Best Open-Source URL Shorteners 2026: 6 Options Compared

A self-hosted URL shortener solves a narrower problem than most people expect. You want short links on your own domain, click counts you control, and no per-link fees once a hosted service starts charging for custom domains. The projects below do that, but they differ a lot in how much you must run. Shlink, YOURLS and Kutt are classic web applications: you provide a server, a database and updates. Chhoto URL packs a single Rust binary with SQLite into a very small Docker image, which suits a home server or a cheap VPS. Sink moves the whole thing onto Cloudflare Workers, so there is no server to patch but you depend on a Cloudflare account and its limits. Dub is the heaviest option, a full link attribution platform with analytics, and it is the only one here with a small commercial-licensed directory next to its AGPL core. Choose by what you already operate. If you run Docker already, Chhoto or Shlink will take minutes. If you want a plugin ecosystem and PHP is familiar, YOURLS is the old reliable choice. Whichever you pick, put it behind your own domain from day one, because changing the domain later breaks every link you have already shared.

Shlink

Self-hosted shortener under MIT, run with Docker or on your own web server. It focuses on being the link service behind your own domain, so you bring the server and database and no hosted plan was checked.

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) (license source).

Project activity: 5.4k GitHub stars · latest release v5.1.8 (Oct 21, 2026) · last commit Oct 24, 2026

Best for: Teams that already run Docker.

Worth knowing: Self-hosted URL shortener; you pay for your own server. The project describes itself as a self-hosted URL shortener.

YOURLS

Long-running PHP shortener whose site states the code is MIT licensed. You host it yourself and no hosted plan exists, so the cost is your own server and the time to keep PHP and MySQL updated.

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) (license source).

Project activity: 12.3k GitHub stars · latest release 1.10.6 (Aug 30, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026

Best for: PHP hosts and plugin fans.

Worth knowing: Self-hosted URL shortener written in PHP; the project site states the code is MIT licensed.

Kutt

MIT-licensed shortener created with self-hosting in mind. Free to run on your own server, with no hosted plan checked, so budget for the server and for upgrading it yourself.

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) (license source).

Project activity: 11.2k GitHub stars · latest release v3.2.6 (Jul 5, 2026) · last commit Oct 19, 2026

Best for: Small teams wanting a modern web UI.

Dub

The most feature-heavy pick: an AGPLv3 link attribution platform you can self-host. About 1 percent of the code, the /ee directory, is under a commercial license, so read that before building on it.

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).

Platforms and license: Web, Self-hosted. AGPL-3.0 (core); /ee directory under a commercial license (open source) (license source).

Project activity: 25k GitHub stars · last commit Oct 27, 2026

Best for: Marketing teams needing click analytics.

Worth knowing: Open-source link attribution platform with a self-hosting guide. README says the /ee Enterprise Edition directory is under a commercial license.

Chhoto URL

Rust shortener with SQLite storage; the README says its smallest Docker image is under 6 MB compressed and uses under 15 MB of RAM. Features are deliberately few: custom slugs, expiry, hit counts and QR codes.

Price: Free (Free to self-host under MIT; no hosted plan) (Chhoto URL pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Docker. MIT (open source) (license source).

Project activity: 995 GitHub stars · latest release 7.9.9 (Oct 26, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026

Best for: Home servers and tiny VPS.

Worth knowing: Self-hosted URL shortener written in Rust with SQLite storage. README says the scratch image is under 6 MB compressed and RAM use under 15 MB in regular use. Features listed: custom slugs, link expiry, per-link hit counts, QR codes, optional OIDC login.

Sink

AGPL-3.0 shortener that runs on Cloudflare Workers with D1 and KV, so there is no server to maintain. It adds link analytics and expiry, but your Cloudflare plan limits apply and were not checked.

Price: Free (Free to deploy under AGPL-3.0; runs on your own Cloudflare account, so Cloudflare's own plan limits apply) (Sink pricing, checked 2026-10-23).

Platforms and license: Cloudflare Workers. AGPL-3.0-only (open source) (license source).

Project activity: 7.2k GitHub stars · latest release v0.3.1 (Sep 27, 2026) · last commit Oct 27, 2026

Best for: Cloudflare users who want no server.

Which one to pick

• You run a home server and want the lightest option: Chhoto URL
• You want no server to patch at all: Sink
• You need campaign analytics and attribution: Dub
• You already host PHP sites and want plugins: YOURLS