Short.io vs YOURLS
Short.io and YOURLS are both URL shortener software. Short.io is a commercial product from Short.io. YOURLS is open source under MIT, with 12k GitHub stars.
Which to pick
- Pick Short.io when
- A small business wants branded short links on its own domain at low or no cost.
- Pick YOURLS when
- You want branded short links on your own domain on cheap PHP and MySQL hosting.
Side by side
A link shortener with custom branded domains, analytics, QR codes and an API, free for up to 1,000 links.
A PHP URL shortener you host on your own domain, with click statistics, an API and plugins.
A small vendor, and analytics are simpler than on the larger marketing platforms.
The interface is dated and multi-user features need plugins.
Production-ready (both)
Cloud service
Self-hosted server
Not published
PHP and MySQL
Closed source, sold by Short.io
Open source, MIT (permissive)
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
You can build it into a product you sell, as long as you keep its copyright notice.
No Wikipedia article of its own
12k GitHub stars
Not known
Established: started 14 years ago, latest release 1.10.6.
Other comparisons
More URL shorteners
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.