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# Shlink: A Self-Hosted Bitly Alternative for URL Shortening
- URL: https://ditchthesaas.com/shlink-a-self-hosted-bitly-alternative-for-url-shortening/
- Published: 2026-09-30T08:59:01.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-30T08:59:01.000Z
- Description: Bitly's free plan gives you basic short links but gates custom domains and full analytics history behind paid tiers starting around $8/month. Self-hosting the shortener means the domain was always yours anyway — and you lose Bitly's link-in-bio pages and QR-code UI polish in the trade.
- Author: Jordan Cole
- Tags: Self-Hosted Stack

Bitly's free plan lets you create short links and see basic click counts, but a custom branded domain and longer analytics retention are gated behind paid plans starting around $8/month (Basic), with the Growth plan around $29/month for more links and deeper analytics.

## What a branded domain actually costs you

The irony with a link shortener SaaS is that you're paying monthly for the privilege of using a domain you'd otherwise already own. Bitly's free tier pushes you onto their shared bit.ly domain; getting your own short domain in front of it is one of the first things that requires a paid plan.

## What Shlink gives you instead

[Shlink](https://github.com/shlinkio/shlink?ref=ditchthesaas.com) is an open-source, self-hosted URL shortener with a full REST API and an optional web client for managing links without touching the API directly. Since it's self-hosted, your own domain is the shortener domain from the start — no separate custom-domain tier to unlock. Unlimited short URLs, unlimited tracked clicks, and detailed per-link analytics (referrers, browsers, geolocation) with no retention window cutting off older data. Docker deployment, and it runs comfortably alongside the rest of this stack on the same small VPS.

## The catch, and it's a real one

Shlink is a URL shortener, not a link-in-bio or marketing platform. Bitly's link-in-bio pages, branded QR code design tools, and team/role management UI don't have an equivalent here — Shlink does generate QR codes via its API, but there's no polished design UI wrapped around it like Bitly's. There's also no multi-user permission system out of the box; it's built around a single API key model, which is fine for one person or a small team sharing access loosely, but not a fit if you need per-user roles and audit trails. If you need branded QR design and link-in-bio pages, Bitly's paid tiers are buying real product. If you just need a fast, private link shortener on a domain you already control, Shlink does that for free.

I run this on the same [Vultr](https://www.vultr.com/?ref=9922680) box as the rest of this stack — see [the full cost roll-up](https://ditchthesaas.com/how-i-cut-my-saas-bill-by-90-by-self-hosting-everything/) for how it all fits together.

*Disclosure: this post contains an affiliate link to Vultr. If you sign up through it, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. I only link to providers I actually use.*