Sectigo is a public Certificate Authority and a provider of automated certificate lifecycle management (CLM). It issues the certificates that websites, software and email rely on, and helps organisations keep track of every certificate they hold so none expires unnoticed.
The company serves everyone from small website owners to large enterprises managing thousands of machine identities.
At A Glance
| Vendor | Sectigo |
|---|---|
| Category | PKI and certificate lifecycle management, machine identity |
| Identities covered | Public and private certificates, machine identities, code signing and S/MIME certificates |
| Deployment | Cloud-based Sectigo Certificate Manager |
| Customers | Aviva, Darling Ingredients, Apple, FedEx, Air France |
| Certifications | WebTrust seals, ISO/IEC 27001, EU Trust list |
| Founded | 1998 |
| Market classification | PKI & Certificate Lifecycle; also NHI Platforms & Machine Identity |
What Sectigo Does
Certificates are the identities of machines: servers, devices, applications and code all prove who they are with them. When one expires or is lost from view, services go down or trust breaks. The problem is growing because certificate lifetimes are shrinking, and the move towards 47-day lifespans makes manual renewal very hard to keep up.
Sectigo approaches this from two sides: it issues certificates as a public CA, and it automates the work around them in a CA-agnostic platform, so an organisation can manage certificates from any authority in one place rather than one CA at a time.
Products
Sectigo Certificate Manager
SCM is a cloud-based CLM platform for teams that have lost count of their certificates or are tired of outages caused by missed renewals. It finds and inventories certificates automatically, manages public and private certificates including those issued by third party CAs, renews them automatically and sends alerts before anything expires. It is built with 47-day lifespans in mind and offers more than 50 integrations with other technology providers. An MCP server for SCM lets teams run certificate tasks through their preferred AI agent in plain language, with no infrastructure to deploy.
Public Certificates
Sectigo issues the certificates that organisations present to the outside world. TLS/SSL certificates come in DV, OV and EV levels. Code signing certificates let software publishers prove their code has not been altered, and S/MIME certificates secure email. Mark certificates (VMC and CMC) show a verified brand mark next to sent email, and eIDAS compliant qualified certificates cover seals, signatures and authentication for European requirements.
Sectigo Private PKI And Quantum Labs
Private PKI issues certificates for internal systems that do not need public trust, managed through the same SCM console as public certificates. Quantum Labs is a post-quantum cryptography sandbox where teams can test how their systems cope with new algorithms, aligned with NIST’s evolving PQC standards.
Web Security
Smaller website owners can add SiteLock website security, CodeGuard website backup and recovery, and HackerGuardian PCI scanning alongside their certificates.
How It Works
SCM is delivered from the cloud. Its lifecycle runs through five stages: discover, deploy, renew, replace and integrate.
| Component | What it does |
|---|---|
| Discovery | SCM scans the environment and builds an inventory of existing certificates, wherever they came from. |
| Issuance | New certificates come from Sectigo’s public CA, from Sectigo Private PKI or from third party CAs. |
| Automation | Endpoints request and renew certificates through ACME, SCEP and EST. |
| Agents and connectors | A network or Microsoft agent populates the management portal. A CyberArk integration lets SCM retrieve elevated credentials on demand without storing them in Sectigo’s agent. |
Identities And Systems Covered
| Machine identities | The digital certificates that identify servers, devices and applications |
|---|---|
| Certificate types | Public and private TLS/SSL, code signing, S/MIME, mark certificates and eIDAS qualified certificates |
| Certificate authorities | Sectigo’s public CA, Sectigo Private PKI and third party CAs |
| Endpoints | Microsoft environments through an agent, and any endpoint that supports ACME, SCEP or EST |
Company Background
| Founded | 1998 |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Scottsdale, Arizona, United States |
| Leadership | Kevin Weiss, CEO |
| Ownership | Majority owned by GI Partners, which acquired Sectigo in 2020 |
| Acquisitions | The Entrust public certificate business (January 2025), which doubled the size of Sectigo’s enterprise operations |
| Scale | More than 1 billion certificates issued, more than 700K reported customers and more than 2,700 active partners |
| Recognition | Recognised by G2 in certificate lifecycle management for 12 consecutive quarters |
Note: This overview is compiled from Sectigo’s publicly available information as of 3 November 2026. It is provided for information only. NHI Mgmt Group does not endorse any vendor, and nothing on this page represents the opinions of NHI Mgmt Group.