Cryptographic App Licensing for macOS
Unforgeable licenses. Device seat limiting. Zero tracking.
Features
Tessera gives you cryptographically secure licensing without the overhead of servers, subscriptions, or user tracking.
Unforgeable license keys backed by state-of-the-art elliptic curve cryptography. Impossible to crack, trivial to verify.
Runs on free-tier services you control: GitHub Actions, GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Workers. No paid servers, no vendor lock-in.
Tamper-resistant trial periods that resist clock manipulation. Anchored to hardware identity so resets are impossible.
Zero PII collected. No telemetry, no analytics. Device activation calls your own server — no third-party data collection.
Single codebase supports both Mac App Store and direct distribution. One integration, two channels.
Invalidate any license from anywhere by updating a static JSON file. No server calls, instant effect.
How It Works
From key generation to license management, Tessera keeps it simple.
Create signed licenses with the CLI or GitHub Action. Ed25519 key pairs ensure only you can issue valid licenses.
Users enter their license key. Verification happens entirely offline via Ed25519 signature validation.
Monitor, revoke, and renew licenses from the dashboard. Update a static JSON to revoke instantly.
Integration
Add Tessera to your Swift project and gate your content with a single view modifier. That's the entire integration.
import Tessera let tessera = Tessera(configuration: .init( publicKeyBase64: "your-key-here", revocationURL: URL(string: "https://yourdomain.com/revoked.json")!, appIdentifier: "com.example.app", appDisplayName: "My App" )) // That's it. One line in SwiftUI: ContentView() .tesseraGate(tessera)
Why Tessera
See how Tessera stacks up against other licensing solutions for macOS developers.
| Feature | Tessera | Paddle | KeyGen | DIY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure | Free tier (yours) | SaaS | SaaS | You |
| Privacy | Zero tracking | Analytics | Analytics | Varies |
| Cost | Free | % revenue | Monthly | Dev time |
| Offline Support | Full | Limited | Limited | Varies |
| Open Source | Yes | No | No | — |
Pricing
Start for free. Scale when you're ready.
Forever. MIT License.