Why Your Product Needs a License System
If you sell Minecraft plugins, Discord bots, FiveM scripts, or any downloadable software, you will eventually find your work on a leak forum. A license system does not stop every leak, but it makes a leaked copy useless without a valid key, tells you who leaked it, and lets you revoke access in seconds.
The flow is the same everywhere. You issue a key when someone buys, your product sends that key to a license server on startup, and the server answers whether it is valid, expired, locked to another machine, or revoked.
The real choice is where that server lives. You can run it yourself with a one-time purchase from BuiltByBit, or pay a hosted service every month to run it for you.
What to Look For
- Tamper resistance: A cracker can point your product at a fake server that always says "valid". Signed responses stop that.
- Device and IP limits: Cap how many machines or IPs can use one key at the same time.
- Marketplace automation: If you sell on BuiltByBit, keys should be created automatically for every buyer.
- Customer self-service: Buyers should be able to see their keys, reset IPs, and download builds without opening a ticket.
- Discord integration: Most plugin and bot customers live in Discord, so claiming keys and syncing roles there saves a lot of support time.
- Cost at scale: A one-time fee stays the same at 10 customers or 10,000. Hosted plans usually do not.
Self-Hosted License Managers on BuiltByBit
1. Kora by Zero Development
Kora is a self-hosted licensing backend built from extensions. The core extension handles licenses, products, users, addons, whitelists, validation, and logs. Everything else is an optional extension you switch on when you need it, and adding one brings its own config, API routes, console commands, and dashboard pages without changing anything else.
Its standout feature is signed validation. Every response, valid or not, is signed with Ed25519, and your product checks the signature with Kora's public key. Each request also carries a random nonce that Kora echoes back inside the signed body, so a fake license server or a proxy that rewrites "valid": false to true is caught, and a recorded response cannot be replayed later.
The official extensions:
- Sessions: Limit how many devices run one key at the same time, with heartbeats and seat limits.
- Rules: Allow or deny access by product version, time window, IP range, or a required variable.
- Variables: Store custom data on licenses and products and return it on validation.
- Downloads: Hand out secure one-time download links backed by your GitHub releases.
- Webhooks: Send licensing events to your own endpoints or a Discord channel.
- Gate: Put your private API behind Kora so only requests with a valid key reach it.
- Discord: Staff and member slash commands, role sync from licenses, and an event feed.
- BuiltByBit: Issue and link licenses automatically from BuiltByBit purchases.
Kora runs on Node.js 22 or Bun with PostgreSQL, MySQL, or MariaDB and updates itself automatically. The admin dashboard is an $8.99 add-on with Discord, Google, GitHub, or email sign-in, and a separate $3.99 client dashboard gives customers their own portal to view licenses, download builds, and redeem keys. The API reference includes a live playground and code samples for integrating validation into your product.
- Price: $19.99 one-time, dashboard $8.99, client dashboard $3.99
- Best for: Developers who want tamper-proof validation and only the features they actually use
2. SunLicense by KASUN
SunLicense has been on BuiltByBit since early 2025 and holds 4.89 stars from 18 reviews. It ships a lot in the base price.
- Dashboard and portal: A web dashboard with graphs and statistics, plus a customer dashboard with Discord sign-in.
- Restrictions: IP and HWID locks, IP and HWID blacklists, and temporary licenses with expiry notifications.
- Automation: Creates licenses automatically from BuiltByBit downloads or when a member gets a Discord role, and grants a product role when a license is claimed.
- Discord bot: DM commands, custom embeds, and real-time notifications.
- Safety: A disaster (panic) mode, manual and automated backups, and health checks.
- Integrations: A REST API, a Java API wrapper, and guides for Minecraft plugins and mods, Discord bots, FiveM, Java, PHP, Python, JavaScript, and Lua projects.
It runs on ARM and x86, ships a Pterodactyl egg, and offers managed hosting if you do not want to run it yourself.
- Price: $14.99 one-time
- Best for: Sellers who want an all-in-one package with a dashboard and HWID locks out of the box
3. Phantom by Buzz
Phantom comes from Buzz, the developer behind the Luna Pterodactyl theme and Buzz Shop. It has 4.67 stars from 9 reviews and focuses on catching leaks early.
- Live logs: Watch validation requests as they happen.
- Early-warning anti-leak: Flags suspicious key usage before a leak spreads.
- IP limits: Cap how many IPs can use each license.
- Settings panel: Manage the system from a web panel.
Reviewers say setup takes some effort at first but it works well once running. Some note that IPs are added to a key automatically when the product is used, so local testing can use up allowed slots.
- Price: $19.99 one-time
- Best for: Creators whose main worry is leaks and who want early warnings
Hosted Licensing Services
Hosted services run the license server for you. You get uptime and scaling without managing a server, but you pay every month and your customer data lives on someone else's infrastructure.
Keygen
Keygen is the most complete licensing API for traditional software. It supports perpetual, timed, node-locked, floating, and metered licenses, device activation, entitlements, offline licensing, and release distribution.
The cloud Dev tier is free for up to 100 active licensed users, and paid tiers scale with volume. Keygen is also the only hosted service here with a free edition you can run yourself: Keygen CE is a free, source-available community edition, and Keygen EE is a paid self-hosted enterprise edition.
- Price: Free up to 100 active users, paid tiers by volume
- Best for: Desktop and commercial software that needs floating or offline licenses
KeyAuth
KeyAuth is the budget hosted option, popular with small sellers. It includes several auth methods, hash checks, client two-factor authentication, a customer panel, and Discord and Telegram bots on its top tier.
- Price: Free for 10 users, $2.99 a month for 10,000, $4.99 a month for unlimited
- Best for: Small sellers who want hosted licensing for a few dollars a month
LicenseSpring
LicenseSpring targets commercial and enterprise software vendors. It covers node-locked, subscription, floating, usage-based, and feature-based licensing, with SDKs for C++, .NET, Java, Python, Go, Node.js, Swift, Android, and Unity.
- Price: Free for 1 product, then $199 a month and up
- Best for: Companies selling desktop or enterprise software at scale
Cryptolens
Cryptolens, now also branded as Devolens, is a long-running licensing platform with unlimited products and end users, EU data residency, and an offline license server add-on.
- Price: From €299 a month
- Best for: Established companies that want EU hosting and professional onboarding
Quick Comparison
- Kora: $19.99 one-time, self-hosted, Ed25519 signed responses, extension system, Discord and BuiltByBit extensions
- SunLicense: $14.99 one-time, self-hosted, dashboard and customer portal included, HWID locks, 4.89 stars from 18 reviews
- Phantom: $19.99 one-time, self-hosted, live logs and anti-leak alerts, 4.67 stars from 9 reviews
- Keygen: Free up to 100 users, hosted or self-hosted, floating and offline licenses
- KeyAuth: From $2.99 a month, hosted only
- LicenseSpring: From $199 a month, hosted, enterprise SDKs
- Cryptolens: From €299 a month, hosted, EU data residency
BuiltByBit prices and reviews are as of September 2026. Hosted prices come from each provider's pricing page and may change.
Which One Should You Pick?
If you sell desktop software to businesses and need floating seats or air-gapped installs, Keygen or LicenseSpring are built for that. If you want hosted licensing for the price of a coffee, KeyAuth is hard to beat.
For plugin, bot, and script creators selling on BuiltByBit, a self-hosted manager usually makes more sense. You pay once, your keys and customers stay on your own server, and the Discord and BuiltByBit automation fits how your buyers already shop. SunLicense packs the most into its base price, and Phantom is built around leak alerts.
If you care most about validation that cannot be faked, Kora is built for that. Signed responses with nonces stop the fake-server crack that defeats most license checks. The extension system lets you start with plain key validation and add sessions, rules, downloads, webhooks, or the API gate as your product grows.