Difference+between+x-509+and+SSL

An X509 Certificate is a type of public key in a public/private key pair. These key pairs can be used for different things, like encryption via SSL, or for identification. SSL Certificates are a type of X509 certificate. SSL works by encrypting traffic as well as verifying the party (Verisign trusts this website to be who they say they are, therefore you probably could too). Verisign acts as a Certificate Authority (CA). The CA is trusted in that everything that it says should be taken as truth (Running a CA requires major security considerations). Therefore if a CA gives you a certificate saying that it trusts that you are really you, you have a user certificate/client certificate.