DigiCert
Digital certificate and PKI solutions provider
DigiCert is a certificate authority and public key infrastructure company that issues SSL/TLS certificates and provides related digital trust services used to secure websites, software, devices, and communications. It is one of the largest…
Definition
DigiCert is a certificate authority and public key infrastructure company that issues SSL/TLS certificates and provides related digital trust services used to secure websites, software, devices, and communications. It is one of the largest commercial certificate authorities, trusted by browsers and operating systems to vouch for the identity of domains and organizations through the certificates it issues, and it also provides code signing and IoT device identity products.
Overview
DigiCert exists to solve a specific trust problem on the internet: when a browser connects to a website over HTTPS, it needs a way to verify that the site is who it claims to be, and that the encrypted connection has not been intercepted. That verification depends on a chain of trust rooted in certificate authorities like DigiCert, whose root certificates are pre-installed and trusted by every major browser and operating system, allowing them to vouch for the domains and organizations they issue certificates to. Mechanically, DigiCert operates as a certificate authority within the public key infrastructure model: an organization or individual generates a key pair and submits a certificate signing request to DigiCert, DigiCert validates the requester's control over the domain (and, for higher assurance certificate types, the organization's legal identity), and then issues a digitally signed certificate binding that public key to the verified identity. Browsers trust the resulting certificate because it chains back to a DigiCert root certificate embedded in their trust store. DigiCert supports the different validation levels defined for TLS certificates, domain validation, organization validation, and extended validation, along with wildcard and multi-domain certificates, and it also operates infrastructure for code signing certificates, IoT device identity, and document signing. DigiCert competes directly with other commercial certificate authorities such as Sectigo, GlobalSign, and Entrust, all of which occupy the same market niche of paid, higher-assurance certificate issuance, in contrast to Let's Encrypt, a free, automated certificate authority focused on domain-validated certificates issued at scale with minimal human review. DigiCert differentiates on enterprise features like dedicated support, extended validation options, and broader identity and IoT security product lines beyond basic TLS. In practice, enterprises, financial institutions, and organizations needing extended validation, code signing, or large-scale certificate lifecycle management purchase certificates and platform access from DigiCert, often managing thousands of certificates across an organization through its centralized certificate management tools. Software vendors also use DigiCert code-signing certificates to sign applications so operating systems and users can verify the software has not been tampered with since release. The main trade-off relative to free automated certificate authorities is cost: DigiCert certificates are paid and, for higher validation tiers, require manual vetting that takes longer to issue than an automated domain-validated certificate. For organizations that only need basic domain validation at scale, a free automated CA is often sufficient, and DigiCert's value proposition centers on the cases where extended validation, enterprise support, dedicated infrastructure, or non-TLS certificate types like code signing and IoT identity are required.
Key Features
- SSL/TLS certificate issuance across domain, organization, and extended validation tiers
- Root certificate embedded in major browser and OS trust stores
- Code signing certificates for verifying software publisher identity
- IoT device identity and certificate lifecycle management platform
- Centralized enterprise certificate management for large certificate volumes
- Document signing certificates for verifiable digital signatures
- Support for wildcard and multi-domain (SAN) certificates
- Automated certificate lifecycle tooling (ACME support and management APIs)