| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| Developer | Solstate, Minecraft plugin developer |
| Licenses managed | More than 1,900 |
| License checks | More than 200,000 |
| Problem solved | Licensing taking time away from development |
Every plugin developer who sells their work ends up with a second job they never asked for: licensing. Someone has to issue keys, answer "my key doesn't work" messages, and keep an eye out for keys being shared. Solstate handed that job to MC License, and now manages more than 1,900 licenses without it getting in the way of the actual work.
The job nobody signs up for
"I use MCLicense to manage licenses for my Minecraft plugins, and it's made that part of my work much easier."
Licensing is easy to get going and hard to keep running. A handful of keys in a spreadsheet works fine. A few hundred buyers later, you're spending evenings finding orders, sending keys and working out which server a key is actually on. None of that makes your plugins any better.
That's the trade Solstate was looking to get out of.
What 1,900 licenses and 200,000 checks look like
Those numbers are worth unpacking.
1,900 licenses means 1,900 buyers, each with their own key. Every one of them is a key that had to be created, delivered and tied to the right person. Doing that by hand, even at a minute per sale, adds up to more than 30 hours of copying and pasting.
200,000 license checks is how many times a server running one of Solstate's plugins has asked MC License "is this key valid?". Those checks come in at any hour, from servers in every timezone. Each answer is cryptographically signed, so it can't be faked or replayed. That's 200,000 times Solstate didn't need to be awake, online or involved.
Simple enough to forget about
"It's straightforward to use and lets me spend more time developing and improving my plugins."
That's the point of a licensing system. You shouldn't have to think about it much after setting it up. With MC License, that means:
- One check in your plugin. You add the library and a single call to
onEnable(), and it takes care of reading the key, verifying the signed response and tracking how many servers it's on (step-by-step tutorial). - Keys that deliver themselves. Connect your BuiltByBit, Voxel Shop or Tebex store and every purchase gets a key automatically, using the defaults you set for that plugin (how automatic delivery works).
- Sharing handled for you. Each license has a server limit, so a key passed round to friends stops working on its own (how server limits stop key sharing).
- One dashboard for everything. Every license, every active server and every failed check is in one place, so when a buyer does get in touch, the answer takes seconds to find.
At 1,900 licenses, that last one matters. You can't remember every buyer, so you need a dashboard that can.
Part of the workflow
"With over 1,900 licenses and 200,000 license checks, MCLicense has become a key part of my workflow."
When a licensing system is part of your workflow, it has to be there every time a server starts. If it's slow or down, your buyers notice before you do. Keeping every check fast and reliable is our job, so developers like Solstate can spend their time somewhere else.
Advice for other developers
"I'd recommend it to other developers looking for a simple way to manage their licensing."
If licensing has started to feel like a second job, or you're about to start selling and want to skip that stage completely, you can set up the same thing Solstate uses in a few minutes:
- Create a free MC License account and add your plugin.
- Connect your store on BuiltByBit, Voxel Shop or Tebex.
- Add one line to your plugin's
onEnable()(step-by-step tutorial).
From then on, licenses look after themselves, and you can get back to building plugins. If you have ideas that would make it even easier, tell us in Discord.