The ZeroSSL alternative with no signup
Short version: ZeroSSL is a solid certificate dashboard, but you have to create an account before you can get a certificate. Beacon skips that. Enter your domain, add two DNS records, and download a free 90-day certificate — no account, no email verification, no credit card. And if you use an AI coding agent, it can get the certificate for you.
Why people look for a ZeroSSL alternative
Nothing wrong with ZeroSSL — but a few things send people looking:
- You have to sign up first. You can’t even see your validation records until you create an account and verify your email.
- You just want one certificate. Making an account feels like a lot for a single domain on a side project or a staging box.
- You keep seeing upsells. The free tier nudges you toward paid plans.
- Your AI agent can’t use it. There’s no way for an agent to drive ZeroSSL on its own — it’s a dashboard made for humans.
If any of those is your moment, Beacon is built for exactly it.
Beacon vs ZeroSSL, at a glance
| Beacon | ZeroSSL | |
|---|---|---|
| Account required | No | Yes (email verification) |
| Cost for the core flow | Free, forever | Free tier, then paid upsells |
| Certificate authority | Let’s Encrypt (trusted everywhere) | Multiple / its own ACME |
| Certificate length | 90 days | 90 days |
| Covers | Your domain + www. |
Your domains |
Wildcards (*.example.com) |
No | Yes (paid) |
| Auto-renewal | No (reminders via TLS Radar) | Via ACME on a server |
| Private key | Made for your download, never stored | Account-based |
| An AI agent can do it | Yes — MCP, JSON API, Claude Code plugin | No |
Read the table honestly: if you need wildcards or a managed dashboard for many certificates, ZeroSSL (or a server-side ACME setup) is the better fit. If you want one certificate, right now, with no account — or you want your agent to handle it — Beacon wins.
The differences that actually matter
No account wall. With ZeroSSL you sign up, verify your email, and then start. With Beacon you start. You type your domain, we hand you two DNS records to add as proof you own it, you click validate, and you download your certificate. That’s the whole thing.
Your private key is never stored. This is the part people worry about, so here it is plainly: your private key is created only for your download and is never written to our database or our logs. Only you ever have it.
Your AI agent can get the certificate. This is the one thing no other free tool does. Beacon exposes the same steps over an MCP endpoint and a JSON API, and there’s a Claude Code plugin. Your agent can create the request, check that your DNS records are live, validate, and download — no dashboard, no scraping. In Claude Code it’s one command: /tlsradar:tls-cert.
Honest about the trade. Beacon does one thing well: your domain plus its www. version. No wildcards, and no automatic renewal — when the 90 days are up, you come back and run it again (or let TLS Radar remind you first). If those limits are dealbreakers, we’d rather tell you now.
Who should use Beacon
- You want one certificate without making an account.
- You’re adding HTTPS to a side project, staging server, or home lab.
- You want your AI agent to provision the certificate as part of a bigger task.
Who should stick with ZeroSSL (or a server ACME client)
- You need wildcard certificates (
*.example.com). - You want a dashboard to manage many certificates across a team.
- You already run a server and want automatic renewal built in (certbot, acme.sh, and Caddy are great for that).
Moving over is nothing to move
There’s no migration, because there’s no account to leave. Next time you need a certificate, use Beacon instead of logging into ZeroSSL. Your certificate comes as a single password-protected bundle (a .p12 file — your certificate and private key in one file) that installs into IIS and macOS Keychain directly, and into nginx, Apache, and Caddy after one openssl command.
After you get the certificate: know before it expires
Every certificate is valid for 90 days. The easy way to never get caught by an expiry is TLS Radar (free to start): it watches every certificate you own, checks your setup for problems, and emails you well before anything runs out. Beacon gets you the certificate; TLS Radar makes sure it never quietly expires.
Frequently asked questions
Is Beacon really a free ZeroSSL alternative? Yes. The certificate flow is free and always will be. We also run TLS Radar, a paid SSL/TLS monitoring service with a free tier — Beacon is simply how we introduce ourselves. You’re never required to sign up for anything to get your certificate.
Do I need an account like I do with ZeroSSL? No. No account, no email verification, no credit card. Enter a domain and go.
Are Beacon’s certificates trusted by browsers? Yes. They’re issued by Let’s Encrypt, the same certificate authority trusted by millions of websites. Visitors see the padlock, with no warnings.
Does Beacon do wildcards like ZeroSSL’s paid plans?
No. Beacon covers your domain and its www. version only. For wildcards, use a server-side tool like acme.sh or certbot.
Can my AI agent use Beacon?
Yes — this is the main thing ZeroSSL can’t do. Beacon works over MCP and a JSON API, and there’s a Claude Code plugin. In Claude Code, run /tlsradar:tls-cert.