Sink vs YOURLS
Sink and YOURLS are both URL shortener software. Sink is open source under AGPL-3.0, with 7.2k GitHub stars. YOURLS is open source under MIT, with 12k GitHub stars.
Which to pick
- Pick Sink when
- You already use Cloudflare and want branded short links with analytics at near-zero hosting cost.
- Pick YOURLS when
- You want branded short links on your own domain on cheap PHP and MySQL hosting.
Side by side
A serverless link shortener with click analytics that runs entirely on Cloudflare Workers, KV and Analytics Engine.
A PHP URL shortener you host on your own domain, with click statistics, an API and plugins.
Tied to Cloudflare, pre-1.0, and AGPL licensed.
The interface is dated and multi-user features need plugins.
Usable
Production-ready
Cloud service
Self-hosted server
TypeScript, Vue, Nuxt and Cloudflare Workers
PHP and MySQL
Open source, AGPL-3.0 (network copyleft)
Open source, MIT (permissive)
Use inside your business is unrestricted. If you change it and let customers use it over the internet, you must publish your changes.
You can build it into a product you sell, as long as you keep its copyright notice.
7.2k GitHub stars
12k GitHub stars
Established: started 2 years ago, latest release v0.3.1.
Established: started 14 years ago, latest release 1.10.6.
Other comparisons
More URL shorteners
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from each project's README and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.