kubectl VS mkcert

Compare kubectl vs mkcert and see what are their differences.

kubectl

Issue tracker and mirror of kubectl code (by kubernetes)

mkcert

A simple zero-config tool to make locally trusted development certificates with any names you'd like. (by FiloSottile)
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kubectl mkcert
13 131
2,684 45,716
1.8% -
9.2 2.7
3 days ago 9 days ago
Go Go
Apache License 2.0 BSD 3-clause "New" or "Revised" License
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

kubectl

Posts with mentions or reviews of kubectl. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-05-02.
  • What are these orphaned PVC objects?
    1 project | /r/kubernetes | 6 May 2023
    Check https://github.com/kubernetes/kubectl/issues/151
  • Setting kubectl context via env var
    6 projects | /r/kubernetes | 2 May 2023
    I have read this issue, and up to now it seems not possible to change the kubectl context via an env var: https://github.com/kubernetes/kubectl/issues/1154
  • Deciding between Rust or Go for desktop applications
    9 projects | /r/golang | 8 Apr 2023
    However, I would encourage people to take a look at what the code looks like before assuming the Go developer experience on this was positive. Bear in mind that's just the top level kubectl command and some helper functions, the subcommand definitions take up a several more files split into a few more packages. Then you're still not even done, because code that uses the parsed flags still has to redundantly check things that couldn't be enforced at the type level, something Go folks like to pretend is a good thing for some reason.
  • Recommendations on file/dir/module structure, common dependencies, and/or anti-patterns for writing CLI tool in Rust
    12 projects | /r/rust | 18 Mar 2023
    kubectl is for sure battle tested, but it involves very Kubernetes specific implementations and is going to be too complicated for the first pointer
  • Recommendations on building a simple DSL REPL?
    5 projects | /r/golang | 18 Mar 2023
  • Why Go and Not Rust?
    4 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 27 Jan 2023
    > context.Background() is typically only used when one doesn’t care about the result. If you did care about the result, you should be passing the parent context to preserve the circuit breaker timeout in case the operation takes too long.

    Not necessarily. You would use context.Background in a test situation. It's also commonly used for short-lived applications like a CLI invocation. You can see kubectl uses context.Background quite a lot: https://github.com/kubernetes/kubectl/search?q=context.backg...

    > I think the level of pain you experience from mutable references in Rust depends on if you’re coming from an OOP or FP background. I have a FP background and so the patterns I use to build code already greatly restrict mutation. You can usually change code that updates data immutably (creating a new copy of it) with mutable code in rust because the control flow of your program already involves passing that new version back to the caller which also satisfies the borrow checker in most situations.

    There has to be a better solution to needlessly copying data.

  • kubectl - Create PV/PVC
    1 project | /r/kubernetes | 6 Nov 2022
    This is particularly useful for academic purposes, and makes somehow convinient to get the yaml template of k8s objects. I was looking for this as well due to an upcoming ckad test i have. Unfourtunately due to not being considered best practice the request for it was dismissed. https://github.com/kubernetes/kubectl/issues/1073
  • Must `kubectl apply` twice to allow CRD usage?
    1 project | /r/kubernetes | 6 May 2022
    I see, apologies, I did misunderstand. This is actually a known race condition between kubectl (or even helm, or any Kube API client) issuing the requests to deploy CRs that depend on CRDs while those CRDs are still being installed on the API server. Simply put, kubectl makes these requests too quickly. There is no solution to this currently aside from deploying CRDs separately from the resources they expose. See this kubectl issue: https://github.com/kubernetes/kubectl/issues/1117, and there are some links in the comments to other issues echoing the same problem in helm and elsewhere.
  • What's the number one annoyance that drives you crazy about Kubernetes?
    7 projects | /r/kubernetes | 25 Jan 2022
    Go add --no-really-all if you really want it: https://github.com/kubernetes/kubectl
  • How to change a POD label via client-go?
    1 project | /r/kubernetes | 30 Sep 2021
    You could take a look at how kubectl actually does it: https://github.com/kubernetes/kubectl/blob/master/pkg/cmd/label/label.go

mkcert

Posts with mentions or reviews of mkcert. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-01-11.
  • Mkcert: Simple zero-config tool to make locally trusted development certificates
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 26 Apr 2024
  • Mkcert: Simple tool to make locally trusted dev certificates names you'd like
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 15 Mar 2024
  • You Can't Follow Me
    7 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 11 Jan 2024
    The author mentions difficulties with HTTPS and trying stuff locally.

    I've had some success with mkcert [1] to easily create certificates trusted by browsers, I can suggest to look into this. You are your own root CA, I think it can work without an internet connection.

    [1] https://github.com/FiloSottile/mkcert/

  • SSL Certificates for Home Network
    1 project | /r/homelab | 7 Dec 2023
  • Simplifying Localhost HTTPS Setup with mkcert and stunnel
    1 project | dev.to | 27 Nov 2023
    Solution: mkcert – Your Zero-Configuration HTTPS Enabler Meet mkcert, a user-friendly, zero-configuration tool designed for creating locally-trusted development certificates. Find it on its GitHub page and follow the instructions tailored for your operating system. For Mac users employing Homebrew, simply execute the following commands in your terminal:
  • 10 reasons you should quit your HTTP client
    5 projects | dev.to | 15 Nov 2023
    Well, Certifi does not ship with your company's certificates! So requesting internal services may come with additional painful extra steps! Also for a local development environment that uses mkcert for example!
  • Show HN: Anchor – developer-friendly private CAs for internal TLS
    4 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 1 Nov 2023
    My project, getlocalcert.net[1] may be the one you're thinking of.

    Since I'm also building in this space, I'll give my perspective. Local certificate generation is complicated. If you spend the time, you can figure it out, but it's begging for a simpler solution. You can use tools like mkcert[2] for anything that's local to your machine. However, if you're already using ACME in production, maybe you'd prefer to use ACME locally? I think that's what Anchor offers, a unified approach.

    There's a couple references in the Anchor blog about solving the distribution problem by building better tooling[3]. I'm eager to learn more, that's a tough nut to crack. My theory for getlocalcert is that the distribution problem is too difficult (for me) to solve, so I layer the tool on top of Let's Encrypt certificates instead. The end result for both tools is a trusted TLS certificate issued via ACME automation.

    1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36674224

    2. https://github.com/FiloSottile/mkcert

    3. https://blog.anchor.dev/the-acme-gap-introducing-anchor-part...

  • Running one’s own root Certificate Authority in 2023
    12 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 16 Sep 2023
    Looks like step-ca/step-cli [1] and mkcert [2] have been mentioned. Another related tool is XCA [3] - a gui tool to manage CAs and server/client TLS certificates. It takes off some of the tedium in using openssl cli directly. It also stores the certs and keys in an encrypted database. It doesn't solve the problem of getting the root CA certificate into the system store or of hosting the revocation list. I use XCA to create and store the root CA. Intermediate CAs signed with it are passed to other issuers like vault and step-issuer.

    [1] https://smallstep.com/docs/step-ca/

    [2] https://github.com/FiloSottile/mkcert

    [3] https://hohnstaedt.de/xca/

  • Show HN: Local development with .local domains and HTTPS
    5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 1 Aug 2023
    We use mkcert for this, it works wonderfully.

    https://github.com/FiloSottile/mkcert

  • Implementing TLS in Kubernetes
    13 projects | dev.to | 1 Aug 2023
    mkcert: This is used to obtain a trusted TLS certificate with a custom domain name for your development machine. You can install mkcert on your development machine following the official instructions.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing kubectl and mkcert you can also consider the following projects:

helm - The Kubernetes Package Manager

minica - minica is a small, simple CA intended for use in situations where the CA operator also operates each host where a certificate will be used.

robusta - Kubernetes observability and automation, with an awesome Prometheus integration

nginx-docker-ssl-proxy - A docker way to access localhost:8081 from https://local.dev

kubernetes - Production-Grade Container Scheduling and Management

certificates - 🛡️ A private certificate authority (X.509 & SSH) & ACME server for secure automated certificate management, so you can use TLS everywhere & SSO for SSH.

client-go - Go client for Kubernetes.

gosumemory - Cross-Platform memory reader for osu!

cli - GitHub’s official command line tool

rustls - A modern TLS library in Rust

Mattermost - Mattermost is an open source platform for secure collaboration across the entire software development lifecycle..

uvicorn - An ASGI web server, for Python. 🦄