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Let's Encrypt rate limit or policy issue, ZeroSSL or Buypass as alternative?

Besides Let's Encrypt, ZeroSSL and Buypass Go SSL also offer free ACME certs. For most use cases they are interchangeable, but policies, rate limits and ECC support differ. They all use ACME, so your acme.sh or certbot flow stays.

Try this first

  1. 1On Let's Encrypt rate limit (50 certs/week per registered domain, 5 duplicate certs): ZeroSSL or Buypass as a second CA gives extra headroom.
  2. 2ZeroSSL: 90-day certs, similar to Let's Encrypt, requires a free account for the first 3 certs and then an account-bound ACME key.
  3. 3Buypass Go SSL: 180-day certs (longer validity), Norwegian CA, trusted by all browsers, supports ECC.
  4. 4In acme.sh switch with --server letsencrypt | zerossl | buypass, in certbot via --server <ACME-URL>.
  5. 5For production: avoid switching CAs often, it confuses automation and monitoring. Pick one primary and keep one fallback ready.

When to bring us in

If you hit a rate limit or want a fallback CA for ACME, we can set up dual-CA so a single outage does not block your certs.

See also

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