Decrease binary and module cache size

[ldez]

This issue is to group information related to sizes.

We are using official API clients to reduce the maintenance: it's easier to update a dependency than maintain an internal implementation based on API documentation (the quality of the API documentation is very often not good, and documentation changes can be complex to follow).

The different changes related to API clients, between v4.23.1 and now, produced a reduction in sizes:

• Binary size:

	v4.23.1	v4.25.0	Δ
without stripping	158 MB	85 MB	-71 MB / -46%
with stripping *	109 MB	60 MB	-49 MB / -45%

*: This is the way we build the official binaries.

• Cache size:

	v4.23.1	v4.25.0	Δ
Download	1.724 GiB 147971 files 14955 directories	1.407 GiB 89658 files 13933 directories	-317 MiB -58313 files -1022 directories
Tidy	1.762 GiB 151108 files 15672 directories	1.442 GiB 92567 files 14580 directories	-320 MiB -58541 files -1092 directories

oraclecloud

Replacement of the official API client by a fork based on modules.

Version	Size inside the binary	Module size (GOCACHE)
official	1.6 MB	109.86 MiB
fork	1.6 MB	1.6 MiB

• oraclecloud: replace oci-go-sdk by a modular fork #2556
• https://github.com/nrdcg/oci-go-sdk

cloudflare

Instead of bumping to v4, the replacement of the official API client by an internal implementation.

Version	Size inside the binary	Module size (GOCACHE)
v0.115	2.2 MB	3.166 MiB
v4.5.1	5.6 MB	29.393 MiB
internal	10 kB	-

• chore: replace official Cloudflare API client by an internal API client #2583
• Client size cloudflare/cloudflare-go#4171

Civo

New versions of the official API client depend on Kubernetes.

Replacement of the API client by an internal implementation.

Version	Size inside the binary	Module size (GOCACHE)
official	229 kB	734.251 KiB
internal	8.2 kB	-

• chore: replace official Civo API client by an internal API client #2584

alidns

Updates the official API client to v4 and replaces it with a fork.

Version	Size inside the binary	Module size (GOCACHE)
v1.63.100	11 MB	88.654 MiB
v4.5.10	4.6 MB	2.04 MiB
fork	112 kB	2.04 MiB

• alidns: migrate to SDK v2 #2558
• alidns: replace alidns-20150109 with a fork #2589
• https://github.com/go-acme/alidns-20150109

tencentcloud/dnspod

Replacement of the official API client by a fork.

Version	Size inside the binary	Module size (GOCACHE)
official	3.9 MB	1.1 MiB
fork	183 kB	1.1 MiB

• tencentcloud: replace tencentcloud-sdk-go with a fork #2588
• https://github.com/go-acme/tencentclouddnspod

huaweicloud

Replacement of the structure DnsClient with an internal implementation

Version	Size inside the binary	Module size (GOCACHE)
official	3.9 MB	65.5 MiB
internal	259 kB	65.5 MiB

• huaweicloud: lightweight client #2591

yandex

Usage of API client v2 (modules)

Version	Size inside the binary	Module size (GOCACHE)
v1	~31 MB	~40 MiB
v2	~505 kB	~31 MiB

• chore: migrate to yandex cloud API Client v2 #2585
• Module binary size yandex-cloud/go-sdk#35

Sakura Cloud

Uses a custom API client constructor.

We could hope for other changes to remove about 2.24 MB of the binary size.

Version	Size inside the binary	Module size (GOCACHE)
official	3.8 MB	3.9 MiB
constructor	2.3 MB	3.9 MiB

• sakuracloud: use custom API client constructor #2587
• Module binary size sacloud/iaas-api-go#376

Azure

This client is now the biggest element inside the module cache.

The azure provider is deprecated inside lego since 2023, and it is replaced by azuredns provider.

I planned to remove the old SDK (module cache size: >497.4 MiB) in v5 of lego.

AWS

This client is now the biggest element inside the binary, but the client is complex and cannot be replaced easily.

Module cache size

Name	Module cache size
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/s3@v1.78.2	3.972 MiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/lightsail@v1.43.1	3.280 MiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2@v1.36.3	2.304 MiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/route53@v1.50.0	1.840 MiB
github.com/aws/smithy-go@v1.22.2	732.014 KiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/sts@v1.33.17	494.559 KiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/config@v1.29.9	407.385 KiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/ssooidc@v1.29.1	287.202 KiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/sso@v1.25.1	245.332 KiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/credentials@v1.17.62	184.670 KiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/internal/checksum@v1.7.0	169.932 KiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/feature/ec2/imds@v1.16.30	118.485 KiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/internal/v4a@v1.3.34	101.403 KiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/internal/s3shared@v1.18.15	77.191 KiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/internal/endpoints/v2@v2.6.34	66.960 KiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/aws/protocol/eventstream@v1.6.10	64.454 KiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/internal/ini@v1.8.3	41.693 KiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/internal/presigned-url@v1.12.15	32.621 KiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/internal/accept-encoding@v1.12.3	26.220 KiB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/internal/configsources@v1.3.34	25.744 KiB

Size inside the binary

Percent	Name	Size inside the binary
15.98%	github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2	14 MB
0.31%	github.com/aws/smithy-go	258 kB

Details of github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2:

Name	Size inside the binary
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/lightsail	4.8 MB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/s3	4.1 MB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/route53	2.7 MB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/sts	496 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/aws	381 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/ssooidc	290 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/config	257 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/sso	225 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/credentials	78 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/feature/ec2/imds	53 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/internal/checksum	50 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/internal/v4a	48 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/internal/s3shared	39 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/internal/ini	16 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/internal/endpoints	8.5 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/internal/sync/singleflight	7.8 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/internal/accept-encoding	6.1 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/internal/auth	5.1 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/internal/configsources	3.0 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/internal/middleware	2.1 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/internal/sdk	1.6 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/internal/rand	1.4 kB
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/internal/shareddefaults	296 B
github.com/aws/aws-sdk-go-v2/service/internal/presigned-url	0 B

• Binary size too big with s3 packages aws/aws-sdk-go-v2#2930

Google Cloud

This client is the second biggest element inside the module cache, but the client is complex and cannot be replaced easily.

Module cache size

Name	Module cache size
google.golang.org/api@v0.227.0	314.986 MiB
google.golang.org/protobuf@v1.36.6	12.995 MiB
google.golang.org/grpc@v1.73.0	9.204 MiB
github.com/google/s2a-go@v0.1.9	1.276 MiB
google.golang.org/genproto/googleapis/api@v0.0.0-20250707201910-8d1bb00bc6a7	1014.847 KiB
cloud.google.com/go/auth@v0.15.0	801.912 KiB
github.com/google/go-cmp@v0.7.0	460.904 KiB
github.com/googleapis/gax-go/v2@v2.14.1	182.272 KiB
google.golang.org/genproto/googleapis/rpc@v0.0.0-20250707201910-8d1bb00bc6a7	164.189 KiB
github.com/googleapis/enterprise-certificate-proxy@v0.3.6	159.428 KiB
github.com/google/uuid@v1.6.0	77.172 KiB
cloud.google.com/go/compute/metadata@v0.6.0	72.847 KiB
cloud.google.com/go/auth/oauth2adapt@v0.2.7	34.354 KiB

Size inside the binary

Percent	Name	Size inside the binary
2.23%	google.golang.org/protobuf	1.9 MB
1.32%	google.golang.org/grpc	1.1 MB
0.59%	google.golang.org/api	498 kB
0.28%	github.com/google/s2a-go	234 kB
0.23%	cloud.google.com/go/auth	193 kB
0.15%	google.golang.org/genproto/googleapis/api	124 kB
0.06%	github.com/googleapis/gax-go/v2	50 kB
0.06%	google.golang.org/genproto/googleapis/rpc	47 kB
0.04%	cloud.google.com/go/compute/metadata	36 kB
0.01%	github.com/googleapis/enterprise-certificate-proxy	12 kB
0.01%	github.com/google/uuid	6.6 kB

• Repository size over 500mb googleapis/google-api-go-client#616

More

For now, I won't trim the other modules (like AWS) because it isn't worth the cost (complexity, small gain, regressions, maintenance, etc.)

---

Related to #2527
Related to #2551
Related to #992

[ldez]

Those modifications were related to several weeks of analysis, tries, and thinking.

lego requires the maintenance of about 160 DNS providers in addition to the maintenance of the core ACME implementation.

I think I found a good compromise between maintenance and optimizations.

If you benefit from those changes, please consider donating or asking your company to do so.

My only source of income is from donations.

This will be appreciated, thank you ❤️

https://donate.ldez.dev/