Infisical vs. Microsoft AD CS
Looking for an AD CS alternative? Infisical automates certificate lifecycles for all of your workloads, devices, and infrastructure. It can replace AD CS or sit on top of it to provide a single source of truth for certificate management.
The AD CS way
Manually run templates, CSRs, CRLs, and IIS roles.
- Duplicate Template
- admin workstation
- Audit: ESC1 on Web Server - Linux template: Enroll granted to Domain Users
- web-01
- SCEP application pool stopped: NDES returns HTTP 503, so Intune devices can't enroll.
- corp-ca01: Certificate Services did not start
- root-ca (offline)
- ADCS expiring certificates email alerting script
- Offline root CRL ceremony: Boot the root, republish, power down
- Alex, platform team: Can the Kubernetes ingress get certs from the Windows CA? cert-manager can't talk to it.
The Infisical way
Automate certificate renewal anywhere, from AD CS or any other CA.
What's the difference between Infisical and Microsoft AD CS?
AD CS is a role of Windows Server, built to issue certificates to Windows machines in an Active Directory domain. Everything outside it takes add-ons, scripts, or specialized engineers. Infisical is a certificate management platform for your entire infrastructure, and can keep AD CS as the CA behind it.
Evaluate
Infisical- Try the free tier with an internal CA, ACME automation, and the certificate dashboard
- Self-host the MIT-licensed open-source version
Microsoft AD CS- Included with Windows Server licenses
- Manually build a lab with Windows Server and Active Directory
Deploy/integrate
Infisical- Use managed cloud, or self-host on Docker, Kubernetes, Linux, AWS ECS, or Google GKE
- Connect AD CS through a gateway, without exposing it
Microsoft AD CS- Install Active Directory and install AD CS on Windows Server, frequently reboot
- Stand up an offline root, issuing CAs, and a separate NDES server with IIS
- Patch every CA and NDES server on Patch Tuesday
Migrate/onboard
Infisical- Keep AD CS and issue from its templates over ACME, EST, and SCEP
- Discover every certificate on your network, whoever issued it
- Stand up your own private CAs to replace or augment AD CS
Microsoft AD CS- Duplicate and publish a template for each use case
- Hand-carry CSRs for anything outside the domain
Control access
Infisical- Sign in with any SSO
- Set fine-grained access controls with RBAC and ABAC
Microsoft AD CS- Manually create, manage, and maintain the template permissions that decide who can enroll
- Hit NDES's default limit of five unused challenge passwords
Operate
Infisical- Continually discover new certificates to build an inventory
- Manage every certificate expiry in one dashboard, no matter who issued it
- Renew, revoke, or reissue from the dashboard or API
Microsoft AD CS- Query each CA's database manually with certutil
- Manually convert and copy certificates for anything beyond Windows
- Pray NDES doesn't break when you renew enrollment certificates
Automate
Infisical- Renew certificates automatically on Windows, Linux, and Kubernetes
- Get a Slack, email, PagerDuty, or webhook alert before anything expires
- Sync certificates to load balancers, cloud services, and Windows servers
Microsoft AD CS- Autoenrollment only covers domain-joined Windows
- Script your own expiry alerts or keep track manually
- Republish the offline root's CRL before it expires
Audit
Infisical- Search audit logs in the dashboard or stream them to a SIEM
Microsoft AD CS- Turn on CA auditing and read the Windows event log
Scale
Infisical- Add secrets, privileged access, AI agent security, or KMS on the same platform
- Incorporate any new CA or certificate into the platform
Microsoft AD CS- Move each CA to a new Windows Server version yourself
- Build a specialized PKI team by hiring more engineers
- Buy separate tools for secrets and other security infrastructure
Infisical vs. Microsoft AD CS at a glance
AD CS is a Windows Server role to issue certificates inside the domain. Infisical is a certificate lifecycle automation platform for every workload or device anywhere.
| Feature |  | Microsoft AD CS |
|---|---|---|
| Certificate productWhether certificate management is a product of its own, or part of something else. | Full lifecycle management, for any CA and any workload | A Windows Server role |
| Open sourceWhether the source code is public, so your team can review exactly what runs. | MIT-licensed, 29,000+ GitHub stars | Proprietary Windows Server role |
| Self-hostingRunning the product on your own infrastructure instead of the vendor's cloud. | Docker, Kubernetes, Linux, AWS ECS, or Google GKE | Windows Server and Active Directory |
| Managed cloudA version the vendor hosts and operates for you. | US and EU regions | Self-managed only |
| Components to runThe servers, agents, and connectors your team deploys and keeps up to date. | One platform, plus a gateway | CA servers, an offline root, IIS, and NDES |
| Platform scopeWhat Infisical and Microsoft AD CS cover beyond certificate management. | Certificates, secrets, privileged access, AI agents, and KMS | Certificates for Windows and Active Directory |
| Private CA hierarchy | ||
| External and public CAs | Public, private, and AD CS itself, in one inventory | Only its own CAs |
| ACMEHow tools like certbot and cert-manager request and renew certificates automatically. | Third-party add-ons only | |
| ESTA protocol devices and servers use to enroll for certificates securely, common in network equipment and IoT. | ||
| SCEPAn older enrollment protocol used by device management tools like Microsoft Intune and Jamf. | Any SCEP client, with built-in Intune and Jamf Pro support | Through NDES, a separate IIS role |
| APIRequesting certificates directly from your own code or scripts. | No REST API | |
| Linux and KubernetesGetting certificates onto Linux servers and Kubernetes workloads, not just Windows machines. | ACME, cert-manager, or the Infisical Agent | Manual CSRs or add-ons |
| Certificate discoveryScanning your networks to find certificates in use, including ones you didn't know about. | Finds every certificate on your infrastructure, from any CA | |
| InventoryA single list of every certificate, where it's used, and when it expires. | One view across every CA | A database per CA, queried with certutil |
| Automatic renewalReplacing certificates before they expire, without manual steps. | Via syncs, agents, or ACME clients | Windows autoenrollment only |
| Expiry alertsNotifications before a certificate expires, so it gets renewed in time. | Slack, PagerDuty, email, or webhooks | None built in |
| Certificate syncsInstalling certificates automatically on the load balancers, servers, and cloud services that use them. | 13+ destinations, including Windows Server | Export and import by hand |
| Access controlRules for who can read or change which secrets and certificates. | ||
| SAML SSOSigning in through your company's identity provider, like Okta or Microsoft Entra ID. | Windows and Active Directory sign-in | |
| Audit logsA record of who did what, kept for security reviews and compliance. | Windows event log, once CA auditing is on | |
Use Microsoft AD CS and Infisical together
Infisical is a unified certificate management tool that can coexist with AD CS so you can have one source of truth for all your certificates without uprooting long-standing Windows workflows.
What stays on AD CS
Group Policy autoenrollment for domain-joined Windows machines and your AD CS templates.
What Infisical adds
Infisical automates what requires manual work on AD CS behind a gateway that keeps AD CS private.
- A dashboard to automate discovery, alerts, renewals, and syncs for every certificate on your infrastructure
- Lifecycle automation via ACME, EST, SCEP, and an API in front of AD CS templates
How the two connect
AD CS can sign an Infisical intermediate certificate so an Infisical CA can issue new certificates your devices already trust.
Frequently asked questions
Everything you need to know. Can't find an answer? Talk to our team.
How to migrate from Microsoft AD CS to Infisical
Most teams start by putting Infisical in front of AD CS, then move one workload at a time.
- 01
Connect AD CS
Connect AD CS to Infisical through a gateway, so your existing templates issue over ACME, EST, and SCEP.
- 02
Find every certificate
Run discovery across your networks to see what's deployed and when it expires.
- 03
Move one workload
Point a workload at Infisical, and sync its certificates to where they're served.
- 04
Chain to the AD CS root
Have AD CS sign an Infisical intermediate, so new certificates chain to the root your devices already trust.
- 05
Decide what stays
Keep AD CS where you need it and move the rest to Infisical.
Our team can help you plan and run the migration.
Start managing certificates, then add secrets, privileged access, KMS, or agent access.
Add products when you need them, on the platform you already run.
- OpenAI: API, Codex
- Let's Encrypt
- Vercel
- Gemini CLI
- Apache Airflow
- Spring Boot
- OpenCode
- DigiCert
- Jenkins
- Terraform: Terraform, Terraform Cloud
- Render
- Azure: Key Vault, App Configuration, DevOps, Entra ID, CLI
- NetScaler
- Databricks
- KMIP
- GoDaddy
- Pulumi
- Okta
- Ansible
- Cloudflare: Workers, Pages, Custom certificates
- Sectigo
- Laravel
- Hermes
- SAP HANA
- ClickHouse
- OpenRouter
- Supabase
- Docker
- Snowflake
- Venafi
- Rails
- Humanitec
- Tailscale
- 1Password
- OpenClaw
- Cassandra
- Northflank
- Redis
- Datadog
- Google Cloud: Secret Manager, Certificate Manager, IAM, KMS
- Dell PowerEdge
- Bitbucket
- Claude Code
- Railway
- dbt Cloud
- Windows Server
- Chef
- .NET
- PostgreSQL
- AWS: Secrets Manager, Parameter Store, Certificate Manager, Elastic Load Balancing, Private CA, IAM, KMS, CloudHSM, ECS, Amplify
- Linux servers
- Auth0
- Oracle: Oracle Database, OCI Vault
- Octopus Deploy
- Fly.io
- MySQL
- F5 BIG-IP
- LDAP
- TeamCity
- Qovery
- Nutanix Prism Central
- Microsoft: Active Directory, AD CS
- Windmill
- LiteLLM
- Netlify
- RabbitMQ
- Spacelift
- Kubernetes
- CircleCI
- GitLab
- SQL Server
- Stripe
- DigitalOcean
- GitHub: GitHub, GitHub Actions
- Couchbase
- MongoDB: MongoDB, MongoDB Atlas
- Heroku
- SSH
- Salesforce
- HashiCorp Vault
- Travis CI
- Kemp LoadMaster
- Next.js
- Django
- Sigstore Cosign
- Elasticsearch
- Certificate ManagementToday
- Secrets ManagementWhen you need it
- Privileged Access ManagementWhen you need it
- KMSWhen you need it
- Agent VaultWhen you need it
Talk to our team
Starting with Infisical is simple, fast, and free.
- SOC 2, HIPAA, and FIPS 140-3 compliant
- Open source, in our cloud or yours
Talk to your boss
Need a yes from your boss?
Here's a message to send your manager. Edit it, then paste it into Slack, Teams, or an email.
Trusted by teams at
