Licensing Glossary

Plain-language definitions for common licensing terms

No jargon left unexplained. Every term below links to the AuthGuru page that covers it in full.

Licensing Models

A one-time license, valid indefinitely once issued, with no recurring renewal required.

Recurring, time-bound access renewed on a set commercial cycle.

A limited-time evaluation license, typically with reduced functionality or a fixed duration.

A license shared across a pool of users, where availability depends on how many seats are active at once, not who specifically holds it.

A license valid for a fixed, defined period, independent of a subscription cycle — matched to project or contract length.

A license tied to actual consumption or usage metrics, so cost scales directly with value delivered.

What a specific license or customer is authorized to use, down to the feature or module level.

How a license physically or digitally reaches the customer — software key, hardware dongle, RTC time dongle, or cloud-based.

A license bound to the software itself — no physical hardware, validated locally once activated.

A physical USB security device that ties a license to a machine — no network required to validate.

A hardware dongle with its own onboard, battery-backed clock, so time-bound terms hold up fully offline.

Tying a license to a specific device, preventing unauthorized copying to other machines entirely.

The default standard AuthGuru uses to protect application binaries and sensitive logic from tampering.

License validation and management handled entirely through online infrastructure.

Licensing infrastructure hosted within the customer's own environment, under their control.

Licensing that operates with no network dependency at all, validated entirely locally.

A combination of online and offline validation, depending on context or customer site.

The decision between building a licensing system in-house, buying a packaged platform, or commissioning a custom build.

A fully bespoke license management system, engineered around requirements no packaged platform fits cleanly.

If it's not here, it's probably answered in our FAQ — or just ask us directly.