Every category where a model named cert-manager for a mid-market B2B company. Share is first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts; rank is within every product named in that category.

Category	Function	Share	Rank	Negative rate	Labels	Quadrant	Since September 2026
Certificate lifecycle management	Identity and access	4%	9 of 104	25%	12	criticized challenger
Non-human identity management	Identity and access	0%	107 of 128	0%	1	under 10 labels · led by JumpCloud at 14%

Movement

This is the first edition on this tier, so no move can be computed for cert-manager yet. From the next edition this section shows, per buyer segment and per category, whether its share moved by more than the measured noise floor.

By model

How each model treated cert-manager across every prompt where it was named for a mid-market B2B company. Fourteen models, six prompts per category.

ShowHide

Model	First choice	Alternative	Mention	Negative	Labels
Claude Haiku 4.5	0	0	0	0	0
GPT-5.4 mini	0	1	0	0	1
Gemini 3.5 Flash	0	1	1	0	2
Perplexity Sonar	0	1	1	1	3
Grok 4.1 Fast	1	1	1	1	4
Mistral Small	0	0	0	0	0
DeepSeek V4 Flash	0	0	0	0	0
Llama 4 Maverick	0	0	0	0	0
Qwen 3.7 Flash	0	0	0	0	0
Kimi K2	0	0	1	0	1
GLM 4.7 FlashX	0	0	0	1	1
MiniMax M2.5	0	0	0	0	0
GPT-6 Luna	1	0	0	0	1
Muse Glimmer 30B	0	0	0	0	0

By framing

Which of the six questions produced the naming. By model says how often; this says asked what. The first-choice count on the right carries the marks of the models that produced it.

FramingLabels by classFirst choices

Direct3 labelsNone

Paraphrase3 labelsNone

Comparative5 labels1not counted in share

Budget-constrained10 labels2

Scale-constrained2 labelsNone

Negative5 labelsNone

First choiceAlternativeMentionNegative28 labels in all, every segment counted; 2 of the 3 first choices count toward share, since the comparative and negative framings do not. The bar is one segment per label class, to scale within the framing.

What the models said for it

Verbatim evidence the judge attached to positive labels.

“Kubernetes workloads or public-facing TLS: Start with cert-manager + Let's Encrypt. Both are free” GPT-6 Luna · Certificate management · budget prompt · first choice

“cert-manager (Free, Open-Source – Best for Kubernetes/OpenShift Environments)” Grok 4.1 Fast · Certificate management · budget prompt · first choice

“If your application infrastructure is heavily containerized and runs on Kubernetes, cert-manager is the undisputed king.” Gemini 3.5 Flash · Certificate management · budget prompt · alternative

“cert-manager is the best specialist choice... But it is narrower than a general CLM platform” Perplexity Sonar · Certificate management · paraphrase prompt · alternative

And against it

Verbatim evidence attached to negative labels. A warning on a product with few labels is a warning; on a product with many, it is one voice among them.

“Not a CLM platform to avoid universally, but ... it requires careful design before onboarding workloads.” Perplexity Sonar · Certificate management · negative prompt · soft negative

“prone to edge-case bugs ... Not ideal for enterprise governance without heavy customization” Grok 4.1 Fast · Certificate management · negative prompt · soft negative

“cert‑manager (unless you're comfortable with its open‑source hardening requirements)” GLM 4.7 FlashX · Certificate management · negative prompt · soft negative

Named alongside

The products named in the same answers as cert-manager, over the 28 answers that named it. Took the first choice instead counts the answers where the other product was the first choice and cert-manager was named but was not.

ShowHide

ProductSame answerTook the first choice insteadHead to head

Venafi15 of 282Not among the top eight

AppViewX CERT+13 of 280Compare →

Keyfactor Command11 of 283Compare →

Sectigo Certificate Manager11 of 282Compare →

DigiCert Trust Lifecycle Manager10 of 280Compare →

CertKit7 of 283Not among the top eight

Keyfactor6 of 280Compare →

Sectigo SCM Pro5 of 282Not among the top eight

DigiCert CertCentral5 of 281Compare →

AWS Certificate Manager5 of 280Compare →

A head-to-head page exists where both products are among a category's top eight. The other rows are the same fact without a page behind them, so they link to the product instead.

What carried it into the answer

The sites and pages cited by the answers that named cert-manager. A fact about retrieval, not a lever on the model.

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list, five of the fourteen in this edition, so these counts come from 25 of the 28 answers that named cert-manager and are not a share of its labels.

Domains cited

infisical.com16

worldmetrics.org14

gartner.com13

gitnux.org13

sectigo.com13

digicert.com12

cyberpress.org11

g2.com11

guideflow.com11

qcecuring.com11

125 of the 125 domain citations in answers naming cert-manager came from somebody else's page.

Pages cited

infisical.com/blog/best-certificate-management-tools15

cyberpress.org/certificate-lifecycle-pki-by-use-case11

gartner.com/reviews/market/certificate-lifecycle-management-clm11

guideflow.com/blog/ssl-certificate-management-software11

gitnux.org/best/certificate-lifecycle-management-software10

qcecuring.com/blog/best-clm-platforms-202610

worldmetrics.org/best/certificate-lifecycle-management-software9

guptadeepak.com/tools/top-5-pki-certificate-lifecycle-management-tools-20268

Pages are listed as the models cited them.

Search and answers

cert-manager.io is not in Google's top ten for any of the category's searches. In the answers, cert-manager takes 4% of first choices and Sectigo Certificate Manager takes 27%.

ShowHide

In search

Google, US estimates

Position for “certificate lifecycle management platform”

–

not in the top ten

Position for “certificate lifecycle management platforms”

–

not in the top ten

Searches for its name, Google: 1,600 a month (“cert-manager”)
AI search demand for its name, est.: 290 a month
Organic visits to its site: about 4,788 a month
Searches its site ranks for: 2,319 · 115 in the top three
Sites linking to it: 4,091
Paid Google search: No ads found in the estimate; that does not mean it runs none

Ads on Google

None found in Google's ad transparency records for the US

In answers

This edition

Share of first choices

rank 9 of 104 in certificate management

Segment leader

27%

Sectigo Certificate Manager

First choices: 2 across its categories
Named in: 28 answers
Its own site cited: in 25 of the answers that named it

Search figures are US estimates from DataForSEO, read October 5, 2026; AI search demand is its modeled, directional estimate, not a count of queries to any assistant. The answers are this edition's. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.

Names read as cert-manager

What the judge wrote, as written, with how often. The vendor table decides that these count as cert-manager; a claim can dispute any of them.

Cert‑Manager (Open Source) 1cert-manager + Let's Encrypt 1

Follow cert-manager

An email the morning each edition publishes: where this product moved, where it held, and by how much against the noise floor. One address, confirmed by a click; a stop link in every email.

Already following? Everything you follow, with a stop for each.

The company

cert-manager is its own company.

ShowHide

In its own words

Stated by the vendor, not checked

Positioning: Cloud native X.509 certificate management for Kubernetes and OpenShift
cert-manager.io
For: Kubernetes and OpenShift workloads
cert-manager.io
Not stated on the pages read: Price, starting price, free plan or trial, integrations, certifications, hosting, customers

What cert-manager's own pages state, read October 5, 2026: cert-manager.io. A claimed page can correct any of them.

Is this your product?

Claim this page

Claiming is free and changes nothing in the data. A claimed page shows a verified contact who is told when each edition publishes and when cert-manager's standing changes by more than the noise floor; the right to propose corrections to the vendor table, meaning names the judge wrote that should or should not read as cert-manager, applied by version and listed in the change log; and a one-line description supplied by the vendor and marked as such.

What a new claim receivesHide what a new claim receives

A new claim receives the current edition's vendor brief for cert-manager by email, built from the raw record of the edition. It shows:

where cert-manager is named, by buyer and by framing, and which cells hold its first choices;
the claims the models make when they name it, ranked, with the strongest and the weakest quoted;
its vocabulary against the segment leader's, and the pages the models cited;
who was chosen in the answers that did not name cert-manager, and every reason the record gives;
a battlecard for each top rival: the head-to-head split, why they win, and the reservation quoted against them;
one page of published figures cleared to show a buyer.