SSL is the pillar of internet security. It encrypts data as it travels across the Internet, thus protecting all information sent between a website and its visitors. Even if a site does not handle sensitive information, using SSL to encrypt inbound and outbound data ensures privacy, security, and integrity for both the website and its users’ personal information.
While using SSL is just another part of business for many websites, some issues have prevented its widespread adoption:
- Accessibility: SSL protection has always been expensive, to the point of being prohibitive for sites that did not handle sensitive information (such as credit cards or personal identification data). Other solutions, such as Let’s Encrypt, have made progress in this space by offering free SSL certifications. However…
- Usability: Certificate management can be complex and even difficult.
- Effort: Acquiring and renewing certificates is a manual, multi-step process. And nobody has time for that.
In today’s security-focused environment, every website needs SSL that is easy to manage and use. ZeroSSL’s mission is to do just that.
What is ZeroSSL?
ZeroSSL is a trusted certificate authority, launched in 2016, providing not only free certificates for 90 days, but also multi-domain and wildcard certificates for one year. They are trusted by over 500,000 customers around the world and make it easy to request, verify, and renew the certificates needed to secure your websites.
ZeroSSL is created and managed by the people behind apilayer, an Austrian company specializing in building fast and highly scalable web APIs and applications. They offer multiple subscription plans and can meet your website’s certification needs.
I know the question you have in mind: why use ZeroSSL instead of Let’s Encrypt, or any other certificate authority, for that matter?
Features: Why use ZeroSSL?
ZeroSSL offers significant advantages over other certificate authorities. Some are:
Extensive certificate support
ZeroSSL can provide free 90-day certificates for all subscription plans. Other plans allow for single-domain and multi-domain one-year certificates, as well as 90-day and one-year wildcard certificates.
Automatic signing requests for certificates
Save time by automatically generating your CSRs for all your certificates.
Easy management
ZeroSSL provides an intuitive user interface to create new certificates, install and manage them with ease.
Quick and easy domain validation
Validate your domain quickly and easily using ZeroSSL’s one-step email validation, setting up DNS CNAME records, or uploading plain text files to your websites.
Validation of the installation
Make sure your certificate is installed correctly with ZeroSSL installation verification. Click or tap with a single button.
SSL monitoring
ZeroSSL provides several tools to monitor the status and status of your certificates and connections.
Free ACME certificates
ZeroSSL’s ACME certificates are free regardless of your subscription level, and ZeroSSL has the tools and integrations to fully automate the management of your 90-day ACME certificates.
RESTful API
apilayer excels at building RESTful APIs, and ZeroSSL is no exception. Take advantage of their fast and scalable API to create, validate and renew your certificates.
How does it work
ZeroSSL is a certificate authority that provides access to free 90-day ACME certificates and single, multiple and wildcard one-year certificates, as well as an intuitive and easy-to-use user interface for managing those certificates.
Quick tutorial on creating a ZeroSSL certificate
It’s easy to get started with ZeroSSL. Of course, you need to register for an account first. You can start with a free account (which does not require a credit card) for 90-day ACME certificates or choose one of the other subscriptions if you need more features.
After creating your account, you will be greeted with the dashboard.
The dashboard displays relevant information about your certificates and provides links to quickly identify and manage certificates that are expiring, awaiting validation, expired and more.
To create a certificate, click New certificate button.
You will need to provide the domain you want to create a certificate for. Note that you must verify that you are the owner of the domain; otherwise ZeroSSL will not issue the certificate. If you want to specify multiple domains or need a wildcard certificate, you will need to upgrade to a Basic subscription or higher.
Click the Next step button to choose the validity period.
90-day certificates are available for all subscriptions, but again you must upgrade to at least the Basic plan to choose the one-year validity option.
The certificate signing request is the next step. You can choose to let ZeroSSL automatically generate your CSR, or you can manually enter the necessary information. If you already have a CSR, paste it.
Then, choose your subscription plan. The interface lets you know which subscription plan is suitable for your chosen options.
You will then need to verify the domain. As mentioned above, ZeroSSL will not issue your certificate unless they can verify that you are the owner of the domain. You can prove your ownership by email, by creating DNS CNAME records, or by uploading a special text file to your website.
Of course ZeroSSL allows you to view and manage your certificates.
Price
ZeroSSL has many subscription plans. The free plan is great for testing and personal use. It limits you to just three 90-day ACME certificates.
Of course, you can unlock more features by choosing one of the following paid plans:
Basic: This plan includes unlimited 90-day ACME certificates, three 1-year certificates, and single and multiple domain certificates. You also get access to the RESTful API.
Reward: In addition to basic features, you get ten one-year certificates, unlimited 90-day wildcard certificates, and one one-year wildcard certificate.
Deal: This plan guarantees multiple one-year single and multiple domain certificates, as well as wildcard domains.
Company plus: Need more? Then this plan is what you need.
Conclusion
We live in a world where security and privacy are paramount. As web developers, we can do our part by using SSL for all of our sites, yes, even those sites that don’t work with sensitive data. There are many certificate authorities, but few offer ZeroSSL’s wide range of certificates, manageability, and functionality.
Regardless of your certificate needs – 90 days free ACME certificates, single domain, multidomain or wildcard certificates, ZeroSSL can easily (and cost effectively) fulfill them.
