What Is Let's Encrypt?

Why It Matters

Before Let’s Encrypt (launched 2015), SSL certificates cost $50-300/year and required manual installation and renewal. This was a major barrier to HTTPS adoption. Let’s Encrypt removed that barrier by providing:

• Free certificates — no cost, ever
• Automated issuance — no manual CSR generation or installation
• Auto-renewal — certificates renew before expiration (every 90 days)
• Domain Validation (DV) — proves you control the domain

How Let’s Encrypt Works

1. You prove you control the domain (via DNS challenge or HTTP challenge)
2. Let’s Encrypt issues a TLS certificate valid for 90 days
3. Automated tools renew the certificate before expiration
4. No human intervention needed

Let’s Encrypt is a certificate authority — one of many CAs that issue SSL certificates. What makes it unique is the combination of zero cost and full automation. It only issues DV (Domain Validation) certificates, which is sufficient for HTTPS forwarding.

Let’s Encrypt and Domain Forwarding

For HTTPS forwarding to work, the forwarding server needs a valid SSL certificate for each source domain. Let’s Encrypt makes this scalable — Domain Forward can provision certificates for thousands of domains automatically.

Provider	SSL for Forwarding	Certificate Source	Auto-Renew
GoDaddy	No	N/A	N/A
Namecheap	No	N/A	N/A
Domain Forward	Yes	Let’s Encrypt	Yes

How Domain Forward Handles This

When you add a domain to Domain Forward, we automatically:

1. Verify domain ownership via DNS
2. Request a Let’s Encrypt certificate
3. Install and activate the certificate
4. Renew every 60-90 days automatically