Licensing & Registration

DbSchema is available in three editions and several license types. This page explains what each edition and license type gives you, how to activate DbSchema, how to manage your licenses and users online, and how to run a floating license.

Editions

DbSchema comes in three editions, each building on the previous one:

  • Community — free; includes the core DbSchema features.
  • Pro — everything in Community, plus additional features such as saving and loading design files, schema synchronization, etc.
  • Architect — everything in Pro, plus logical design, etc.

For the full, up-to-date feature comparison, see the Pricing & Editions page.

License Types

Besides the edition, a DbSchema license is described by three more choices.

User type

  • Commercial license — paid for by a company or organization.
  • Personal license — paid for by an individual, out of their own pocket. Commercial/paid work is allowed; a company is not allowed to buy personal licenses for its employees.
  • Educational license — for students and teachers.

The user type also determines whether a license may be reassigned to another person: only Commercial licenses can be reassigned (see Managing Licenses in the Customer Area).

Billing

  • Perpetual fallback — buy once. Includes one year of updates and technical support; after that you keep forever (fall back to) the version you are entitled to. After one year, a renewal is required if you want to access the latest features and security fixes, and to keep receiving support.
  • Monthly subscription — full access to the latest DbSchema release for as long as the subscription is active.

Regular vs. Floating

  • Regular — per person: each seat is assigned to one specific user (by email) and is used only by that person.
  • Floating — per team: a shared pool in which a fixed number of users can work at the same time, while the whole team can be larger. See Floating Licenses.

DbSchema Account

Your DbSchema account is identified by your email address. You use it in two places:

  • On the web — the Customer Area at /support/customer/: sign in with your email (you receive a one-time login link) to manage your orders, license keys and assigned users, download invoices, and open support tickets.
  • In the desktop app — Help → Register License: choose DbSchema Account, enter your email, and type the one-time code emailed to you. DbSchema then downloads and activates your license — or leases a floating seat — automatically.

Signing in with your DbSchema account is the recommended way to activate DbSchema: there are no license-key files to distribute, the owner manages access centrally from the Customer Area, and it works for both regular and floating licenses.

How to Register in DbSchema

Open the registration dialog in DbSchema from Help → Register License.

DbSchema Registration Dialog

Three activation methods are available.

1. Sign in with your DbSchema Account (recommended)

Enter your email address and click Register. DbSchema emails you a one-time code; enter it to finish signing in.

  • If your email matches a license assigned in the Customer Area, the license is downloaded and activated automatically.
  • For floating licenses, signing in acquires a seat from the pool for the current session.
  • No license key is needed — just your email address.

This is the recommended method, especially for teams: the owner manages access centrally from the Customer Area without ever distributing license keys.

2. Enter a License Key

Paste the license key sent to you by email from PayProGlobal after purchase and click Activate. Use this method for a standalone installation without a DbSchema account.

A license key activates DbSchema on a single computer. To use DbSchema on a different computer, first run Help → Unregister on the old one to free the license.

If a machine has no internet access, the dialog offers an offline activation option.

3. Connect to a Floating License Server

If your company hosts a self-hosted Floating License Server on its internal network (common where machines have restricted internet access), select this option and enter the server host and port. See Floating Licenses.

Managing Licenses in the Customer Area

Sign in to the Customer Area at /support/customer/ with your email — you receive a one-time login link. The registration dialog in DbSchema also has a Customer Area button.

The dashboard lists your subscriptions. From here you can download license keys and invoices, reassign licenses, and manage users.

DbSchema Customer Area dashboard listing subscriptions

Reassign a regular (commercial) license

Open Manage Users & Keys on a regular subscription and go to the Assign Users tab. Each seat shows the assigned email and the date it was assigned; use the pencil to change it.

Customer Area — Assign Users tab, one editable assignee per seat

When a regular license is first generated, seat 1 is automatically assigned to the license owner's email, and the remaining seats start Unassigned. On a renewal or upgrade, existing assignments carry over.

The person assigned to a seat activates DbSchema by signing in (Help → Register License → DbSchema Account) with their assigned email — not the buyer's or owner's email.

Reassignment rules:

  • Only Commercial licenses can be reassigned.
  • An automatically assigned seat can be reassigned freely.
  • A seat that was manually assigned is locked for 3 months from the assignment date.

You can also change the license owner from the dashboard using the Reassign link (Commercial orders only).

Managing a team? Consider a Floating license

A regular license is per person — each seat belongs to one specific user. A floating license is per team: your whole team shares a pool of seats and can use DbSchema up to the purchased number at the same time. If you find yourself reassigning seats frequently, a floating license is usually the better fit.

Compare licenses

Manage users for a floating license

Open Manage Users & Keys on a floating subscription and go to the Manage Users tab. Add or remove the users allowed to use the license, by email.

Customer Area — Manage Users tab, list of allowed users for a floating license
  • The list of allowed users can be as long as you like. The purchased quantity limits only the number of concurrent users — how many can use DbSchema at the same time — not how many people you may add to the list.
  • Each allowed user activates DbSchema by signing in (Help → Register License → DbSchema Account) with their own email — the one added to the list (not the owner's or buyer's email).

Floating Licenses

A floating license lets a team share DbSchema seats. The number of users who can work at the same time equals the purchased quantity; seats are checked out when users start DbSchema and released when they finish, so a larger team can share the same seats across different time zones.

There are two ways to run a floating license. Using a DbSchema account is the recommended way.

Recommended: use a DbSchema account

With account-based floating there is no server to install or maintain:

  1. The license owner adds the allowed users' emails in the Customer Area, on the Manage Users tab of the floating subscription.
  2. Each user signs in from Help → Register License → DbSchema Account using their own allowed-listed email. DbSchema leases a seat from the DbSchema licensing service for the session.

The number of simultaneous users is capped at the purchased quantity. A seat is released when the user closes DbSchema or manually unregisters (Help → Unregister). A running app keeps its seat — there is no inactivity timeout. If an app crashes or loses connectivity, its seat is freed automatically once it stops contacting the server.

Alternative: self-hosted Floating License Server

For environments with no direct internet access (air-gapped or locked-down networks), you can run your own Floating License Server (FLS). Download the floating license key from the Customer Area (floating subscription → Download Key), then run the server one of the two ways below.

Option 1 — Run FLS from Docker

Use the official Docker image from Docker Hub.

When running in Kubernetes, configure liveness and readiness probes:

healthChecks:
  livenessProbe:
    exec:
      command:
        - true
    initialDelaySeconds: 30
    failureThreshold: 10
    periodSeconds: 60
    successThreshold: 1
    timeoutSeconds: 60
  readinessProbe:
    exec:
      command:
        - true
    initialDelaySeconds: 30
    failureThreshold: 10
    periodSeconds: 60
    successThreshold: 1
    timeoutSeconds: 60

Option 2 — Start FLS manually via DbSchemaCLI

DbSchemaCLI is included in the standard DbSchema installation and can host the license server.

  1. Open a terminal and start DbSchemaCLI.
  2. Load the floating license from a file:
register -f "path/to/license-file"
  1. Start the license server:
license server -s
  1. On each client machine, open DbSchema → Help → Register License → Floating License Server and enter the server host and port.
  2. Monitor the server:
    • license server -l — list currently active users
    • license server -i — show server status

To start the FLS automatically on Windows, save the following to a .bat file and add it to Windows Task Scheduler:

license server -s
sleep

Auto-discovery with environment variables

Set the following environment variables on each client machine so DbSchema locates the license server automatically, without manual configuration in the registration dialog:

DBSCHEMA_FLS_HOST=<server-host>
DBSCHEMA_FLS_PORT=<server-port>

Technical Support

If you need help with licensing, invoices, or your subscription, visit the Support Page or open the support dialog from Help → Technical Support inside DbSchema.

DbSchema Technical Support Dialog