Link management sounds simple until you're running multiple products and each one has different tracking needs, different domains, and different audiences.
I tried Bitly for a while. It works, but the pricing doesn't make sense for indie developers and small teams. Their custom domain feature alone costs $35/month. Multiply that by 5 products and you're looking at $175/month just for link shortening.
The Problem
Here's what I needed:
- Custom domains for each product (go.product1.com, links.product2.com, etc.)
- Click analytics with geographic data and referrer tracking
- API access to automate link creation from my CI/CD pipeline
- Free or cheap — I'm bootstrapped
What I Tried
TinyURL
Free, no analytics. Dead end for anything serious.
Short.io
Good analytics but +/month for multiple domains. Same pricing problem as Bitly.
Rebrandly
Nice UI, but again — custom domains cost money. \/month for branded links.
Dub.co
This is what I actually use now. It's open source, which immediately caught my attention. Here's what sold me:
- Free custom domains — unlimited, even on the free tier
- Real analytics — clicks, geo, referrers, devices. All without paying
- REST API — well-documented, easy to integrate into my deployment scripts
- Self-hostable — since it's open source, I could host it myself if I wanted (I don't, their hosted version is fast enough)
My Setup
I have 5 custom domains, each one pointing to a different product. When someone clicks a link, I can see exactly where they came from, what device they're on, and which campaign drove the click.
My deployment script automatically creates short links for each release. The API call is simple:
{"error":{"code":"not_found","message":"Workspace ID not found. Did you forget to include a workspaceId query parameter? It looks like you might be using personal API keys, we also recommend refactoring to workspace API keys: https://d.to/keys","doc_url":"https://dub.co/docs/api-reference/errors#not-found"}}<!DOCTYPE html>
<title>Not Found</title>
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404 </h1>
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Not Found </div>
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Cost Comparison (Monthly)
| Tool | Custom Domains | Analytics | API | Monthly Cost |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bitly | \/domain | Pro only | Pro only | + |
| Short.io | \/domain | Included | Included | + |
| Rebrandly | \ base | Included | Premium | + |
| Dub.co | Free | Free | Free | \/bin/zsh |
Bottom Line
If you're bootstrapped or running multiple projects, there's no reason to pay for link shortening in 2026. The open-source options have caught up and in many cases surpassed the paid tools.
Check out Dub.co if you're in the same boat. The migration from Bitly takes about 10 minutes.
What tools do you use for link management? Curious what others have found works best.
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