Let's Encrypt is a free, automated CA, which is made possible due to the sponsorship from companies such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Mozilla, Cisco, Akamai, University of Michigan, and over a dozen others. Organized by the Internet Security Research Group (ISRG), Let's Encrypt has already issued over 4 million certificates (as of May 2016), and the rate is growing exponentially.
While the free component may see the biggest drawcard, it's the automation that is the key point. For those who have previously gone through SSL generation through a traditional CA, it needs to have either file-based or email-based validation of the domain. If you have multiple domains, this process becomes quite time consuming to do over and over.
Thankfully, the Let's Encrypt CA is fully API-driven, and they even include...
