Best Open Source URL Shortener in 2026
Tools for shortening, managing, and tracking URLs — from simple link shortening to branded links with analytics.
The most popular pick this year is Kutt with 10,740 GitHub stars, but all 4 options below are worth considering depending on your needs.
4 open source url shortener — ranked by GitHub stars. Browse all
Kutt
A modern, free, and open-source URL shortener with custom domains, analytics, and a clean API.
Bitly
Shlink
The definitive self-hosted URL shortener with analytics, QR codes, custom domains, and a powerful API.
Bitly
Simple URL Shortener
A lightweight PHP-based URL shortener with MySQL or SQLite support and user history tracking.
Bitly
Flink
A zero-config, FOSS URL shortener with QR code generation and OpenTelemetry support, built in ASP.NET Core.
BitlyHow we rank these tools
Tools are ranked by GitHub stars as a proxy for community adoption and trust. Stars reflect how many developers found a project valuable enough to bookmark — a reasonable signal for quality in the open source world. We only list tools that are actively maintained and open source.
Looking for tools you can run yourself? Browse self-hosted url shortener →