Bitly Alternative With Free Analytics: 6 Options in 2026

If you want country, referrer or device data from your short links without paying Bitly's top plan, there are two routes. Short.io is the hosted one: according to its pricing page, the free plan shows detailed statistics for the first 50,000 clicks. Shlink and YOURLS are the self-hosted ones, with visitor geolocation and no click cap, but you run the server. Rebrandly, Kutt and Dub round out the field.

What matters when you need analytics for free

Bitly's free plan is generous on clicks and stingy on detail. According to Bitly's pricing page, Free includes unlimited clicks and scans but shows no country, city or device breakdowns and no data history. The page lists 5 short links and 2 QR codes a month on Free.

The ladder above it is steep. Core is $10 a month, billed annually only, and keeps 30 days of data. Growth is $29 a month with 120 days. City-level and device-type data arrive on Premium at $199 a month, with 1 year of history.

That gives five criteria for a replacement:

1. What the free tier shows. Raw click totals, or country, referrer and device.
2. Caps. A cap on links, or on how many clicks you can view.
3. Hosting. A vendor runs it, or you do.
4. Custom domain. Whether you can use your own domain without paying.
5. History. How long data stays viewable.

Short.io

Short.io is a hosted link shortener. According to its pricing page, the Free plan includes 1,000 branded links in total, 5 custom domains, 1 user and 10 MB of storage, and shows detailed statistics for the first 50,000 clicks. After that cap, the page says data collection continues but cannot be viewed, and the links keep working.

Paid plans are cheap. Hobby is $5 a month with 2,500 links, 100,000 tracked clicks a month and 7 custom domains. Pro is $18 a month with unlimited links and clicks. The page says annual billing saves 17% and paid plans include a 7-day trial.

Short.io suits campaigns with modest traffic, since its free statistics stop being viewable past the cap. Among the hosted options here, it is the one that combines a free tier, custom domains and detailed statistics.

Shlink

Shlink is a self-hosted URL shortener. According to the Shlink site, each click on a short URL records anonymized visit statistics and geolocates the visitor. It is MIT-licensed, written in PHP, and comes with a web app, an API and a command-line interface.

You can run it from a distribution file or from the Docker image. The site links to app.shlink.io for managing several Shlink instances, while the shortening itself runs on your own server. Because you host it, there is no click cap and no vendor-set data retention.

Shlink fits someone comfortable with Docker who wants real visit data on their own domain. It does not fit anyone who wants a dashboard working in five minutes with no server.

YOURLS

YOURLS is a self-hosted shortener. Its site advertises historical click reports, referrer tracking and visitor geolocation, plus a developer API and a plugin system. The code is MIT-licensed.

Like Shlink, it runs on your own domain, so statistics live in your own database and have no cap.

Pick YOURLS if you like the idea of plugins for extra features. Choose Shlink instead if you prefer to run it from a Docker image.

Kutt

Kutt is a self-hosted, MIT-licensed shortener. According to its GitHub page, links come with private statistics, custom domains and an API. The README describes the statistics only as private, so check the demo or documentation before relying on it for country or referrer data.

Setup needs Node.js 20 or later, or Docker. The default database is SQLite, with optional Postgres, MySQL or MariaDB, and Redis.

Kutt suits a developer who wants a small self-hosted shortener. For analytics detail, Shlink and YOURLS document more.

Rebrandly

Rebrandly is a hosted branded-link service. According to its pricing page, the Free plan allows 10 links and 10 QR codes a month, 1 custom domain, and unlimited clicks and scans. City and country data and conversion tracking are listed on the Professional plan, at $32 or $22 a month depending on billing.

Essentials is $11 or $8 a month depending on billing, and the page says annual billing saves up to 31%.

Rebrandly is a fit if you want a hosted tool with a custom domain, and country or city detail can wait. If analytics detail is the main reason you are leaving Bitly, Short.io's free plan gives more.

Dub

Dub is an open-source link platform. Its GitHub README says the core is licensed under AGPLv3 and the /ee directory is under a commercial license. It links to a self-hosting guide, and the stack it lists includes Tinybird, PlanetScale and Upstash, which is a larger stack to run than Shlink or YOURLS.

On the hosted side, Dub's pricing page lists Business at $81 a month with 120K new links a year, 3M tracked events a year and 3 years of analytics retention. It lists Advanced at $270 a month, offers a 14-day trial on both, and lists no free plan.

Dub fits teams that want conversion tracking and will pay or self-host a larger stack.

Comparison

How to choose

A marketer tracking a few campaign links. Use Short.io's free plan and watch the 50,000-click viewing cap. If a campaign will exceed it, Hobby at $5 a month raises tracked clicks to 100,000 a month.

A developer or agency with a server already running. Self-host Shlink or YOURLS for visit data without a click limit, and put your own domain on it. Compare more options in our open-source URL shortener roundup.

Someone who only wants a free link and QR code. Start from the free URL shortener guide or the free QR code generator page.