Bitly Alternatives 2026: 5 Free Options
Bitly alternatives: Kutt, Shlink, YOURLS, Rebrandly and 1 more. Prices and licenses checked October 23, 2026.
•3 min read•Social Media & Ads
Verdict:Leave Bitly when the free tier's 5 links a month is too tight, or when Core at $10 a month billed annually and Business at $90 a month are more than you need. Bitly's free plan lets you create 5 links and 2 QR codes a month, which is enough to test but not to run a business. Short.io is the easiest hosted swap: its free plan includes 1,000 branded links and 50,000 tracked clicks, and its Hobby plan costs $5 a month. Rebrandly's free plan allows 10 links and 10 QR codes a month, and its entry paid plan starts at $8 a month. Check the pricing page for the billing term. If you want no monthly fee at all, the three open-source shorteners run on your own server. Kutt and Shlink are both MIT licensed and have no link cap, but you must host them. YOURLS is simpler and has no dashboard for analytics. The real trade-off is hosting work against a hosted dashboard, so pick the self-hosted route only if you already run a server.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Price | Platforms | Best for | Tested |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kutt | Free (Free to self-host under MIT; no hosted plan checked) | Web, Docker | Developers who self-host | Docs only |
| Shlink | Free (Free to self-host under MIT; no hosted plan checked) | Web, Docker | Self-hosted links with analytics | Docs only |
| YOURLS | Free (Free and open source to self-host; no hosted plan) | Web | Simple self-hosted short links | Docs only |
| Rebrandly | Free (10 links per month, 10 QR codes per month, 1 custom domain, 1 free Rebrand.ly domain, 1 link gallery; unlimited clicks and QR code scans); paid from $8 per month (Essentials, $8 to $11 per month); the page does not label monthly or annual billing | Web | Hosted branded links on a small budget | Docs only |
| Short.io | Free (Free plan: 1 user, 5 custom domains, detailed statistics for the first 50,000 clicks, 10 MB storage; short links keep working afterwards, commercial use allowed); paid from $5 per month, billed monthly (Hobby, 7 custom domains, 100,000 tracked clicks); annual billing saves 17% | Web | Branded links at the lowest hosted price | Docs only |
| Dub | Free (Core is free to self-host under AGPLv3; the /ee directory (about 1% of the code) is under a commercial license. Hosted plans were not checked) | Web, Self-hosted | Link management | Docs only |
Independent comparison. Paid placements are labelled separately; editorial links earn no affiliate commissions. Learn more.
Good fit if
- You create many links and want a hosted branded service (Short.io is the pick)
- You want to shorten links on your own server for free (Kutt is the pick)
- You want self-hosted links with click analytics (Shlink is the pick)
- You want a hosted service with a free QR code allowance (Rebrandly is the pick)
- You want the simplest self-hosted shortener (YOURLS is the pick)
Not ideal if
- You rely on Bitly features or integrations that these tools do not replicate
Bitly today: Free (2 QR codes per month, 5 links per month, 2 custom landing pages, 3 custom back-halves per month; unlimited clicks and QR code scans); paid from $10 per month, billed annually (Core plan, annual only, $120 charged yearly) (Bitly pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Why people look for Bitly alternatives
Bitly's Free plan gives 5 links and 2 QR codes a month, 3 custom back-halves and no branded links. Core is $10 a month but billed annually only ($120), with 100 links, 5 QR codes and 30 days of click data. Growth is $29 a month for 500 links and the first custom domain; Premium jumps to $199 a month for 3,000 links and 200 QR codes. Anyone needing a custom domain cannot get one below Growth.
Kutt
Compared with Bitly: MIT-licensed, self-hosted link shortener with no fee beyond your own server. You give up Bitly's hosted dashboard and QR codes, and you run the software, but you pay nothing per link or click.
Price: Free (Free to self-host under MIT; no hosted plan checked) (Kutt pricing, checked 2026-10-22).
Platforms and license: Web, Docker. MIT (open source).
Project activity: 11.2k GitHub stars · latest release v3.2.6 (Jul 5, 2026) · last commit Oct 19, 2026
Best for: Developers who self-host.
Shlink
Compared with Bitly: MIT-licensed self-hosted URL shortener with its own analytics and API. Unlike Bitly's free plan, which caps you at 5 links a month, it has no per-link limit, but you must run it on your own server.
Price: Free (Free to self-host under MIT; no hosted plan checked) (Shlink pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: Web, Docker. MIT (open source).
Project activity: 5.4k GitHub stars · latest release v5.1.8 (Oct 21, 2026) · last commit Oct 24, 2026
Best for: Self-hosted links with analytics.
Worth knowing: Self-hosted URL shortener; you pay for your own server. The project describes itself as a self-hosted URL shortener.
YOURLS
Compared with Bitly: Free, open-source self-hosted shortener under MIT. It is simpler than Bitly and has no hosted analytics dashboard, so you lose Bitly's QR codes and team features but keep full control of the data.
Price: Free (Free and open source to self-host; no hosted plan) (YOURLS pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: Web. MIT (open source).
Project activity: 12.3k GitHub stars · latest release 1.10.6 (Aug 30, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026
Best for: Simple self-hosted short links.
Worth knowing: Self-hosted URL shortener written in PHP; the project site states the code is MIT licensed.
Rebrandly
Compared with Bitly: Free plan allows 10 links and 10 QR codes a month, and Essentials starts at $8 a month. It is a hosted service like Bitly, with a bigger free allowance than Bitly's 5 links a month, but it still caps links on the free tier.
Price: Free (10 links per month, 10 QR codes per month, 1 custom domain, 1 free Rebrand.ly domain, 1 link gallery; unlimited clicks and QR code scans); paid from $8 per month (Essentials, $8 to $11 per month); the page does not label monthly or annual billing (Rebrandly pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: Web. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: Hosted branded links on a small budget.
Short.io
Compared with Bitly: Free plan includes 1,000 branded links and 50,000 tracked clicks a month, and Hobby is $5 a month. It covers branded domains like Bitly's paid plans do, at a lower price, but analytics stop after 50,000 clicks on the free plan.
Price: Free (Free plan: 1 user, 5 custom domains, detailed statistics for the first 50,000 clicks, 10 MB storage; short links keep working afterwards, commercial use allowed); paid from $5 per month, billed monthly (Hobby, 7 custom domains, 100,000 tracked clicks); annual billing saves 17% (Short.io pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Platforms and license: Web. Proprietary SaaS.
Best for: Branded links at the lowest hosted price.
Worth knowing: Paid plans include a 7-day free trial. Cancelling moves the account to the free plan.
Other popular options (paid)
Dub
Compared with Bitly: Open-source link platform with an AGPL-3.0 core you can self-host; an enterprise directory is commercially licensed. Bitly hosts everything and only includes a custom domain from Growth at $29 a month, but with Dub you run the servers.
Price: Free (Core is free to self-host under AGPLv3; the /ee directory (about 1% of the code) is under a commercial license. Hosted plans were not checked) (Dub pricing, checked 2026-10-23).
Which one to pick
- You create many links and want a hosted branded service: Short.io
- You want to shorten links on your own server for free: Kutt
- You want self-hosted links with click analytics: Shlink
- You want a hosted service with a free QR code allowance: Rebrandly
- You want the simplest self-hosted shortener: YOURLS
Limits of this review
Docs-only for Kutt, Shlink, YOURLS, Rebrandly, Short.io: we did not install or run them, so feature claims come from vendor pages and we did not test import from Bitly. Vendor prices and free limits change; confirm on the linked pricing page before you buy or migrate.
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Kevin Fan
Kevin Fan is a SaaS founder. He runs Free Instead Of, which tracks free and open-source alternatives to paid software and checks each price and free-plan limit against the vendor's own pages.
Methodology
Based on official pricing and product pages checked between 2026-10-22 and 2026-10-23: Bitly, Kutt, Shlink, YOURLS, Rebrandly, Short.io, Dub. Prices, free limits and licenses are the figures shown on those pages on those dates. No tool on this page was installed or run. No accounts were created.