What off-the-shelf licensing system will meet my needs?

Posted by Anders Pedersen on Stack Overflow See other posts from Stack Overflow or by Anders Pedersen
Published on 2009-05-20T19:52:56Z Indexed on 2010/04/03 7:23 UTC
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I'm looking for an off-the-shelf license system for desktop software.

After some research on the net -- and of course here on StackOverflow -- I haven't found one the suits our needs. I have a couple of must-have features and some would-be-nice features:

Must have:

  • Encrypted unlock key
  • Possibility to automate the unlock key generation on my website
  • User info in key so that I can show name and company in an about box and perhaps in reports

Nice to have:

  • License managing tools
  • Online activation
  • Nice upgrade possibilities to a version with concurrent license model and subscription model

I have looked at Manco, but I find them difficult to work with and the documentation is minimal. Further, I couldn't get the name in the key. Also, the automatic generation of a key on my website has to be done with an application web service, but I would rather program against a DLL.

Next I looked at xheo. It is easier to use and the documentation is better, but the price is substantially higher and here you can only get the user name in the license file that you then have to provide together with the unlock key.

Could anyone share their experiences on what you are using and how it is working for you?

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