Open-source alternatives to Bitly
The most popular self-hosted, open-source alternatives to Bitly (URL shortening) are YOURLS (12,263 GitHub stars), Kutt (11,160 GitHub stars) and Shlink (5,348 GitHub stars). SelfHostHub lists 11 options below, taken from its URL Shorteners category; 7 support Docker and all of them can run on your own server.
Comparison of self-hosted Bitly alternatives
| Project | GitHub stars | Licence | Language / platform | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| YOURLS | 12,263 | MIT | PHP | YOURLS is a set of PHP scripts that will allow you to run Your Own URL Shortener. Features include password protection, URL customization, bookmarklets, statistics, API, plugins, jsonp. |
| Kutt | 11,160 | MIT | Nodejs, Docker | Modern URL shortener with support for custom domains and custom URLs. |
| Shlink | 5,348 | MIT | PHP, Docker | URL shortener with REST API and command line interface. Includes official progressive web application and docker images. |
| Chhoto URL | 987 | MIT | Rust, Docker | Simple, lightning-fast URL shortener with no bloat (fork of simply-shorten). |
| Flare | 138 | MIT | Docker, Nodejs | A nonbloated, modern, and highly configurable file/screenshot vault server with support for ShareX, Flameshot, and Spectacle. Offers OCR search and more. |
| bit | 108 | MIT | Docker, Crystal | Fast, lightweight, resource-efficient, compiled URL shortener. |
| snowshare | 88 | CC0-1.0 | Nodejs, Docker | File and link sharing platform with URL shortening, code snippet sharing, and file uploads, featuring customizable expiration, privacy settings, and QR codes. |
| Simple-URL-Shortener | 60 | MIT | PHP | KISS URL shortener, public or private (with account). Minimalist and lightweight. No dependencies. |
| clink | — | AGPL-3.0 | C | A super-minimal link shortening service written in pure C, focusing on small executable size, portability, and ease of configuration. |
| Flink | — | MIT | Docker | Create QR Codes, embeddable link previews for your website and crawls/scrapes metadata. |
| rs-short | — | MPL-2.0 | Rust | Lightweight link shortener written in Rust, with features such as caching, spambot protection and phishing detection. |
Star counts and licences come from the awesome-selfhosted dataset and may lag GitHub slightly.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the best open-source alternative to Bitly?
By GitHub stars, YOURLS is the most popular self-hosted alternative to Bitly listed here, followed by Kutt and Shlink. The best fit depends on the features and stack you need.
Is there a free self-hosted alternative to Bitly?
Yes. All 11 projects on this page are open source and can be self-hosted at no licence cost; you pay only for your own server.
Which licences do these Bitly alternatives use?
The most common licences among them are MIT (8), CC0-1.0 (1) and AGPL-3.0 (1).
Can I run a Bitly alternative with Docker?
7 of the 11 alternatives list Docker as a supported platform.