FA

Add a powerful, simple and flexible 2FA verification view to your login flow, without making any DB changes and just 3 API calls.

ORY Hydra

ORY Hydra

It is a self-managed server that secures access to your applications and APIs with OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect. It is OpenID Connect Certified and optimized for latency, high throughput, and low resource consumption.

Virgil Security

Virgil Security

Virgil consists of an open-source encryption library, which implements CMS and ECIES(including RSA schema), a Key Management API, and a cloud-based Key Management Service.

ExpeditedSSL

ExpeditedSSL

Stop pouring through MAN pages and outdated blog posts that don't take into account new requirements. With our add-on, you can go from install to confirmed installation in as little as twenty minutes: using nothing but your browser.

Clef

Clef

Clef is secure two-factor — built for consumers. Easy to use, integrate, and pay for.

Wazuh

Wazuh

It is a free, open source and enterprise-ready security monitoring solution for threat detection, integrity monitoring, incident response and compliance.

Detectify

Detectify

Detectify is a web security service that simulates automated hacker attacks on your website, detecting critical security issues before real hackers do. We provide you with descriptive reports of the results so that you can continue to build safe products

SSLMate

SSLMate

SSLMate is the easiest way for developers and sysadmins to buy SSL certificates.

Authy

Authy

We make the best rated Two-Factor Authentication smartphone app for consumers, a Rest API for developers and a strong authentication platform for the enterprise.

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