[copperx]

Isn't that placing a lot of load on a free service?

[shawnz]

With certbot, the check to see if certificates are close to expiry is done offline. So the service is only hit if a renewal is needed. The developers of certbot actually recommend that you schedule the cron twice a day.

EDIT: Actually I'm wrong. It also checks if the certificate was revoked via OCSP. However I can't imagine that it consumes much resources.

[schoen]

They're also different resources, and cacheable ones.

[ceejayoz]

That free service has rate limits, which are presumably set to a sustainable level for them.

[Filligree]

"Aborts early", in this case meaning before any network calls are made.