CertKit vs Shieldly: Which is Better in 2026?
A comprehensive comparison of CertKit and Shieldly covering features, pricing, use cases, and which tool is the right choice for your needs.
⚡ Quick Verdict
Choose CertKit if:
- →You need discovery, issuance, renewal, deployment and monitoring in one lifecycle or deployment to windows, java keystores and network appliances, not just web servers
Choose Shieldly if:
- →You want more affordable paid plans (from $19/mo)
- →You need detects wildcards, risky passrole, notaction traps and public principals or privilege escalation path detection across chained policies
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CertKit vs Shieldly: At a Glance
Pricing Comparison: CertKit vs Shieldly
Understanding the pricing differences between CertKit and Shieldly is crucial for making the right choice. Here's how their plans compare side by side.
CertKit Pricing
Shieldly Pricing
💡 Pricing takeaway: Both CertKit and Shieldly offer free tiers, making it easy to try before you buy. Compare the specific plans to find the best value for your use case.
Feature-by-Feature Comparison
Here's how every feature from CertKit and Shieldly stacks up.
What Makes Each Tool Unique
🔵 Unique to CertKit
Features available in CertKit but not in Shieldly:
- ✓Discovery, issuance, renewal, deployment and monitoring in one lifecycle
- ✓Deployment to Windows, Java keystores and network appliances, not just web servers
- ✓Automated Let's Encrypt issuance without exposing DNS API keys
- ✓Certificate-transparency log monitoring on the Business tier
- ✓Free standalone tools: certificate and PEM decoders, CSR generator, CT log search
- ✓90-day free trial covering a full renewal cycle
🟣 Unique to Shieldly
Features available in Shieldly but not in CertKit:
- ✓Detects wildcards, risky PassRole, NotAction traps and public principals
- ✓Privilege escalation path detection across chained policies
- ✓Graded score per analysis, usable as a workflow gate
- ✓Five analyses with no signup; browser-only linter and trust-policy explainer
- ✓Compliance panel mapping findings to CIS, SOC 2 and NIST
- ✓AWS account connect with auto-scan, webhooks and Slack alerts on the Team tier
Use Case Recommendations
Best for: CertKit
CertKit is SSL/TLS certificate lifecycle management for IT teams, aimed at the environments ACME clients never covered well: Windows servers, Java keystores, and network appliances where a renewed certificate still has to be copied somewhere and a service restarted. It discovers certificates across your infrastructure, issues and renews them, deploys them to the endpoints that need them, and monitors what is live — without scripts, cron jobs or a 2am expiry alert. The timing argument is real rather than manufactured: the 200-day maximum certificate lifetime is now in effect, so renewals that used to happen annually happen twice a year, and a 47-day maximum is scheduled for 2029, at which point manual renewal stops being a process and becomes a liability. The deployment targets are the differentiator — Windows environments including Always On VPN over SSTP and DirectAccess over IP-HTTPS are called out specifically, along with JKS keystores and appliances, and the product carries an endorsement from a Microsoft MVP consultant in exactly that space. Alongside the platform there is a set of free standalone tools — certificate decoder, PEM decoder, CSR generator, free certificate and wildcard certificate generators, and certificate-transparency log search — usable without an account. The company reports over 1,000 IT teams using it, and every plan includes a 90-day free trial, long enough to watch a full renewal cycle happen automatically before paying.
Ideal use cases:
- •Teams or individuals who need discovery, issuance, renewal, deployment and monitoring in one lifecycle
- •Teams or individuals who need deployment to windows, java keystores and network appliances, not just web servers
- •Teams or individuals who need automated let's encrypt issuance without exposing dns api keys
- •Teams or individuals who need certificate-transparency log monitoring on the business tier
- •Anyone focused on ssl workflows
- •Anyone focused on tls workflows
Best for: Shieldly
Shieldly analyses AWS policy documents — IAM policies, CloudFormation templates, S3, Lambda, SQS, KMS and SNS resource policies, plus cost policies — and returns a graded security assessment rather than a raw linter dump. The specific things it looks for are the ones that do not show up as syntax errors: wildcard actions and resources, risky PassRole grants, NotAction traps, public principals, and privilege escalation paths where a policy that looks bounded chains into something that is not. Each analysis returns a score, which is the part that makes it usable as a gate in a workflow rather than a report someone reads once. There is a genuinely low-friction on-ramp: paste an IAM policy JSON into the homepage and get a graded analysis with no signup at all, five free analyses before an account is needed, plus browser-only free tools — an IAM policy linter and a trust-policy explainer — that upload nothing and log nothing. Paid tiers add a cost advisor, analysis history, a compliance panel mapping findings to CIS, SOC 2 and NIST, a watchlist with alerts, a policy diff viewer, and at the team level a direct AWS account connection with automatic scanning, webhooks, Slack alerts and multi-account support.
Ideal use cases:
- •Teams or individuals who need detects wildcards, risky passrole, notaction traps and public principals
- •Teams or individuals who need privilege escalation path detection across chained policies
- •Teams or individuals who need graded score per analysis, usable as a workflow gate
- •Teams or individuals who need five analyses with no signup; browser-only linter and trust-policy explainer
- •Anyone focused on aws workflows
- •Anyone focused on iam workflows
🛡️ Other AI Security & Testing Tools to Consider
CertKit and Shieldly aren't the only options. Here are other popular tools in the same space:
Lineation
Security control plane for AI agents — zero-trust agent identity, LLM and MCP gateways, policy-as-code, and prompt-injection defense
Axtary
Payload-bound authorization for AI agents — human approval is cryptographically tied to the exact action, so a changed payload is denied
Tracecat
Open-source SOAR for AI-native security teams — agents, cases, and workflows with human approval gates
Trestle
Local secret scanner with an MCP server so coding agents check their own output
Agentmetry
Local, open-source flight recorder that tags AI agent activity with MITRE ATT&CK
ZeroLeaks
Continuous AI red teaming for agents, endpoints and MCP tools, with unlimited scans on every plan
Is one of these your tool?
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Frequently Asked Questions
Is CertKit better than Shieldly?
It depends on your needs. CertKit offers 6 key features including Discovery, issuance, renewal, deployment and monitoring in one lifecycle and Deployment to Windows, Java keystores and network appliances, not just web servers, while Shieldly provides 6 features including Detects wildcards, risky PassRole, NotAction traps and public principals and Privilege escalation path detection across chained policies. CertKit uses a freemium model with a free tier, while Shieldly is freemium with free access available. Choose based on which features and pricing model align with your requirements.
Is CertKit cheaper than Shieldly?
Shieldly is cheaper, starting at $19/month compared to CertKit's $99/month. Both tools offer free tiers, so you can try each before committing. Always check the official websites for the most current pricing.
Can I use CertKit and Shieldly together?
Yes, many users combine CertKit and Shieldly in their workflow. CertKit excels at discovery, issuance, renewal, deployment and monitoring in one lifecycle, while Shieldly shines with detects wildcards, risky passrole, notaction traps and public principals. Using both allows you to leverage the strengths of each tool, though this means managing two subscriptions — though free tiers can help manage costs.
What's the main difference between CertKit and Shieldly?
While both are ai security & testing tools, CertKit emphasizes discovery, issuance, renewal, deployment and monitoring in one lifecycle, whereas Shieldly is known for detects wildcards, risky passrole, notaction traps and public principals. The best choice depends on your specific workflow and feature priorities.
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