[abc126589]

Indeed. The original version was C#/WPF and worked on windows only. I got so many requests for a Mac version and knew it was decent demand. So I switched to electron: 1 code base works for Mac and windows plus has automatic updates for when bug fixes are released etc.

And sure enough Mac users account for 30% for the revenue today.

Another advantage is that it runs completely on the user's computer. So I have no database or back-end to maintain. There is only a small server to generate licenses + handle some analytics the app emits both built on ASP.NET. The only data I store is in a Microsoft Azure table. I pay around $2 a month for all azure costs.

[Datsundere]

how does a license server work? did you build it yourself?

[abc126589]

It's in-house. A license has some info tied to the user (which ultimately has to be the Twitter user connected via Twitter). Then all that is signed with a private key ECDSA. The app has the public key and can verify the signature. Many libraries are available for handling cryptographic signatures.

So basically a license is public info, the app enforces that the logged in user must match the user in the license.