Vaadin licensing FAQ and troubleshooting

Do I have a valid Vaadin Plus, Pro, Premium, or Ultimate license?

Check by going to https://vaadin.com/pro/validate-license. Please find Vaadin's Commercial License and Service Terms here.

How do I assign license seats for team members?

License seats can be assigned only by either the license owner or administrator. Please contact your team's license manager. 
For license owner or administrator: Login to vaadin.com -> go to top right hand corner My Account -> Team management

Do I need a license for production use? 

In general, after deploying the application into production you don't need a subscription to use commercial Vaadin components and features. A valid Vaadin subscription is only needed for development and to build the production application.

What happens to a license if the developer leaves the company? 

The license owner or administrator can reassign the seat to someone else, from vaadin.com > My account > Team Management, or contact customer.support@vaadin.com 

How do Vaadin 10+ licenses work?

The licenses for commercial components in Vaadin 10 and newer are checked through your vaadin.com login. The first time you are using a commercial product, it will ask you to log in to vaadin.com to validate your license.

You only need to manually install the license key when running on a CI/build server.

How do Vaadin 10+ licenses work when offline?

If your development environment is offline, you need to download an offline license and place it in

~/.vaadin/offlineKey (Mac/Linux) or %userprofile%\.vaadin\offlineKey (Windows)

The offline license is tied to a machine id that you submit to https://vaadin.com/myaccount/licenses to retrieve the license. You can find your machine id in the logs when you try to use a component offline without a license or by running the following commands on your machine:

> mvn dependency:get -Dartifact=com.vaadin:license-checker-machineid:1.8.1

For Mac/Linux:

> java -jar ~/.m2/repository/com/vaadin/license-checker-machineid/1.8.1/license-checker-machineid-1.8.1.jar

For Windows:

> java -jar %userprofile%\.m2\repository\com\vaadin\license-checker-machineid\1.8.1\license-checker-machineid-1.8.1.jar

How do I use Vaadin 10+ licenses with CI/CD server? 

Option 1: Copy the downloaded server license file to the home directory on the server

The license file is installed in

~/.vaadin/proKey (Mac/Linux) or %userprofile%\.vaadin\proKey (Windows)

Option 2: Supply the license information from the downloaded server license file using a system property

If defined, the vaadin.proKey system property will be used instead of the file in the home directory. The format of the system property is

-Dvaadin.proKey=<login-email>/<key starting with pro->

How do I use Vaadin 10+ licenses with CI/CD server that is offline?

For CI/CD servers that are offline and cannot reach https://tools.vaadin.com, you need to download an offline CI license. This offline license can only be used for production builds. You can get it at https://vaadin.com/myaccount/licenses.

Place the license in

~/.vaadin/offlineKey (Mac/Linux) or %userprofile%\.vaadin\offlineKey (Windows)

or supply it through a system property as

-Dvaadin.offlineKey=<the-contents-of-the-file>

How do I see which Vaadin version the application is using?

You should have a pom.xml file in the root of your Vaadin project. Look for a `vaadin.version` property there. If you can’t find it a `vaadin.version` property, check if there’s 

• A `vaadin-bom` dependency. Its version is the Vaadin version.
• A `vaadin-server` dependency. Its version is the Vaadin version.

If you can’t find a `pom.xml` file, look for a `build.gradle` file. There should be a `vaadin {` block that has the version number.

If you can’t find a `pom.xml` file or a `build.gradle`, look for an `ivy.xml`. It should have something like <!ENTITY vaadin.version "7.6.5"> which shows the version.

How do I install Vaadin 6/7/8 license keys

Extended Maintenance

When using the latest Extended Maintenance releases the new license checker version is used for the framework product itself. This applies to versions Vaadin 7.7.17 and newer, Vaadin 8.14.3 and newer respectively. Follow the same guidance as described in https://vaadin.com/myaccount/licenses#latest

Furthermore from version 7.7.37 and respectively 8.20.2 the widgetset compilation phase has been updated to use the new license checker as well. Hence Charts, Spreadsheet, Touchkit or Board will no longer require specific license key. The server / offline key is used instead.

Additionally TestBench version 5.3.0 and newer uses the new license checker.

When using Designer with Vaadin 7 or 8, or TestBench 4 with Vaadin 7 the old product specific keys are used, see the next chapter.

Older versions

Vaadin 6/7/8 license check is done through license keys. Please find your license keys from https://vaadin.com/pro/licenses. Click on a license key to obtain the purchased key. Note: a new set of keys will be generated with every subscription renewal.

To install the license key in a development workstation, you can copy and paste it verbatim to a file in your home directory

License for each product has a separate license file as follows:

Vaadin Charts
.vaadin.charts.developer.license

Vaadin Spreadsheet
.vaadin.spreadsheet.developer.license

Vaadin TestBench
.vaadin.testbench.developer.license

You can also pass the key as a system property to the widget set compiler, usually with a -D option. For example, on the command-line:

java -Dvaadin.<product>.developer.license=L1cen5e-c0de …​

Where can we get help with license related issues?

Please contact license@vaadin.com and we can help you further.

Common license issues (debugging)

I get a trial message although I have a valid license

Check if you have a valid license by going to https://vaadin.com/pro/validate-license. If not, either your company's license administrator has not yet assigned a seat for you, or the license is no longer valid. 

I get a build failure error but my subscription is valid. 

 Open firewall for tools.vaadin.com and maven.vaadin.com or set up a local Maven repository

"This application is using components which are a part of a Vaadin subscription” with Vaadin 10 - 14.8 or 15 - 23.1

Check if you have a valid license by going to https://vaadin.com/pro/validate-license.

Clear Vaadin cookies and try again.

Please make sure that you use the same window.

Adblocker or 3rd party cookie denial could be blocking the license check. However, the error message only appears in development mode when in localhost. When the application is deployed into production and accessed from outside it will not show, thus the message will not visible to the end users of the application.

How do I make sure I don't have any commercial components in my application?

If you want to be certain you're not using anything commercial, then you can change the main dependency to vaadin-core instead of vaadin.

Why does my student license show as a trial?

Sometimes a student license shows as a trial, but the license is a valid Vaadin Pro student license and works normally.

Students can check the student program state by opening the profile menu or at https://vaadin.com/myaccount/subscriptions.

Why is GitHub student status not verified?

Please apply again for the student program at https://vaadin.com/student-program. If the problem continues, please contact us in the Vaadin Forum channel.  

I have Vaadin 10-14.8, 15-23.1 application and I have problems license problems (not Designer or TestBench, see below)

If the user visits https://tools.vaadin.com/vaadin-license-server/licenses/pro, it should say that the subscription is OK.

If it says something else, the license nag popup will show.

If it says {"result":"nokey","message":"","subscription":""} then there is no proKey cookie set or sent.

If the site is showing the subscription is valid, but json returns nokey, then two possible solutions are:

• Remove all vaadin.com cookies, log in again and then visit the URL again to see if the result changes
• Delete .vaadin/proKey in the home dir and try launching Designer/the IDE again

I have Vaadin 10+ application and I have problems with Designer or TestBench

The licenses for commercial components (including Designer and TestBench) in Vaadin 10 and newer are checked through your vaadin.com login. The first time you are using a commercial product, it will ask you to log in to vaadin.com to validate your license.

You can install the ProKey to your development machine or CI server via instructions here: https://vaadin.com/pro/validate-license

Are you behind a proxy? If so, you may need to configure proxy settings in your IDE: 

• Eclipse: https://mkyong.com/web-development/how-to-configure-proxy-settings-in-eclipse/
• IntelliJ Idea: https://www.jetbrains.com/help/idea/settings-http-proxy.html

I have a perpetual license for Designer 2, but after updating Designer I’m asked for a Pro subscription?

Vaadin 10+ and Multiplatform runtime

A known error in  SSLHandshakeException (Reported by users of WebSphere Liberty and WildFly in Docker) : https://vaadin.com/forum/thread/18444677/running-mpr-project-on-websphere-liberty-fails-with-suncertpathbuilderexcep

Please also check other known limitations for Multiplatform runtime usage here https://vaadin.com/docs/latest/tools/mpr/configuration/limitations