Moonbase Licensing

License activation for JUCE 8 plugins and apps, with a polished activation UI built in. Add the module, fill in three fields and show one component. Your customers get online and offline activation, trials, license management and in-app updates, all backed by Moonbase.

The repository contains two things: moonbase_licensing, a drop-in JUCE module, and the header-only C++17 SDK it is built on, which you can also use on its own in any C++ application.

The JUCE module

Every screen, already built

• Welcome, browser activation in progress, success, offline activation, free trial, trial expired, license details, update available and error screens.
• License details show who the license belongs to, the plan, how it was activated, when it expires and how many seats are in use, with a Deactivate this device button that frees the seat on the server.
• Transitions, the spinner and the success animation run on JUCE 8's juce::Animator. A reduceMotion flag turns them off.
• Customers can drag and drop an offline license file straight onto the panel.
• Embed ActivationComponent as a modal over your editor, or open ActivationDialog as a standalone window.

Themed to your product

• Product and manufacturer names default to JucePlugin_Name and JucePlugin_Manufacturer.
• Set an accent colour and a logo Drawable, or go further: config.palette exposes every colour in the UI as its own token, and config.fonts takes your typefaces for headings, body text and monospace.
• Override the copy, list which features the trial includes, and remove the Moonbase badge if you prefer.

Built for plugin hosts

• A headless ActivationController owns the logic. Network calls run on a background thread pool, state changes arrive on the message thread, and a slow response can never overwrite a newer state.
• Create it in your editor constructor and destroy it whenever you like. Teardown cancels in-flight requests, so plugin scanning, pluginval and rapid open/close are safe.
• Let the processor own the controller and share it with the editor. Gate audio on the lock-free licensedFlag(), or use LicenseGate to fade to silence and back without clicks.
• Loading a session with dozens of instances does not mean dozens of server calls: online re-validation is deduplicated across instances and processes that share the license file.
• Gate features on the full license (trial status, expiry, owned sub-products, custom properties), and call refreshLicense() to pick up a mid-session purchase without a restart.

Online and offline activation

• Online: one click opens the browser, the customer confirms, and the plugin picks up the license on its own.
• Offline: the plugin saves a machine file, the customer exchanges it for a license file on your Moonbase activation page or your own website, then drops that file back in. The device never needs a network connection.
• Online re-checks are throttled (no more than once every 5 minutes by default), and a license keeps working offline for a configurable grace period (7 days by default).

In-app updates

When a customer's license covers a newer release than the one installed, an Update available screen shows your release notes and downloads the right installer for their platform, with progress. It follows your download rules (a trial can't fetch an owners-only release and is offered an unlock button instead), and "Skip this update" is remembered until the next version ships. One flag turns it off.

No third-party dependencies

HTTP goes through juce::WebInputStream, JSON uses a bundled nlohmann/json, and signatures are verified with the operating system's own crypto: Security.framework on macOS and iOS, CNG on Windows and libcrypto on Linux. There is nothing to install with brew, vcpkg or apt.

Ready for the field

• End users see friendly messages, and you get the underlying reason through an onDiagnostic callback.
• Opt-in telemetry attaches the OS, CPU, JUCE version, DAW host and plugin format to activation and validation requests, plus any keys you add yourself.
• The license is saved to a per-user file automatically.

Device identity

Every license is bound to one machine through an open, versioned device fingerprint spec computed from stable hardware identifiers. It spawns no subprocesses, needs no admin rights, works inside a sandboxed plugin host, and gives the same id with or without elevated privileges.

Because the spec is shared across Moonbase SDKs, a license activated in an Electron or web app built on @moonbase.sh/licensing (3.0 or later) validates in your plugin, and the other way round. iOS and Android use a platform-scoped identity. describeDevice() returns diagnostics you can safely attach to a support ticket, without exposing any hardware serial numbers.

What validation guarantees

• Only Moonbase can issue a license. Tokens are RS256-signed JWTs checked against the public key embedded in your binary.
• A license is bound to your product and to the machine it was activated on. The device binding is recomputed from the hardware on every check, never read from a file.
• Time offline is capped by the grace period, and the defaults fail closed: LicenseGate stays silent until a license is confirmed.

The README includes practical guidance on hardening a plugin on top of these guarantees.

The core C++ SDK

Not on JUCE? The same licensing engine is a header-only C++17 library for Windows, macOS and Linux. Pull it in with find_package or FetchContent; it uses libcurl and OpenSSL.

• Browser activation with polling, plus offline activation through the browser or a machine-file exchange.
• Local validation of signature, product, issuer, device and expiry.
• Online re-validation with a throttle and a bounded grace period. Temporary network failures fall back to the local result, while a revoked or expired license is reported immediately.
• Seat revocation for a "Deactivate" or "Sign out" button.
• Pluggable license storage, device identity and HTTP transport.
• Typed errors, so your UI can tell an expired license from a device mismatch.

Also in the repository

• An OnlineUnlockStatus bridge for projects already built on juce::OnlineUnlockStatus, including JUCE 7. It is a single header you copy in and pair with your own UI.
• A runnable sample app that talks to Moonbase's public demo tenant.
• Two open-source reference implementations: DRIFT, a VST3/AU/Standalone plugin using the module, and HALO, a standalone app using the bridge. Both include CI release pipelines.
• Behavioral and visual-snapshot test suites, sanitizer builds and a cross-platform fingerprint parity check in CI.

Quick start

In Projucer, choose Modules > Add a module from a specified folder and select modules/moonbase_licensing.

Requirements

• Module: JUCE 8.0.4 or later and C++17, on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android
• Bridge: JUCE 7 or later
• A Moonbase account, for your endpoint, product id and public key

License

MIT