Network Management

What is the difference between a self-signed certificate vs certificate signed by a certificate authority (CA)?

This article provides information about the difference between a self-signed certificate compared to a certificate signed by a certificate authority.

First published date

10/22/2018 2:06 PM

Last published date

5/27/2025 10:34 PM

Overview

There are many advantages and disadvantages for each option.
  1. A self-signed certificate is a digital certificate where identity of the certificate is certified by itself.  By default, this means a self-signed certificate is inherently not trusted by browser.
  2. A certificate signed by a certificate authority is a digital certificate where the identify of the certificate is certificate by a public / private certificate authority before issuing a certificate.  In most cases, certificate authority issue trusted root certificates to be installed on major operating system and browser and have built trust to ensure their issued certificates will be trusted.

Product section

Orion Platform

Resolution

By default, SolarWinds Platform will create a self-signed certificate when the configuration wizard is ran.  This will ensure the initial configuration of the website is secured using HTTPS.

As a best practice, SolarWinds does not recommend to utilizing a self-signed certificate for a production environment for several reasons:

  • While self-signed certificate are easy, fast, and free way to secure communication, but these certificate are not easily trackable.
  • If a self-signed certificate is compromised, there is no way to relocate a certificate and prevent from being used.
  • By default, all browsers will not trust a self-signed certificate without manually having to install the self-signed certificate on each computer connecting to the SolarWinds web console.