Comparison
Keyfactor is enterprise PKI infrastructure. CertLocker is a focused DevOps platform for SRE and DevOps teams managing certificates, secrets, access, probes, and audit evidence. They solve adjacent problems for different team sizes and budget profiles.
Keyfactor is an enterprise certificate lifecycle management platform designed for large organisations with complex PKI requirements - multiple internal CAs, HSM integration, compliance reporting, and dedicated PKI engineering teams. CertLocker is a focused DevOps platform for SRE and DevOps teams that need certificate lifecycle, ACME automation, secrets management, SSH access control, and endpoint monitoring without enterprise-scale overhead or cost.
| Capability | CertLocker | Keyfactor |
|---|---|---|
| Certificate inventory and tracking | ✓ | ✓ |
| ACME client to public issuers | ✓ Built-in catalogue | ✓ Via integrations |
| ACME delivery for HAProxy / win-acme clients | ✓ Purpose-built Gateway | ✓ Keyfactor ACME / orchestrators |
| Just-in-time SSH / bastion access | ✓ Built-in | ⚠ SSH Key Manager (separate module) |
| Secrets with version history and one-time share | ✓ Built-in | ✗ Separate tooling |
| Endpoint TLS probes / discovery | ✓ Built-in probes | ✓ Network and store discovery |
| Browser RDP / VNC | ✓ | ✗ |
| AI agents / MCP scoped tokens | ✓ | ✗ |
| Enterprise multi-CA orchestration | ⚠ Public ACME issuers, upload, self-signed | ✓ Core capability |
| HSM integration | ✗ | ✓ |
| PQ / hybrid certificate awareness | ✓ PQ Ready inventory | ✓ PQ discovery |
| Enterprise compliance reporting | ⚠ Audit CSV / JSONL | ✓ Extensive |
| Setup complexity | Hours | Weeks to months |
| Pricing model | Hosted onboarding; services scoped by agreement | Enterprise contract |
| Bare metal / on-premise first | ✓ | ✓ |
Keyfactor is a serious enterprise product with genuine depth in PKI orchestration. If you have 50,000 certificates across 20 internal CAs, dedicated PKI engineers, and a compliance team that needs detailed reporting, Keyfactor is built for that problem. CertLocker is not.
CertLocker is built for the infrastructure team that has 200–2,000 certificates, runs on bare metal or hybrid cloud, and needs certificate lifecycle, ACME automation, SSH access management, and secrets in one place without hiring a PKI consultant or signing an enterprise contract.
The genuine overlap is in mid-market teams that have outgrown spreadsheets and Certbot but are not yet at enterprise PKI scale. In that range, Keyfactor brings more PKI depth; CertLocker brings SSH access, secrets versioning, HAProxy integration, and a faster path to operational value.
Related: CertLocker vs HashiCorp Vault · Replacing Vault for certificate management
Keyfactor is an enterprise certificate lifecycle management platform targeting large organisations with complex PKI requirements - multiple internal CAs, HSM integration, and compliance reporting. CertLocker is a focused DevOps platform for SRE and DevOps teams that need certificate lifecycle, ACME automation, SSH access, and secrets versioning without enterprise-scale overhead.
Keyfactor is a better fit for large enterprise PKI programmes with multiple internal CAs, dedicated PKI engineers, HSM requirements, and compliance reporting needs at scale. It is particularly strong in regulated industries with existing enterprise PKI investment.
Compare a Keyfactor quote with the CertLocker service scope your team needs; do not assume a saving from the product category alone. There is no charge to get started with hosted CertLocker, and paid scope, capacity, support and terms are agreed before work begins. See CertLocker pricing and services.
Certificate lifecycle, ACME automation, SSH access, secrets, and endpoint monitoring - without enterprise contract overhead.
Services & accessSee eight certificate management alternatives and when each fits, or read the detailed tool comparisons.