Keygate vs Keygen: an open source alternative
Two license servers you can run yourself. Keygen is the more established API; Keygate includes payments and a customer portal.
Keygen is a mature licensing and distribution API with a hosted cloud and a free self hosted Community Edition. Keygate covers the same ground for licensing and updates, and adds Stripe checkout and a customer portal, so selling and support need no extra code. Both are free to self host; the difference is in what comes included.
Feature comparison
| Feature | Keygate | Keygen |
|---|---|---|
| Source code | ✓Open source (AGPL) | ~Source available, Fair Core License |
| Self hosting | ✓ | ✓Free CE, paid EE |
| Free self hosted edition | ✓Every feature included | ✓CE leaves out event logs and SSO |
| Floating licenses | ✓ | ✓ |
| Offline verification | ✓Ed25519 signed tokens | ✓Signed keys and license files |
| Usage metering | ✓ | ✓ |
| Built in payments | ✓Stripe checkout and renewals | ✕Stripe example you wire up |
| Customer portal | ✓ | ✕Portal is admin only for now |
| Update distribution | ✓Sparkle, Velopack, Tauri feeds | ✓Electron, Tauri, npm, PyPI and more |
| Official client SDKs | ✕REST API, with code for Electron, Tauri, .NET, Python, Swift | ~Official Go SDK |
| Webhooks | ✓ | ✓ |
| Audit logs | ✓ | ✓Ent cloud tiers and EE |
Checked October 2026 against Keygen's public documentation and pricing. Plans and prices change, so check Keygen's site for current details. Spot a mistake? Open an issue.
What sets Keygate apart
Free to self host, with every feature
Keygate is open source. The version you run yourself has every feature, with no paid edition and no limits on products, licenses or activations.
Payments without glue code
Connect Stripe and checkouts create licenses, renewals extend them, and failed payments, cancellations and refunds update them. There is no webhook handler for you to write.
Licensing and updates in one place
Store signed releases in S3 compatible storage and serve update feeds for Sparkle, Velopack and Tauri, limited to customers whose license covers the update.
When Keygen is the better choice
- You want a managed cloud with an uptime SLA and compliance reports such as SOC 2.
- You distribute through package registries such as npm, PyPI or Docker, which Keygen's distribution API serves directly.
- You need SAML single sign on for your team, or signing schemes beyond Ed25519, such as RSA and ECDSA.
Pricing
Keygen Cloud is priced by active licensed users. A free Dev tier covers 100 of them; paid tiers start at $99 per month for 1,000.
Keygate is free to self host. You pay for the server it runs on, with no fees per license, activation or user.
Moving from Keygen
Most of what you set up in Keygen has a direct counterpart in Keygate:
| In Keygen | In Keygate |
|---|---|
| Product | Product |
| Policy | Plan |
| License | License |
| Machine | Activation, one per device |
| Entitlements | Features on the plan |
| License uses and maxUses | Usage limits per feature |
| Users | Customer email, plus team seats |
| Floating policy | Floating plan on your Keygate server |
| License files and machine files | Signed token after one online activation. No activation by file |
| Releases and artifacts | Releases with Sparkle, Velopack and Tauri feeds |
| validate-key action | activate and verify, then the signed token checked locally |
Getting your data out
Keygen has no CSV export. List licenses and users through its API with an admin token: GET /v1/accounts/<account>/licenses and /users, up to 100 at a time.
Turn the export into a CSV with each customer's email, plan, end date and ID, then import it with the script in the migration guide. Customers receive new Keygate keys, so keep Keygen running until most of them have moved. Read the migration guide →
Frequently asked questions
- How is Keygate different from Keygen CE?
- Both are free to self host. Keygen CE is source available under the Fair Core License and leaves some features, such as event logs, to the paid Enterprise Edition. Keygate is open source with every feature in the version you run, and includes Stripe checkout and a customer portal, which Keygen does not.
- Can I move from Keygen to Keygate?
- Yes. Export your licenses from Keygen and import them through the Keygate admin API; the migration guide includes a script for it. Customers receive new Keygate keys, and your app asks for the new key on first start.
- Is Keygate free for commercial use?
- Yes. You can sell software licensed through Keygate without paying for Keygate. The free license asks you to keep the Powered by Keygate notice and to publish changes you make to Keygate itself if others use them; a commercial license lifts both.
Related guides
Try Keygate
A Go server and a PostgreSQL database. The quick start goes from nothing to an activated key on your own machine.
Other Keygen alternatives
- Cryptlex
A managed licensing platform with native SDKs for about a dozen languages, priced by active activations. Self hosting is an Enterprise option. Compare with Keygate →
- LicenseSpring
A managed licensing service with native SDKs, Stripe and FastSpring built in and a free plan for one product. Self hosting is an Enterprise option. Compare with Keygate →