Why teams switch to Demeanor
The oldest .NET obfuscator. The only one with per-company licensing and no phone-home activation. Here's how we compare feature-by-feature against the two other major .NET obfuscators on the market.
| Demeanor Enterprise | Dotfuscator Pro | SmartAssembly | |
|---|---|---|---|
| First released | 1999 | 2003 | 2007 |
| Continuous ownership from first release | Yes — same owner, same developer, 26 yrs | No — PreEmptive → Idera (2021) → Sembi (2025) | No — acquired by Red Gate (2010–11) |
| Distribution | NuGet package | Installer | Installer |
| Build integration | MSBuild property | Post-build step | Post-build step |
| Phone-home licensing | No | Yes | Yes |
| Per-company license | Yes | Per-seat | Per-machine |
| Annual subscription | $2,999/yr | ~$2,000+/yr | ~$777/yr |
| Free tier | Full renaming | Crippled (VS only) | Non-distributable |
| Modern .NET | .NET 10 / C# 14 | .NET 8 | .NET 8 |
| Single package, all platforms | Win, Linux, Mac x64 & ARM | Windows only | Windows only |
| Framework auto-detection (EF Core, Blazor, WPF, JSON) | Yes | Limited | Limited |
| Source code license available | Yes | No | No |
| Works offline / air-gapped | Yes | No | No |
| Virtual override renaming | Yes | No | No |
| Decompiled output recompiles? | No (11+ errors) | Often | Often |
| Exclusion diagnostics in report | Yes | No | No |
| Property/event metadata removal | Yes | No | No |
| Default parameter value stripping | Yes | No | No |
| Anti-tamper (file integrity verification) | Yes | Yes | No |
| Anti-debug (managed + native detection) | Yes | No | No |
| NativeAOT-compatible anti-tamper/anti-debug | Yes | No | No |
| Pre-obfuscation audit (framework pattern detection) | Yes (20 patterns) | No | No |
| AI agent integration (MCP) | Yes — 20 tools, optional | No | No |
| Enterprise price | $2,999/yr | ~$2,000+/yr | ~$777/yr |
Migrating from another obfuscator?
Demeanor is designed to be a drop-in improvement. Your existing [Obfuscation] attributes and exclusion patterns work unchanged.
Demeanor Enterprise at $2,999/year replaces a $4,250/year Dotfuscator subscription. Per-company licensing means no per-seat fees. Your [Obfuscation] attributes work unchanged. Stronger protection: string encryption, constants encryption, call hiding, control flow flattening, virtual override renaming, anti-tamper, anti-debug, and aggressive mode are all included. Anti-tamper and anti-debug are NativeAOT-compatible — no reflection.
No more per-machine licensing — one Demeanor license covers your entire team plus every CI server. NuGet + MSBuild integration replaces the VS extension workflow. Cross-platform: obfuscate on Linux and macOS CI servers, not just Windows.
Feature matrix
Community is free with no license key required. Enterprise unlocks everything.
| Feature | Community | Enterprise |
|---|---|---|
| Symbol renaming (types, methods, fields, properties, events, params) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Privatescope methods (collapse internal helpers to a single name) | name a | name — invalid C# |
| Alpha naming mode | ✓ | ✓ |
| Unicode naming mode | — | ✓ |
| String encryption | — | ✓ |
| Constants obfuscation | — | ✓ |
| Resource encryption | — | ✓ |
| Control flow obfuscation | — | ✓ |
| Call hiding | — | ✓ |
| Aggressive renaming | — | ✓ |
| Property/event metadata stripping | — | ✓ |
| Compiler attribute stripping ([CompilerGenerated], [Nullable]) | — | ✓ |
| Readonly stripping (initonly) | — | ✓ |
| Default parameter value stripping | — | ✓ |
| PDB deletion | — | ✓ |
| Complete component protection (including public APIs) | — | ✓ |
| SuppressIldasm | — | ✓ |
| HinderReflection | — | ✓ |
| Virtual override renaming | — | ✓ |
| Enum member deletion | — | ✓ |
| Anti-tamper integrity verification | — | ✓ |
| Anti-debug detection | — | ✓ |
| Whole-application protection (all assemblies together) | — | ✓ |
| Incremental obfuscation | — | ✓ |
| Obfuscation report with exclusion diagnostics | — | ✓ |
| Satellite assembly renaming | — | ✓ |
| Metadata inspector (REPL + one-shot) | — | ✓ |
| NuGet + MSBuild integration | ✓ | ✓ |
| Cross-platform CLI (Win, Linux, Mac) | ✓ | ✓ |
| Target assemblies: .NET 1.0 through .NET 10 | ✓ | ✓ |
| Price | Free | $2,999/yr |
| Licensing | Unlimited | Per-company, annual |
| Updates | Always | Always (while subscribed) |