How can I hide source code from Python file?

Question

I am developing a paid application in Python. I do not want the users to see the source code or decompile it. How can I accomplish this task of hiding the source code from the user, but running the code perfectly with the same performance?

Answer 1

You may distribute the compiled .pyc files which is a byte code that the Python interpreter compiles your .py files to.

More info on this found here on stackoverflow. How to compile all your project files .

This will somewhat hide your actual code into bytecode, but it can be disassembled. To prevent from disassembling you need to use obfuscation . Pyarmor might be something you're looking for.

Answer 2

You will definitely see the code if you're running it as a Python file. Maybe try using pyinstaller to make a executable binary for the respective Operating System that you're building for.

Answer 3

The best way would be to turn your python code into an executable file.

When u take a look here , there is a nice Tutorial on how to do it:

1. Install pyinstall via pip3 install pyinstaller
2. Pack your excecutable with pyinstaller main.py

There is a lot of options to tweak the output of your application, the docs can be found under https://pyinstaller.org/en/stable/