Most license key tools are either roll-your-own scripts (fragile, no offline story) or enterprise DRM (overkill for a solo dev). SublimeKeys sits in between: one tiny API to generate, activate, and verify keys — device-locked, revocable, with offline verification lasting 7 days without a network call. Ships with Python and Node/Electron SDKs, a free tier, and a dashboard live in 12 languages. Already the license server behind ReelNox Studio and BackDrop_.

Hey, Patrick here 👋 I built SublimeKeys because I needed it myself. When I shipped ReelNox Studio (a video compressor) and BackDrop_ (a live wallpaper app), I needed real license keys — device-locked, revocable, verifiable offline — and every option I found was either a fragile script I'd have to babysit forever, or enterprise DRM built for a completely different scale of company. So I built the licensing infrastructure I actually wanted: a tiny REST API — one endpoint to register a product, one to issue a key, one to verify it — with offline verification so a customer's app still works if they're on a plane or behind a flaky connection. Along the way it kept growing: official SDKs for Python and Node/Electron so nobody has to hand-roll the client side, a free tier so you can try it on a real product before paying anything, and — since half my own users aren't English speakers — the whole dashboard, docs, and even the transactional emails are live in 12 languages with automatic locale detection. Would love feedback, especially from anyone else selling desktop software who's wrestled with the "how do I actually license this thing" problem themselves.

Generated and activated a test key in under two minutes, and the offline window genuinely works without a phone-home call. The dashboard is clean enough that I stopped dreading key lookups.

SublimeKeys

Sell your desktop app. We handle the license keys.

Sell your desktop app. We handle the license keys.