CertifiCat review
A free, open-source certificate portal for organisations prepared to manage hosting.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
CertifiCat is an open-source web application for organisations that issue certificates for events. It is designed for teams that want to run a certificate portal locally or on their own server, under the organisation’s domain. Administrators can create events, manage certificates through an admin panel, upload certificate templates, and generate certificates for recipients. A user-facing download page supports certificate retrieval by certificate code or user ID, giving organisers a defined path for distributing completed certificates without relying on a separate hosted certificate service.
The main advantage is control over deployment and ownership. The published product details describe a free, self-hosted application, so organisations can place the portal on their own infrastructure and domain rather than selecting a hosted subscription. That model suits event organisers with the technical capacity to manage an application and its supporting services. CertifiCat requires Firebase for authentication and database services, along with MongoDB for storing certificate template PDFs. These dependencies are central to planning the deployment and make the product a better fit for organisations comfortable maintaining a multi-service setup than for teams seeking an immediately managed tool.
Its feature set stays focused on the certificate lifecycle: event creation, template upload, generation, downloads, and retrieval. That narrow scope can be useful when the priority is a controlled certificate portal rather than a broader event-management system. The trade-off is that operational responsibility remains with the organisation, including hosting and the supporting Firebase and MongoDB services. Choose CertifiCat if self-hosting, open-source access, and domain control matter most. Consider another certificate maker if you want a managed hosted service or a wider workflow around certificate operations.
CertifiCat pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Free and open-source for self-hosted deployment
- Creates events, uploads templates, and generates certificates
- Recipients can retrieve certificates by code or user ID
- Where it doesn't
- Requires local or organisational server deployment
- Depends on Firebase and MongoDB for core services
- Certificate management is focused on event-based workflows
CertifiCat fact sheet, pricing and score →
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