Unlock
p/unlock-4
Cloud-based billing, licensing & distribution for devs
Philo Hermans
Unlock — Cloud-based billing, licensing & distribution for devs
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Set yourself free from billing and logistics so you can focus on building software instead of packaging, versioning, and distributing products to your customers.
Replies
Aaron Francis
Congrats on the launch @philo01, stoked to finally see this out there! I've been a beta user of Unlock for a couple of months now and I have to say that it does *everything* that I want, and it does it all well. We (https://hammerstone.dev) sell a Laravel package that makes it easy for developers to build flexible filter systems (https://twitter.com/aarondfranci...). I originally hand-rolled a distribution system for Composer that worked ok, but was a huge pain and lacked a lot of the features that Unlock has by default. Unlock's licensing system is well thought through and robust. It makes it easy for me to add people to special licensing schemes easily (early access, etc), and it syncs to the Composer distribution without any effort on my part. It also handles time-based, or major-release-based expiration, which is perfect for us. Creating a new release is simple too, all you do is tag it on GitHub. That's it. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The best part though is that Unlock can handle payment for you if you want. It's like a hosted Stripe Checkout for selling your code. As a developer, I can focus on writing my software and not have to worry about writing software to sell my software.
Philo Hermans
@aarondfrancis thanks for taking the time to leave this awesome review but also for providing valuable feedback during the beta, it has been of tremendous help. I'm looking forward to seeing the launch of Refine 🚀
Bogomil Shopov - Бого
Whohooo! Finally something easy to use. I'll explore more, but my first question is - can I monetize a wordpress plugin?
Philo Hermans
@bogomep thanks for your comment! Yes, you can monetize a WordPress plugin via Unlock. Users can download the zip file of your plugin or use composer to install and update. Here's a little demo of selling a PHP package (video is from the beta so things might have changed a little bit). I'm working on plug & play library for WordPress plugins and themes so your customers will be able to automatically update plugins and themes. I'm expecting this to be available this month.
Job Rietbergen
I love it! This sounds like a great problem solver!
Philo Hermans
@job_rietbergen thanks Job!
Monica Lent
Congratulations Philo, super excited to watch this grow!
Philo Hermans
@monicalent thanks Monica!
Philo Hermans
Hi Product Hunt, I’m super excited to announce the launch of Unlock, a modern, all-in-one product platform for developers to sell, license, and distribute their software. So why Unlock? I was working on my first Electron application a while ago and couldn’t wait to share it with the world. Maybe I would enable me to make a living selling my own products, how cool would that be! However, it turned out setting up billing, licensing, and distribution was easier said than done. I could not find a convenient plug & play solution to ship my application. So, I decided to build my own. Along the way, I noticed this problem: selling software, dealing with licensing and distribution wasn’t just a pain for Electron applications; it was a pain for many different technologies. With Unlock I want to help developers and companies make a living online while they can keep doing what they love to do, which is writing code and shipping new features. Unlock does this by integrating into the existing stack of developers and customers. Push your code to GitHub, and Unlock takes care of billing, licensing, distribution, changelog management, and more. That’s right; you don’t even have to leave your terminal. Unlock supports NodeJS, Python, PHP, Ruby, and Electron applications. Getting started is extremely easy; you can have your first sale and have it distributed to your customer via a private repository protected with a license key within 5 minutes. Setting this up would typically take you weeks or months.  And that’s not all; Unlock has some really cool features on the roadmap. For example, a marketplace to boost your product sales, so you don’t have to worry about marketing, GitHub sponsor integration, automatic invites to private GitHub repositories, feedback and idea collection from customers, WordPress plugin and theme updater library, and much more. To help you get started selling online, I’m giving away over 5000 dollars in prizes to celebrate the launch, including a MacBook M1. Be sure to check out the contest page for all the details, but in short, to enter, submit your product to our marketplace. This means you can win prizes while at the same time making a living online! And by the way, if you are a developer who has always wanted to make a living online selling software but you just don’t know where to start. Reach out to me on Twitter, and I’ll be happy to help. Thanks for reading along & have a fantastic day. I am looking forward to hearing your feedback. PS. I have two short (2 minutes) demo videos that I published during the development phase, some things have changed a bit but it gives you an impression of the ease of use: - How to sell your software in two minutes - How to license and distribute your Electron application
Philo Hermans
@sadie thanks! 🎉
deepu
good one, congrats on the launch
Philo Hermans
@pradeeb28 thanks deepu
Serhii
Looks really coool! I wish it would be possible to use Stripe for my country too, that's always a bummer, uhh..
Philo Hermans
@ssleptsov thanks Sergei, fingers crossed Stripe will support your country in the future. Payments can be difficult but I'll keep my eyes open for alternatives methods.
Ismail Uddin
Fantastic idea, looks really promising!
Philo Hermans
@ismailud thanks Ismail, appreciate the kind words!
Matt Kingshott
Congratulations @philo01 on launching Unlock! I've been following its development for a while and I genuinely think it is a fantastic product you've put together. I wish you every success with it!
Philo Hermans
@mattkingshott thanks for the kind words Matt and I appreciate the support! 🙌🏻
Don Kooijman
Congratulations on the launch! It’s looks extremely clean and attractive. I’ve been lucky enough to use a beta version of Unlock for a few months now. It has helped me save so much time while launching my own product. I can’t wait to see how this will help others.
Philo Hermans
@donkooijman thanks Don 🙏🏼
Constantin
I wish I had this when I launched https://www.producthunt.com/post... (Electron). I'll definitely give it a try if I launch another thing, hopefully it works better than Gumroad. One thing I don't understand is under Pricing > Licensing, what exactly does "75 active licenses" mean?
Philo Hermans
@brbcoding migrating to Unlock for existing Electron applications is quite easy :) but great to hear you definitely give it a try if you launch another thing. When you sell your product, your customer is assigned a license (key). So this means you can have a total of 75 paying customers. If you sell your product with a license that expires after 1 year, this license is no longer counted towards the limit once expires.
Mert Hurturk
Launching soon!
Now it's time to bring all the private packages I've developed to Unlock I guess :D
Philo Hermans
@mert_hurturk Let's go! :D
Farokh Shahabi
Very cool!
Philo Hermans
@farokh_shahabi thanks Farokh!
Tony Lea
Love the UI of this app man! I still need to go through the docs and integrate a few of my projects. Best of luck with the PH launch 😉
Philo Hermans
@tony_lea4 thanks Tony! 🙌🏻 Feel free to reach out if you have any questions, feedback or suggestions.
Robert Walaski
Upvoted! I like watching your progress. Fingers crossed.
Philo Hermans
@robertwalaski thanks Robert 🤞🏻
Deniz ÖZTÜRK
That's so cool, congratulations @philo01!
Philo Hermans
@denizozturk thanks Deniz! :)
Lars Klopstra ⬙
Wow congratulations! Looks incredibly cool! :)
Philo Hermans
@larsklopstra thanks Lars :)
Amir Ashkenazi
Great idea!
Philo Hermans
@amirashkenazi thanks Amir!
Sinan Yalcinkaya
Congratulations!
Philo Hermans
@sinan_yalcinkaya thanks Sinan!
Maria
Amazing product! Amazing deal! Congratulations on the launch! ^_^ Thank you for implementing this idea and allowing us easy and joyful process of creating! *_*
Philo Hermans
@maria_brm thanks Maria, it's great to see your positive response! ^_^
Maria
@philo01 And it is absolutely deserved! *_* I have one question related to pricing: Starter pack allows selling only via Unlock or on other platforms as well? :))
Philo Hermans
Thanks! The starter pack allows selling on other platforms as well. This is the same for alle packs except the managed pack. The managed pack allows you to start without any monthly commitment but you have to sell via Unlock and pay a platform transaction fee.