License Web – Product Activation Management

License Web is a self-hosted licensing and activation-management portal for your products. Create perpetual, expiring, trial, or volume license keys, and let your software activate, deactivate, and check license status through a simple REST API. The APIs are very simple to understand and suitable for almost all types of products including Desktop software, Games, Online portals, Media Subscription, website themes/plugins and more.

You just focust on your product development and let License Web to handle control your product key distribution and activation process.

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License Web suits almost any product that needs activation management β€” desktop software, online portals, games, website plugins and themes, and anything else sold with a license key. It handles one-time activations, subscription/renewal products, and time-limited trials from a single console.

Admin access is controlled by roles built from granular permissions, so you can give a colleague exactly the access they need β€” full administration, key management only, or read-only support β€” with sign-in via local accounts or your existing Active Directory. Every key's full history is tracked automatically: from creation, through activation and deactivation, to expiry, with a timeline you can review at a glance.

License Web is self-hosted and runs as a Windows Service or Linux daemon behind IIS, Nginx, or any reverse proxy, with your choice of SQLite, MySQL, SQL Server, or PostgreSQL as the database. Your existing integrations keep working β€” the activation API your software already calls stays wire-compatible β€” while a separate token-authenticated REST API gives you programmatic control over products, keys, and activations for your own tooling.

Key Features

  • Perpetual, expiring, and trial licensing β€” issue keys that never expire, expire on a schedule, or run as timed trials (duration set in minutes).
  • Volume / multi-seat keys β€” one key activated across multiple devices at once, with concurrent-seat limits enforced automatically.
  • Simple activation API β€” your software calls a single endpoint to activate, deactivate, or check a key, with a plain-text or JSON response.
  • Clear key lifecycle β€” every key moves through Created β†’ Activated β†’ Deactivated β†’ Expired, with a full status-history timeline and activation list on its detail page.
  • Auto or manual key generation β€” generate keys from a configurable rule (length, character set, casing, separators, prefix/suffix), or enter your own keys manually, one per line, with duplicate and collision checks.
  • Global and per-product key rules β€” set one key format tenant-wide, or override it per product.
  • Device fingerprint binding β€” activations are tied to a machine/host identifier you control, so seats can't be silently shared.
  • Customer details on every key β€” track the customer name, email, and mobile number bound to each license.
  • Admin REST API β€” manage products, keys, and activations programmatically with API key/secret authentication, with individual API resources toggled on or off.
  • Active Directory integration β€” sign in with AD credentials, with roles synced automatically from AD groups.
  • Two-factor authentication β€” TOTP-based 2FA for admin accounts, with recovery codes.
  • Granular roles and permissions β€” build as many admin roles as you need, each scoped to exactly the actions it should allow.
  • Audit log β€” every meaningful admin action is recorded and searchable.
  • Customizable email templates β€” branded, token-based templates for key delivery and activation notifications.
  • Activity dashboard β€” activation trends, expiring-soon keys, recent activations, and recent audit events at a glance.
  • Encrypted key storage β€” license keys are encrypted at rest, not stored in plain text.
  • Runs anywhere β€” install as a Windows Service or Linux systemd service, with a health-check endpoint for load balancers and uptime monitoring.
  • Multi-database support β€” SQLite, MySQL, SQL Server, or PostgreSQL, your choice.

Key Features

  • Perpetual, expiring, and trial licensing
  • Volume / multi-seat keys with concurrent-seat enforcement
  • Simple, wire-compatible activation API
  • Four-stage key lifecycle with full history
  • Auto or manual key generation, global or per-product rules
  • Customer details on every key
  • Token-authenticated admin REST API
  • Role-based access with granular permissions
  • Active Directory / LDAP sign-in
  • Two-factor authentication for admins
  • Full audit log
  • Customizable email templates
  • Activation dashboard and reporting
  • Multi-database support (SQLite, MySQL, SQL Server, PostgreSQL)
  • Runs as a Windows Service or Linux systemd unit
  • Encrypted key storage

Licensing Models β€” Perpetual, Expiring & Trial
Issue keys that fit however you sell. A perpetual key never expires on its own β€” it stays valid until you deactivate or revoke it. An expiring key carries a validity period set at issue time (a default per product, or a custom date per key); once it lapses, the key stops passing activation checks. A trial key runs on a duration measured in minutes rather than days, starting from the moment it's first activated, so you can offer short evaluation windows without maintaining a separate trial system.

Volume & Multi-Seat Licensing
A single key doesn't have to mean a single machine. Set a maximum activation count on a key β€” say, 10 β€” and up to that many devices can hold an active seat concurrently. When a seat is deactivated, either by your software calling the deactivate endpoint or by an admin releasing it from the console, that slot frees up immediately for another device. Re-activating the same device is idempotent, so it never consumes an extra seat by mistake.

Activation API
Your software talks to License Web through a small set of endpoints: activate, deactivate, and check trial status. Responses come back as simple plain text your existing integration already expects (Activated, deactivated), with an optional structured JSON payload alongside it for anything that wants expiry dates and trial flags directly. The contract is wire-compatible with installs already in the field, so upgrading the server doesn't require touching client code, and the same endpoints are also reachable through clean /api/v1/license/... aliases if you're integrating fresh.

Key Lifecycle & History
Every key has a clear, current status: Created when it's issued, Activated on its first successful activation, Deactivated when its last active seat is released, and Expired once it lapses or is force-revoked. Only an Expired key blocks further activation β€” a Deactivated key can always come back to life on a new device. Click into any key and its detail page shows a full status-history timeline alongside every activation it has ever had, so support questions like "when did this stop working" have a straight answer.

Key Generation β€” Auto & Manual
Generate keys automatically from a configurable rule β€” length, character set, casing, grouping, prefix and suffix, and whether to exclude ambiguous characters β€” with a live preview as you adjust it. Set one rule for your whole catalog, or let individual products override it with their own format. When you'd rather supply the keys yourself, switch to manual entry, paste them one per line, and License Web validates the count, rejects blanks and duplicates, and checks for collisions with keys already in the system.

Customer & Key Metadata
Bind a customer's name, email, and mobile number directly to the key they hold, so a support agent can find the right license without digging through order history elsewhere. Free-form notes and metadata fields carry anything else you need attached to a key β€” a plan tier, an order reference, an internal comment β€” without requiring a schema change.

Admin REST API
Beyond the activation contract, a separate token-authenticated API lets your own tools manage Products, License Keys, and Activations directly β€” list, create, revoke, or query status in bulk. Each tenant gets its own API key/secret pair, individual resources can be switched off entirely (a disabled resource simply 404s), and whether raw key values are exposed through the API is a toggle you control.

Roles & Permissions
Access isn't fixed to a handful of hardcoded roles. Build as many roles as your team structure needs, and scope each one to exactly the actions it should be able to take β€” issue keys but not manage users, view activations but not touch settings, or full administrative control. The navigation itself adapts to what a signed-in user can actually do, so nobody sees a screen they can't use.

Active Directory / LDAP Integration
Let your team sign in with the credentials they already have. License Web authenticates against your Active Directory first and falls back to a local account if AD isn't reachable or the user isn't found there, and role membership is synced automatically from AD group names β€” add someone to the right group, and their permissions in License Web follow.

Two-Factor Authentication
Admin accounts can require a second factor at login using standard TOTP authenticator apps, with one-time recovery codes issued in case a device is lost. Two-factor can be left optional, enabled per user, or enforced tenant-wide as policy; accounts signing in through Active Directory are exempt, since AD already governs their credential security.

Audit Log
Every meaningful admin action β€” key created, key revoked, user added, settings changed, and more β€” is written to a searchable audit trail, viewable from its own screen and surfaced as a live feed on the dashboard. When something changes unexpectedly, there's always a record of who did it and when.

Email Notifications & Templates
Key delivery and activation confirmations go out automatically over your configured SMTP server, using editable templates with simple placeholder tokens for things like the customer's name, the product, and the key itself. Test-send a template from the console before it goes live, and adjust the wording any time without touching code.

Dashboard & Reporting
Land on a dashboard that actually tells you something: a 14-day activation trend, keys expiring soon, the most recent activations, and the latest audit events, all in one view. It's built to answer "what's happening with my licenses right now" without clicking through five screens first.

Multi-Database Support
Run on whichever database you already operate: SQLite (with optional at-rest encryption), MySQL, SQL Server, or PostgreSQL. Schema updates ship as proper migrations for all four providers, so moving to a new version behaves the same regardless of which database backs your install β€” no provider left patched together with hand-written scripts.

Deployment & Hosting
License Web is self-hosted and installs as a genuine Windows Service or Linux systemd unit, restarting automatically if it goes down and logging to the platform's own service tools as well as its own rolling log files. It sits comfortably behind IIS, Nginx, or any reverse proxy, with listening addresses, ports, and TLS certificates configured right from the admin console. A /health endpoint gives load balancers and uptime monitors something to check.

Security
License keys are encrypted at rest rather than stored as plain text, and lookups happen by hash rather than by exposing the raw value. Admin passwords are hashed with PBKDF2, repeated failed logins lock an account out temporarily, and changing a password or role immediately revokes any sessions that account already has open β€” so a compromised session doesn't outlive the fix.

Windows Installer
Download Windows installer and just install it by a click. You can install in any Server or Desktop OS from Windows XP till Windows Server 2024.

Access in localhost
Once installed you can run License Web in http://localhost:7070 which you can set behind a reverse proxy or add public endpoints directly from the Admin >> Settings menu.

Activate License
At the end of setup screen you will be asked to activate your product. Use the Product Key received in your email along with your email id used to purchase and that's it. You can always deactivate your license and use the Key in another instance or so. You can manage your activation at Admin >> Activation menu.

What is License Web and the purpose of it?
License Web is mainly made for Product owners or resellers who want to have a centralized product activation portal for their products. License Web can be used with all type of products like Desktop software, online portals, games, appliances or even with websites that are intended to build for online activation. It can also handle trial or renewal based products.

Do you have a Free Trial or Live Demo to explore the features?
Yes, we offer 14 days trial. You can also look at our full featured Live Demo and explore all possibilities.
Live Demo >>

What is the server and OS requirement to run License Web?
You can run it from Windows XP to Windows Server. It is self-hosted web server hence you don’t need any specific server components to run License Web. A minimal hardware is fine.

How many instances/servers I can install License Web?
One license is for one instance. If you need more instances you need more licenses.Β 

How to activate the product?
When you purchase or order a trial you will receive your product key by email. You just need that key and the email id you used to purchase License Web. You can simply activate the License Web product key from Admin/License page.

Can I deactivate and use the same license in another system/server?
Yes, you have option to deactivate at Admin >> Activation page where you first need to deactivate the license. And then you can use the same product key in another system/server as you wish.

What are the databases that License Web supports?
You can use the built in local DB (SQLite) to simply get started. If you are specific and particular with a database preference then these are choices you can integrate with. All are very simple to setup where you just need to provide proper connection info during the setup.
MySQL, MS SQL and Postgres SQL are the databases we support other than the SQLite embed DB.

Does License Web offer roles and restrictions for management users?
Yes, you can restrict access to each actions and menus for both license admin and support users. The super admin always have access to everything.

Do License Web Email Templates are customizable?
Yes, all email templates are customizable from AD Web Admin interface. You also have short code options to bind dynamic values to send with emails. (For example, customer name or product key)

What is Active Directory Integration?
License Web has native integration with MS Active Directory that will ease up your user management. You can just provide your Active Directory connection info and map the AD groups to the License Web roles.

License Web β€” Release Notes

Key issuance and activation management for software vendors.


Version 2.1 β€” July 30, 2026

Product self-activation

License Web now protects itself the same way it protects your products. Every installation activates against a licensing server using a machine-specific fingerprint, so a copied install won't silently keep running on a second machine.

  • New Activation screen showing activation status and machine ID
  • Deactivate an install to free its seat and move to new hardware
  • Vendor-configurable: can be switched off entirely for internal or unlocked builds

Version 2.0 β€” May 4, 2026

A simpler, clearer key lifecycle

This release reworks how license keys move through their lifecycle, based on feedback that the previous status model was hard to reason about.

  • "Create Key" replaces "Issue Keys" throughout the console
  • Keys now move through four clear statuses: Created β†’ Activated β†’ Deactivated β†’ Expired
  • Every key gets a detail page with a full status-history timeline and its activation list
  • Deactivated keys can be re-activated; only an Expired key blocks activation
  • Added Customer Name and Customer Mobile fields on keys, alongside customer email
  • Choose automatic key generation or paste your own keys manually, with duplicate and collision checks
  • One global key-generation rule, with optional per-product overrides for format, length, casing, and separators
  • Retired the old key-batches screen in favor of the simpler global/per-product rule model

Version 1.6 β€” January 12, 2026

Production packaging

  • Official support for running License Web as a Windows Service or Linux systemd unit, with install and upgrade guides
  • Daily rolling log files and a /health endpoint for load balancers and uptime monitors
  • Break-glass recovery for a locked-out admin account when email isn't configured
  • Database password can now be supplied via environment variable, independent of the local encryption key ring

Version 1.5 β€” October 18, 2025

Deployment flexibility

  • Configure listening addresses, ports, and HTTPS certificates directly from the admin console
  • Schema migrations now generated for all four supported databases, so updates apply consistently whichever one you use
  • Patched an underlying SQLite dependency to close a known security advisory

Version 1.4 β€” August 5, 2025

A dashboard worth checking

  • Redesigned dashboard: 14-day activation trend, expiring-soon keys, recent activations, and a live audit feed
  • License keys are now encrypted at rest
  • Bulk key issuance via key pools, with configurable generation rules (length, character set, prefix/suffix, grouping)

Version 1.3 β€” May 22, 2025

Communication and accountability

  • Full audit log of admin actions, with a searchable viewer
  • Email delivery for key issuance and activation confirmations
  • Editable email templates with placeholder tokens
  • Self-service password reset and email-based invitations for new admin users

Version 1.2 β€” March 10, 2025

Built for integration

  • New admin/integration REST API for managing Products, License Keys, and Activations programmatically
  • API key and secret authentication, with the ability to disable individual API resources
  • Clean /api/v1/license/... endpoint aliases alongside the original activation paths, for easier integration

Version 1.1 β€” January 15, 2025

Enterprise sign-in

  • Active Directory / LDAP sign-in for admin accounts, with roles synced from AD groups
  • Two-factor authentication (TOTP) for admin accounts, including recovery codes
  • Password and role changes now immediately revoke any active sessions

Version 1.0 β€” November 4, 2024

Initial release

The first release of License Web: a key issuance and activation-management system for software vendors.

  • Issue perpetual, expiring, and trial license keys
  • Volume licensing β€” one key activated across multiple devices, with concurrent-seat enforcement
  • Activation API for your software to activate, deactivate, and check license status
  • Admin console with guided first-run setup
  • Support for SQLite, MySQL, SQL Server, and PostgreSQL
  • User, role, and permission management with secure password storage and account lockout