I Built a Self-Hostable URL Shortener Because Bitly Now Charges $10/Month for Basic Links
In 2023, Bitly's free plan gave you 100 links per month with full analytics. In 2025, they slashed it to 5 links per month . Five. And they started showing full-screen interstitial ads before redirecting — even on links you created years ago. In 2026, their cheapest paid plan is $10/month — just to shorten links without ads. I was paying $120/year to turn long URLs into short ones. A problem that takes 3 lines of code to solve. So I solved it myself. For free. Forever. Introducing ZipLink ZipLink is a fast, self-hostable URL shortener built with Next.js and Firebase. Deploy it once, use it forever. No monthly fees. No link limits. No ads. No "upgrade to unlock analytics." Your links. Your data. Your domain. Your rules. https://yourdomain.com/abc123 → https://some-really-long-url.com/path/to/thing?utm=whatever That's it. That's the product. Except you own it completely. The State of URL Shorteners in 2026 (It's Embarrassing) Let me show you what the "industry leaders" are charging for what is essentially a database lookup: The Comparison Table Feature Bitly Rebrandly Short.io Dub.co TinyURL Pro ZipLink Monthly cost $10-$300/mo $13-$349/mo $19-$149/mo $24-$299/mo $9.99/mo $0 Annual cost $96-$2,388/yr $156-$4,188/yr $228-$1,788/yr $288-$3,588/yr $119.88/yr $0 Free tier links 5/month 10/month 1,000 total 25/month Unlimited (no analytics) Unlimited Custom domain Paid only Free (1 domain) Required Paid only Paid only Yes (yours) Click analytics Paid only Paid only Free (basic) Paid only Paid only Full, free Link expiration Paid only Paid only Yes Yes No Yes Password protection Enterprise only Paid only Paid Paid No Yes API access Paid only Paid only Yes Yes Paid Full, free QR codes 2 free, then paid Paid Yes Paid Paid Unlimited Self-hostable No No No Yes (complex) No Yes (simple) Data ownership Their servers Their servers Their servers Their servers Their servers Your Firebase Ads/interstitials Yes (free tier) No No No Yes (free tier) Never Links disappear if you stop pay