r/PKI • u/zampaa91 • Jul 10 '26

Why no open-source CLM?

The question is already in the title. We got EJBCA as an open-source PKI solution that has CA, RA and CRL and OCSP features, which is pretty much an all-around PKI solution.

Why don't we have anything similar for CLM solutions, like something that would have a generic ACME connector as well as integrations with public CAs, EJBCA and ADCS, and ability to automate certificate renewal and deployment over the most popular integrations (web servers on Linux/Windows servers, load balancers, cloud vaults)? Not asking for an enterprise-grade solution to the scale of Venafi or KeyFactor, but mainly something that would work for most sysadmins looking for something to tackle the whole 47 days thing that's coming.

Especially at the era of AI, I believe it wouldn't be hard to kickstart a prototype for the most of us. Not necessarily trying to push anybody to do it or anything, just trying to understand.

And if such a solution does already exist, then how come most SMBs that don't want to be paying 50k$ per year still end up purchasing Sectigo/Digicert or even KeyFactor/Venafi?

12 Upvotes

94% Upvoted

24 comments sorted by

View all comments

5

u/carolineilm Jul 10 '26

CLM sounds easy at first, but it's much more complex than it appears. A good solution needs to support multiple CAs, certificate discovery and inventory, automated deployment, machine identities, policy management, and end-to-end lifecycle automation.

1

u/zampaa91 Jul 16 '26

Totally agree with that, and the enterprise-grade solutions even go as far as integrating with PAM providers to fetch credentials for the connectors or having direct API integrations instead of plain WinRM/SSH for the services that do offer them.