If you want to implement a license key system for PHP applications, you have several options to choose between. A short-term and quite simple way is to code a license key generator and generate a subset of license keys. However, for more serious and in-production use cases, we would recommend having a software license solution that is much more long-term and robust. In this blog, we will briefly cover these two alternatives to help you license and protect your PHP code.
License Key Generator for PHP Applications
A license key generator is a simple and lightweight licensing system that checks the validity of a subset of license keys using partial key verification. While this option is a pretty fast and easy way to implement software licensing for PHP apps, it is not recommended for long-term and more serious use cases. The reasons are that the system is quite easy to bypass, and the structure you use to generate license keys will begin to leak over time. If you want to learn more about this approach, please read this blog post.
Outsourced License Key System for PHP Applications
Instead of having to code a more robust license manager that performs full key verification, the best way to implement software licensing for your PHP application is to work with a Licensing as a Service (LaaS) provider such as Cryptolens. You will then get access to all of our advanced licensing features from day 1, such as offline licensing and more advanced licensing models. Coding and maintaining your own licensing system will take a lot of time, so why not outsource licensing to experts?
Getting started with our license key system for PHP applications is effortless! We have an SDK available on GitHub, and you can sign up to our platform for free. Then, you just need to paste a short code snippet into your PHP code. It looks something like this:
<?php
require_once('Cryptolens.php');
$activate = cryptolens_activate(
// Access token
'WyI0NjUiLCJBWTBGTlQwZm9WV0FyVnZzMEV1Mm9LOHJmRDZ1SjF0Vk52WTU0VzB2Il0='
// Product Id
, 3646
// License Key
, 'MPDWY-PQAOW-FKSCH-SGAAU'
// Machine code
, '289jf2afs3'
);
// $activate is now a boolean indicating if the activation attempt was successful or not
?>