Polr

Judgement

What it is

Complete system

What it does

A Laravel-based self-hosted URL shortener with an API, analytics and themes.

Adopt it when

Rarely; choose Shlink, YOURLS or Kutt for a maintained shortener.

Watch out

Last release is a beta and pushes stopped in May 2024.

Ready for

Experimental

Runs as

Self-hosted server

Built with

PHP, Laravel and AngularJS

How established

Established: started 13 years ago, latest release 2.3.0b.

What the license allows

Use inside your business is unrestricted, but anything you distribute that includes it must be released under the same license.

Judged on 2026-11-03 from the project's README and GitHub data. The license and age lines are worked out directly.

Built from

Follow it down: Polr → Php-src → GCC → LLVM project → runs on a microchip

How compilers were built, back to punched paper tape

Open-source alternatives to Polr

1. 1
   YOURLS YOURLS

   🔗 The 𝘥𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘰 standard, self hosted, powerful and customizable, URL shortener in PHP

   Complete system Production-ready You want branded short links on your own domain on cheap PHP and MySQL hosting.

   ★ 12k MIT PHP Active, pushed today
2. 2
   Kutt thedevs-network

   Free Modern URL Shortener.

   Complete system Production-ready You want a modern self-hosted Bitly alternative with a clean interface.

   ★ 11k MIT JavaScript Active, pushed 15 days ago
3. 3
   Sink miantiao-me

   ⚡ A Simple, Speedy, Secure, and Serverless Link Shortener with Analytics, Running Entirely on Cloudflare.

   Complete system Usable You already use Cloudflare and want branded short links with analytics at near-zero hosting cost.

   ★ 7.2k AGPL-3.0 TypeScript Active, pushed 7 days ago
4. 4
   Shlink shlinkio

   The definitive self-hosted URL shortener

   Complete system Production-ready You need an API-first shortener for marketing or product links on your own infrastructure.

   ★ 5.4k MIT PHP Active, pushed today
5. 5
   Rustypaste orhun

   A minimal file upload/pastebin service.

   Complete system Production-ready You want a 0x0.st-style upload endpoint on your own server for sharing logs, snippets and files from the terminal.

   ★ 1.2k MIT Rust Active, pushed 2 days ago
6. 6
   Chhoto URL SinTan1729

   A simple, blazingly fast, selfhosted URL shortener with no unnecessary features; written in Rust

   Complete system Usable You want short links on your own domain with as little resource use and as few features as possible.

   ★ 997 MIT Rust Active, pushed yesterday
7. 7
   Url-Shorten-Worker xyTom

   A URL Shortener created using Cloudflare worker

   Complete system Usable You want personal short links on Cloudflare's free tier with almost no setup.

   ★ 1.8k MIT JavaScript Slowing, pushed 8 months ago
8. 8
   JSONCrush KilledByAPixel

   Compress JSON into URL friendly strings

   Building block Usable You want to store small app or game state in a URL without a backend.

   ★ 1.7k MIT JavaScript Slowing, pushed 9 months ago

Commercial URL shorteners

1. 1
   Bitly Bitly

   Bitly makes it easy to create, share, and track short links and QR Codes. Find what

   Complete system Production-ready Marketing teams need branded short links and QR codes with click analytics across campaigns.

   16k readers a month Since 2009 Commercial
2. 2
   Rebrandly Rebrandly

   Best link shortener for marketing teams. Create branded short URLs, track campaign performance, and boost clicks with custom domains. Start for free.

   Complete system Production-ready You care most about branded domains for links and want a cheaper option than Bitly's higher tiers.

   Commercial
3. 3
   Short.io Short.io

   Free URL shortener with custom branded domains, analytics, and QR codes. Create up to 1,000 branded short links at no cost. No credit card required.

   Complete system Production-ready A small business wants branded short links on its own domain at low or no cost.

   Commercial