CodeMeter® from Wibu-Systems is the license dongle many software vendors in Germany know first. This page puts the KeyNub USB-C license dongle beside it, fact by fact. Every statement about CodeMeter comes from Wibu-Systems’ own product pages and data sheets, footnoted below with the date we read them; where those sources are silent, the cell says so. The page compares what each product is and how it is deployed. It does not rate either product’s security, and it does not compare prices.
Facts Side by Side
| KeyNub USB-C License Dongle | CodeMeter (Wibu-Systems) | |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | AB-Tools GmbH, Munich, Germany; developed and supported there | Wibu-Systems AG, Karlsruhe, Germany2 |
| Hardware form factors | One USB-C dongle | CmStick family with different USB type connectors12 |
| Driver on the end user’s machine | None. USB HID device handled by the operating systems’ built-in drivers; no runtime service, no vendor software on the end user’s machine | The dongle itself uses HID or Mass Storage Device mode, “no additional drivers are required”1. The application talks to it through CodeMeter Runtime, a service delivered with the software as a stand-alone installer or merge module (Runtime Service, WebAdmin, Control Center)34; a library variant, CodeMeter Embedded, exists for embedded systems5 |
| Administrator rights for the end user | None. On Linux, a udev rule grants ordinary users access | The dongle can be used “without having administrator privileges”1; installing CodeMeter Runtime is the vendor’s or the end user’s installation step4 |
| Security element | Common Criteria EAL6+ certified secure element; the device key pair is generated inside it | Smart card chips from Infineon Technologies, “EAL 5+ evaluated”12 |
| Cryptography (vendor statements) | ECC P-256 device identity with certificate chain and live challenge-response; AES-256-GCM session channel derived by ECDH and HKDF | 128 and 256-bit AES, SHA-256, 1024 to 4096-bit RSA, 224-bit ECC (CmStick/C Basic, firmware 4.52)2 |
| License storage | 1 MB of encrypted storage, as named records | “About 328 kByte” secure memory on the CmStick/C Basic, structured as licence entries with text, counters, time windows, feature maps and data fields of 128 × 256 bytes2 |
| Counters | Hardware monotonic counters (read in a session, increment with the write role) | Unit Counter per licence entry, “up to 500 million decrements”2 |
| SDK licence | Bindings, samples and C ABI header under Apache-2.0 on GitHub; prebuilt native libraries under a separate binary licence | “Free CodeMeter SDK” on request6; the Core API is published as source code as part of the SDK5; licence terms are Wibu-Systems’ |
| Programming languages | 43 languages, each with a runnable sample; one core C library with a stable ABI | Core API as a C library, .NET assembly and Java interface, for C/C++, C#, C++/CLI, Delphi, Java, Fortran, VB, VB.NET and Python; platforms Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, VxWorks and QNX5 |
| Server or cloud component | None required. Verification is local between the application and the dongle; no activation, licence or cloud server. A licence portal, fleet management or cloud service around the dongle can be built on the open SDK; AB-Tools develops such components as contract work | The dongle is one container type beside CmActLicense (software) and cloud containers; the Runtime Service manages the connection to the licence server in LAN, WAN and cloud3 |
| Operating systems | Windows, Linux, macOS; x64 and ARM64 (Apple silicon, Windows on ARM, aarch64 Linux) | CodeMeter Runtime for Windows, Linux and macOS3 |
Moving from CodeMeter to KeyNub
The concepts map like this:
- CmDongle, CmContainer: the KeyNub dongle. There is one container type, the hardware, and your application talks to it directly through the SDK library.
- Product Codes and licence options (text, counters, time windows, feature maps): named records that you define and write with your own tooling. A record holds whatever your licence format needs; the SDK does not prescribe one.
- Protected, Hidden and Secret Data: records for data your program reads, and the app-data encryption for data that must exist only when a dongle is present.
- Unit Counter: a hardware monotonic counter, incremented by your program with the write role.
- CodeMeter Runtime: nothing. The native library is part of your application; there is no service to install, configure or keep updated on the customer’s machine.
- AxProtector, IxProtector (automatic wrapping of executables): KeyNub takes a different route. The check is written in your code against the documented API, and the integration guide shows the pattern that makes the check pointless to remove: data the program needs is shipped encrypted and decrypted through the dongle.
The KeyNub SDK is open: the bindings, the samples and the C ABI header are Apache-2.0 on GitHub, so the migration can be judged against the real code before a single dongle is bought. The language pages hold the install command and a reading example for each of the 43 languages.
Sources
- Wibu-Systems, “CodeMeter Dongle” product page: https://www.wibu.com/products/codemeter/codemeter-dongle.html
- Wibu-Systems, CmStick/C Basic data sheet (1001-03-160, August 2025): https://cdn.wibu.com/fileadmin/wibu_downloads/CodeMeter_Datasheets/Seriennummer_03/2025-08/C/CmStick_C-Basic-1001-03-160_EN.pdf
- Wibu-Systems, “CodeMeter Runtime” product page: https://www.wibu.com/products/codemeter/runtime.html
- Wibu-Systems, “Installing CodeMeter on End User Systems” (KEYnote article): https://www.wibu.com/us/magazine/keynote-articles/keynote/detail/installing-codemeter-on-end-user-systems.html
- Wibu-Systems, “CodeMeter Core API” product page: https://www.wibu.com/products/codemeter/core-api.html
- Wibu-Systems, “Free CodeMeter SDK” landing page: https://www.wibu.systems/start/
CodeMeter, CmDongle, CmStick, CmActLicense, AxProtector and IxProtector are trademarks of WIBU-SYSTEMS AG. They are used here to identify the products compared; KeyNub is not affiliated with WIBU-SYSTEMS AG. All competitor facts on this page are quoted or paraphrased from the vendor’s public material as retrieved on 20 September 2026 and may have changed since. If you find a statement that is out of date, tell us and we correct it.
See also: KeyNub compared with Sentinel HL.
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