What is a floating license? Well, a floating license, or concurrent license, is where multiple users can access a software product using the same software license key. This is quite common when selling B2B where a company can buy a license allowing for multiple seats.
This blog will answer some common questions when it comes to floating licenses. We have also made the following video covering this topic:
What is a floating license?
Firstly, what is the difference between a standard license and a floating license? A standalone license can only be activated by a single user on one device. So if a large company wants to buy a software product, they have to buy individual licenses for each employee. With floating licenses, the same license key can be used by a network of users and devices. One advantage of that is that it can help to keep the cost down.
Since this licensing model only counts the number of concurrent users, the company can install the software product on more devices than what is allowed by the concurrent user limit, but the license cannot be used by all devices at the same time.
Great, so how does a floating license work? Well, a floating license has a limit to how many machines or seats can use the same license key simultaneously. When a user tries to access the software product with a floating license key, the software licensing system sends a request to a license server, which checks if the concurrent device limit has been reached. Access will only be granted if the limit has indeed not been reached.
You might also have heard of another term called “node-locked licenses”, so what is the difference between a locked and floating license? With node-locked licenses, the software license system will count how many machines have activated that license key. It will grant the user access to the product as long as the limit has not been reached. Once the device limit has been reached, you have to manually deactivate a machine in the software license system to allow another one to be added.
Implementing floating or node-locked licenses
If you want to implement floating or node-locked licenses for your software business, you can check out Cryptolens. We make it effortless to implement any licensing model in the programming language you love. It is even possible to set up floating licenses in an offline setting, and you can find that tutorial here.
Thank you for reading, Stay Smart!