README.md

---
pretty_name: "Let's Encrypt Adoption Among 5,000 Large Companies and Organizations"
license: cc-by-4.0
tags:
  - cybersecurity
  - web-technologies
  - technographics
  - ssl
  - tls
  - lets-encrypt
  - technology-adoption
  - company-data
  - business
  - websites
task_categories:
  - tabular-classification
  - tabular-regression
language:
  - en
size_categories:
  - 1K<n<10K
---

# Let's Encrypt Adoption Among 5,000 Large Companies and Organizations

## Overview

This dataset lists 5,050 large companies and organizations whose websites were found to use SSL/TLS certificates issued by Let's Encrypt. Each row carries firmographic context: industry, employee band, country, locality, founding year and LinkedIn profile.

The file is a sample of large organizations that use Let's Encrypt. It is not a ranking, and it is not the 5,000 largest or most popular organizations in the world.

Collected in August 2026. Certificate choices change, so treat the data as a snapshot of that month rather than a current state.

It is intended for technology research, cybersecurity analysis, technographic research, competitive intelligence, market analysis and data science.

Full Let's Encrypt statistics, including the global heatmap, usage by country and by industry, and the top websites, are published at [StackScan](https://www.stackscan.com/technology/lets-encrypt).

## Dataset Highlights

* Collected in August 2026
* 5,050 organizations, one row each, with no repeated domains
* Every organization in the file uses Let's Encrypt, so there is no adoption column. Adoption is the selection criterion
* Every organization has 5,001 or more employees
* 142 industries and 140 countries represented
* Not only private companies: 1,120 rows (22%) are government bodies, universities, schools, non-profits and similar institutions

## What is Let's Encrypt?

Let's Encrypt is a free, automated, and open Certificate Authority that provides SSL/TLS certificates. It enables websites to deploy HTTPS without purchasing certificates from traditional commercial certificate authorities.

## Dataset Fields

The data is in `Lets-Encrypt.csv`: 5,050 rows, 15 columns. Coverage is the share of rows where the field is populated.

| Column | Type | Coverage | Description |
| ------ | ---- | -------- | ----------- |
| `Popularity Rank` | int64 | 100% | Website popularity rank, lower being more popular. Ranges from 5 to 1,959,064. Rows are stored in ascending rank order |
| `Domain` | string | 100% | Primary website domain. Unique across the file |
| `Company Name` | string | 100% | Company or organization name, lowercased |
| `Company Size` | string | 100% | Employee band. Two values: `5001-10000` (2,245 rows) and `10001+` (2,805 rows) |
| `Year Founded` | float64 | 73.4% | Founding year |
| `Industry` | string | 99.7% | Industry label, lowercased. 142 distinct values |
| `LinkedIn URL` | string | 100% | Company LinkedIn profile path |
| `Locality` | string | 85.1% | City or region, where available |
| `Country` | string | 100% | Organization or website country. 140 distinct values |
| `TLD` | string | 100% | Top-level domain. 355 distinct values |
| `Language` | string | 0.6% | Detected site language |
| `Instagram` | string | 0.4% | Instagram handle |
| `Twitter` | string | 0.2% | Twitter handle |
| `YouTube` | string | 0.2% | YouTube channel |
| `TikTok` | string | 0.1% | TikTok handle |

The language and social columns are populated for fewer than 1% of rows.

## Methodology

Websites were analyzed for technical fingerprints associated with Let's Encrypt. An organization is considered a Let's Encrypt adopter when the relevant certificate or technology footprint is detected on its associated website.

Technology detection represents an observation made in August 2026 and should not be interpreted as confirmation of an organization's complete infrastructure.

## Use Cases

This dataset can be used for:

* Technographic research
* Cybersecurity research
* SSL/TLS infrastructure analysis
* Market research
* Competitive intelligence
* Data science and machine learning
* Technology adoption analysis
* Academic research

## Important Notes

* Technology detection is based on publicly observable website signals.
* A detected Let's Encrypt certificate does not necessarily mean that Let's Encrypt is used across all of an organization's domains or infrastructure.
* Website infrastructure can change over time.
* Results represent observations made in August 2026.
* The dataset should not be interpreted as an official statement from any company regarding its technology stack.
* Every row is an adopter, so the file describes what Let's Encrypt adopters look like. Measuring what share of large organizations use Let's Encrypt would require a comparable sample of non-adopters, which is not included here.

## Citation

If you use this dataset, please credit StackScan and link to the source page.

Plain text:

StackScan. (2026). *Let's Encrypt Adoption Among 5,000 Large Companies and Organizations* (data collected August 2026) [Data set]. StackScan. https://www.stackscan.com/technology/lets-encrypt

BibTeX:

```bibtex
@misc{stackscan_lets_encrypt_2026,
  author       = {{StackScan}},
  title        = {Let's Encrypt Adoption Among 5,000 Large Companies and Organizations},
  year         = {2026},
  month        = {aug},
  publisher    = {StackScan},
  howpublished = {\url{https://www.stackscan.com/technology/lets-encrypt}},
  note         = {Data collected August 2026. Dataset: \url{https://huggingface.co/datasets/stackscan/lets-encrypt}}
}
```

Source page: [Let's Encrypt usage statistics](https://www.stackscan.com/technology/lets-encrypt).

## License

Released under [Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). You are free to share and adapt the data, including commercially, provided you give appropriate credit.

Attribution must name StackScan and link to the source page:

> Data from [StackScan](https://www.stackscan.com/technology/lets-encrypt), licensed under CC BY 4.0.

For academic or published work, use the citation above.