acme.sh
Hacker ApprovedAcme client in Privacy & security
Recommended as an easy, rock-solid ACME client for TLS certificates that needs little attention once set up. Critics note a binary release triggered ClamAV.
Recommended as an easy, rock-solid ACME client for TLS certificates that needs little attention once set up. Critics note a binary release triggered ClamAV.
16 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 13
- criticize it
- 3
- approval share
- 81%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 13 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 4.3 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Easy one-time setup needing little upkeep
“Again one-time setup, easy, did it once literally almost a decade ago and haven't had to think about it since.”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Decreasing Certificate Lifetimes to 45 Days” “let acme handle everything on its own, as intended”
Comment from 10 Jul 2026 in “TLS certificates for internal services done right” Rock-solid and well regarded
“Thank you Let's Encrypt, together with the acme.sh, caddy and the whole ecosystem for TLS.”
Comment from 10 Dec 2025 in “10 Years of Let's Encrypt” “acme.sh and simple-acme do and both are absolutely rock solid.”
Comment from 21 Mar 2026 in “You Can Run a DNS Server” “Everything it does wrong, acme.sh does right.”
Comment from 22 Mar 2026 in “You Can Run a DNS Server” Handles multiple CAs and wildcards
“using acme.sh i generate a wildcard and then internally my servers can pull the wildcard”
Comment from 17 Dec 2025 in “Upcoming Changes to Let's Encrypt Certificates” “acme.sh supports multiple CAs there is even a RFC for CAs that describe the api.”
Comment from 6 May 2026 in “.de TLD offline due to DNSSEC?” Runs on Linux, BASH and Windows
“acme.sh is my recommendation for Linux and anything else that runs a BASH or similar”
Comment from 28 Mar 2026 in “Installing a Let's Encrypt TLS Certificate on a Brother Printer with Certbot” “packages like acme.sh are damn close to universal”
Comment from 3 Dec 2025 in “Decreasing Certificate Lifetimes to 45 Days” “acme.sh is superb for !Windows.”
Comment from 19 Feb 2026 in “DNS-Persist-01: A New Model for DNS-Based Challenge Validation”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Binary release flagged by ClamAV
“CAUTION, though, the last time I downloaded a binary release, ClamAV triggered on it”
Comment from 9 Jul 2026 in “TLS certificates for internal services done right”
What people recommend instead
The same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Certbot | 24 | 19 | 56% | 9 | 11 yrs3 owners | — |
| acme.shThis page | 13 | 3 | 81% | 5 | — | Approved |
What people said
20 of the 21 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“let acme handle everything on its own, as intended”
“CAUTION, though, the last time I downloaded a binary release, ClamAV triggered on it”
“A Github Action running acme.sh that pushes certs to S3 solves the split dns issue for hosts”
“That capability should be added to acme.sh, etc so that it automatically runs with minimal privileges”
“acme.sh supports multiple CAs there is even a RFC for CAs that describe the api.”
“acme.sh is my recommendation for Linux and anything else that runs a BASH or similar”
“how to specify the zone to be updated like acme.sh does”
“I use acme.sh which does support it”
“acme.sh was too garish for my liking”
“Everything it does wrong, acme.sh does right.”
“acme.sh and simple-acme do and both are absolutely rock solid.”
“I don't know why I wouldn't just use acme.sh and systemd timers instead of this.”
“acmedns offers something similar”
“acme.sh is superb for !Windows.”
“using acme.sh i generate a wildcard and then internally my servers can pull the wildcard”
“it is pretty easy to set up an acme-dns server to handle it”
“Thank you Let's Encrypt, together with the acme.sh, caddy and the whole ecosystem for TLS.”
“Again one-time setup, easy, did it once literally almost a decade ago and haven't had to think about it since.”
“packages like acme.sh are damn close to universal”
“acme-dns is a neat little tool for exactly this”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.