Keymaster and Keygen solve the same problem from opposite directions: one is source-available software you can own outright for $49, the other is a subscription at from $99/mo run entirely on someone else's servers.
Head to head
| Keymaster | Keygen | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $49 once | from $99/mo ($1,188/yr) — Gumroad: 10% + 50¢/sale |
| Cost at $10k/yr in sales | $49 total | Keygen $1,188/yr · Gumroad ~$1,050/yr |
| Your own signing keypair | Yes — generated on your box | No — managed for you |
| Offline validation | Yes, ed25519 | Yes |
| Seat limits + fingerprints | Yes | Yes |
| Signed expiring downloads | Yes (15-min TTL) | Yes |
| Self-hosted / your data | Yes — SQLite on your VPS | No |
| Source code | MIT, on GitHub | Closed (hosted) |
What Keymaster does well
- Ed25519-signed keys — KM1.
. format — self-describing, verifiable offline with just the public key. The keypair is generated on first boot; you own it. - Seat limits & fingerprints — Activation API with machine fingerprints, idempotent re-activation, deactivate to free a seat, signed activation receipts for offline runs. Stable, versioned /api/v1.
- Offline validation snippets — Zero-dependency Node and browser/WebCrypto verifiers ship in the repo, and the key format is documented byte-for-byte so you can port it to any language.
- Products & versions — Semver releases with artifact upload or external URLs. Customers download via signed URLs that expire in 15 minutes — artifacts are never exposed statically.
What Keygen still does better
If you want managed infrastructure, multi-region uptime and someone else holding the pager, Keygen is a solid product — that's what $99+/month buys. Keymaster is for sellers who'd rather own the keypair, the data and the bill: one Node process and a SQLite file on a $5 VPS.
Which one should you pick
If your workflow depends on Keygen's specific integrations or you'd rather not run anything yourself, stay put — that's a legitimate call. If you're comfortable owning the tool and want to stop paying from $99/mo for a job your own hardware can do, Keymaster pays for itself and then some: against Keygen's $99/mo entry tier, Keymaster pays for itself in 15 days. Against Gumroad's 10% cut, it pays for itself on your first ~$500 of sales.
Try Keymaster — $49, once
Ed25519-signed license keys your apps verify offline, seat limits, signed downloads & webhooks.