What's the difference between OpenSSL and the native windows Secure Channel library

Question

I'm trying to download git bash for my laptop recently and trying to decide what is the difference between the two options. Thank you.

Answer 1

If you are using git in an organization with enterprise-managed certificates, then you will need to use Secure Channel. If you are using git only to access public repositories (like GitHub) or your organization does not manage its own certificates, then you are perfectly fine using either SSL backend (they are just different implementations of the same protocol).

From https://github.com/git/git/commit/21084e84a418e0a6c4da72f632c5cd99386bd64b

As of version 7.56.0, curl supports being compiled with multiple SSL backends.

This patch adds the Git side of that feature: by setting http.sslBackend to "openssl" or "schannel", Git for Windows can now choose the SSL backend at runtime.

This comes in handy on Windows because Secure Channel ("schannel") is the native solution, accessing the Windows Credential Store, thereby allowing for enterprise-wide management of certificates. For historical reasons, Git for Windows needs to support OpenSSL still, as it has previously been the only supported SSL backend in Git for Windows for almost a decade.

The patch has been carried in Git for Windows for over a year, and is considered mature.