EJBCA alternatives exist! With advancing technology and security concerns at an all-time high, the importance of private certificate authorities (CA) cannot be overlooked. Just a few years back, there were limited choices available for those looking for private CA solutions. But, as the demand increased, the market expanded. Today, the demand for private certificate authorities has resulted in an exponential increase in options for the consumer.
The challenges evolve with time, the threats grow more complex, and for the security executives entrusted with the task of ensuring organizational safety, resting on laurels isn’t an option. This search for the ‘next best thing’ is precisely what has led them to explore the vast options of CA solutions. It’s most likely the reason you’re reading this.
Also worth mentioning, a significant section of Private CAs have their foundations ROOTED (see what I did there?) in legacy systems. While EJBCA is the leader among these legacy PKI systems, and the only one able to scale to your cloud needs, it was not built for the cloud and some seamless cloud integrations might be missing. This mismatch has inadvertently opened the gates for alternatives, armed with modern, cloud-native solutions, to make their mark in the industry.
As businesses and security professionals look to ensure that their infrastructure remains uncompromised, exploring alternatives is a logical solution. This pursuit of robustness, flexibility, and scalability has given rise to several EJBCA alternatives. Let’s discuss some of these, which promise a balanced blend of efficiency and security in the next section.
If you’re gearing up for a shift to the Azure cloud and need a robust PKI solution, you should consider EZCA. Born in the era of cloud technology and designed for Azure, EZCA appears as a natural solution for businesses struggling with the limitations of integrating a PKI to Microsoft’s complex systems. From its easy deployment from the Azure portal, to EZCA’s Azure native SSL integrations to its integration with ADCS and its support of modern protocols such as ACME (Automated Certificate Management Environment) make using EZCA as the natural evolution of moving your PKI to the Azure cloud and modernizing your PKI.
Another great open-source option for EJBCA, is SmallStep, smallstep is a cloud native certificate authority that can run either as a managed service, or the open-source version in your Kubernetes cluster. This CA is mostly catered for development workloads and is a great option for organizations that have their main workloads in GCP (Google Cloud Platform) and AWS (Amazon Web Services). SmallStep focuses on modern protocols such as ACME and is mostly focused for small teams with modern workloads such as Kubernetes and devops pipelines.
Venafi is the oldest of all the organizations in this list which has its pros and its cons. Let’s start with the positive, their PKI solution is an evolution of their on-premises version, the 20+ years gives them great integration with legacy systems and protocols. However, as an older PKI tool it has a steep learning curve to ensure that everything is setup properly and even a Venafi course is offered by them, another place where we can see the age of the product is in their lack of transparency in the pricing, hiding the pricing behind sales demos and charging per certificate managed are things of the past with these other vendors.
The PKI sector is vast and continually evolving. While EJBCA has made its name, it is undeniable that alternatives like Keytos EZCA, SmallStep and VeriSign are making names with their unique offerings. Their advanced features, backed by years of industry experience and innovation, make them strong contenders in the realm of digital certificate management.
TL;DR EJBCA is a great PKI solution and trusted by thousands of organizations, however, if you clicked in this article is because you are looking for an alternative so here are the alternatives based on your needs:
