acme.sh vs lego
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted reverse proxy & gateways options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
acme.sh
Pure shell ACME client for TLS certificates
VS
lego
Let's Encrypt and ACME client written in Go
| Feature | acme.sh | lego |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Reverse Proxy & Gateways | Reverse Proxy & Gateways |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Shell | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 32 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | binary, docker |
| GitHub stars | ★ 47,426 | ★ 9,789 |
| First released | 2016 | 2015 |
| Replaces | Certbot | Certbot |
Why pick each one
Choose acme.sh if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Mature project with 47.4k GitHub stars
- Written in Shell
Choose lego if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 9.8k GitHub stars
Frequently asked questions
Is acme.sh or lego better?
Neither is universally better. acme.sh has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are acme.sh and lego free and open-source?
Yes. acme.sh is licensed under GPL-3.0 and lego under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run acme.sh and lego with Docker?
acme.sh: check the project docs for container support. lego: yes.