Free Web Encryption: 10 Years of Let’s Encrypt
Let’s Encrypt made the lock icon in your web browser free and automated for everyone. Now 10 million sites get protected daily.
Seven billion certificates. Ten years. The lock icon in your browser used to cost hundreds of dollars per year. One organization made it free for everyone.
Let’s Encrypt published their official 10-year retrospective on December 9, 2025. The numbers tell a story that deserves attention from everyone who uses the Internet and wants to use it safely.
They didn’t just build an organization that verifies websites (a certificate authority). They built a blueprint for how internet infrastructure should work: free, automated, and privacy-respecting.
The Scale Is Hard to Comprehend
Let’s Encrypt now issues 10 million certificates daily. That’s one certificate every 8.64 milliseconds. They’re approaching 1 billion websites protected (roughly two-thirds of all websites on Earth).
The growth trajectory tells the story:
One million certificates by March 2016
One billion total by 2020
Seven billion by December 2025
