Home › Compare › nip.io & sslip.io
goTLS vs nip.io & sslip.io
nip.io and sslip.io do one thing beautifully: wildcard DNS. A hostname like 10-0-0-1.nip.io resolves to 10.0.0.1. What they don't do is TLS — so the certificate is still your problem.
With nip.io or sslip.io you get name-to-IP resolution and nothing more. To serve HTTPS you still have to bring your own certificate — either a self-signed one (which every browser and device warns about until you install it) or your own Let's Encrypt / ACME automation with the private key living on your box.
goTLS uses the very same IP-in-the-hostname trick (and supports the same dashed and dotted spellings), but it also hands you a publicly-trusted certificate, signed per handshake by its keyless signer. There is no certificate to generate, install, or renew, and no browser warning — it just works, on every device, out of the box.
Side by side
| goTLS | nip.io / sslip.io | |
|---|---|---|
| Wildcard DNS for any IP (A / AAAA) | Yes | Yes |
| Provides a certificate | Yes — publicly trusted | No — bring your own |
| HTTPS with no warning out of the box | Yes | No |
| Certificate management (issue / renew) | none — handled by the signer | your job (self-signed or ACME) |
| Traffic stays local | Yes | Yes (they only answer DNS) |
| No account | Yes | Yes |
Which should you use?
Pick nip.io / sslip.io when
- You only need name to IP resolution.
- You already have your own certificate pipeline you're happy with.
- You want the absolute minimum dependency.
Pick goTLS when
- You want working, trusted HTTPS without generating or renewing certificates.
- You need it to work on devices you can't configure — phones, IoT, CI, teammates.
- You'd rather never see a certificate-warning page again.
nip.io and sslip.io are wonderfully simple and have zero TLS to break. If you don't need certificates, they're all you need — and goTLS's DNS deliberately speaks the same hostname formats.
Try goTLS
Point the keyless proxy at your service and open the magic URL — no account, no cert to install.