Wildcard SSL Certificate secure main domain and sub domains of your websiet while SAN Certificate can secure your multiple domains under single certificate.
When there are websites, blogs, or any web-based services, there will be always a keen requirement for an SSL certificate. The concept of an SSL certificate depends upon how you utilize the SSL certificate. The use of an SSL certificate is the best way to save your website identity over the web. To confirm the identity of the business over the internet, the reputed SSL certificate authorities sign the digital certificate with a strong cryptographic signature that enables protection for online traveling information.
Starting from Single Domain SSL certificate, Wildcard SSL certificate, EV SSL certificate to Multi-Domain SSL certificate, SSL has diversified option to meet the organization’s security needs.
In this theme of the content, we would talk about the Wildcard SSL and SAN SSL certificates, as many people get confused with these two SSL certificates.
Wildcard SSL Certificate
What makes Wildcard SSL certificate so special is its ability to secure the primary domain plus unlimited subdomains. Organizations/website owners do not have to worry about multiple certificate management. All they need is a single Wildcard SSL that provides simple certificate management and save administration cost.
If the organization has a primary domain *.mysite.com, then there are chances open to secure subdomains like:
- mail.mysite.com
- ftp.mysite.com
- www.mysite.com
- *.mysite.com
Flexibility:
The certificate comes with (*) asterisk that enables website owners to add unlimited subdomains. There is no need to buy a new certificate because website owners can add or change domains without updating or buying a new Wildcard certificate. Web site owners do not need to define the subdomain at the time of purchasing a certificate.
Browser Compatibility:
The certificate is most compatible with browsers and servers like IE, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, IIS, Apache, Nginx, Tomcat, etc. Even, Wildcard SSL seeker does not need to buy an individual IP address for subdomain hosting.
When To Choose Wildcard SSL Certificate?
The Wildcard SSL cert is most useful when there are many subdomains that need protection and website owners to want a single certificate solution to manage all these subdomains.
SAN SSL Certificate
SAN or UCC SSL certificate helps website holders to secure multiple domains and sub-domains with a single certificate. SAN supports FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) and has the ability to secure up to 100 domains in one certificate. A SAN SSL certificate can secure multiple public domain names, server hostnames, gateways, firewall devices.
Note: The CAB forum has announced to stop supporting private or internal names and reserved IPs.
A website holder can secure different domains like:
- www.mycompany.com
- mycompany.com
- www.mycompany.net
- mail.mycompany.com
- sub2.sub1.mycompany.com
More Flexibility:
SAN is capable of securing both subdomains and main domains with a single certificate while wildcard has the limitation of protecting only subdomains. When organizations want to secure internal and external domains like sip.mysite.net and sip.mysite.com, then SAN can secure both different domains while in the case of a wildcard, you need to purchase two wildcard certificates because both domains are different.
Browser Compatibility:
SAN certificate works fine with all major mobile and desktop browsers and servers. The certificate does not work with an old version of servers like Microsoft Exchange 2003. Whether you go with Mozilla 1+, IE 5+, Opera 7+, Netscape 9+, AOL 10+, or any Safari versions, the certificate will work well. If we look at mobile compatibility then SAN covers Microsoft Pocket IE, Palm/Handspring Blazer 2.0+, iPhone, iPad Safari, Netfront 3.0+, Blackberry, and AT&T.
When To Choose SAN SSL Certificate?
If a website owner wants to secure multiple domains as well as its subdomains then SAN is an ideal choice compared to Wildcard SSL certificate. SAN does not support Wildcard characters (*) so if you wish to add a domain or remove a domain, you need to update and redeploy the certificate to each host server.
Where To Find Wildcard SSL or SAN SSL Certificate?
You do not need go anywhere when you can find cheap SSL Certificate at ClickSSL. Whether you go for a Wildcard SSL or a Multi-Domain (SAN) SSL certificate, we are bound to offer the best customer support with top reputed industry SSL certificate authorities like GeoTrust, RapidSSL and Thawte.
What are you thinking just browse your choice certificate and make a deal today?
