Short.io

Updated Mar 15, 2026

2 comparisons

2 alternatives

FTC compliant

Review

Comparison2

Review Summary

Copy Link

After trying various link shorteners, I found Short, which was basic but met my needs.

But I didn’t switch to Short.io because it was a great solution – I did it because it was just adequate enough to do the most basic of redirects. Case in point: I never once used it for reporting because it was a complete mess.

Then I tried Dub Links and was drawn to how simple/clean the UI/UX was. I switched over from Short and haven't look back. Oh, and I check my analytics in Dub now too as they have much more simple/user-friendly dashboards.

Short.io Alternatives

Copy Link

Not sure if Short.io is the right fit for you? Check out these alternatives:

Dub Links
Best
Best for modern link attribution, a true industry disrupter
Best for modern link attribution, a true industry disrupter

What is Short.io?

Copy Link

In trying just about every link shortener on the market, in addition to using my own self-hosted solution (twice), I finally landed on Short, and at the time, it was pretty basic, but a solid solution for what I was looking to achieve with it. And I couldn't complain, they have a super generous free tier, for which you don't need to pay until you hit 50,000+ link clicks, which would never be hit for most individuals and businesses.

Key Features

Copy Link

Close All

User Interface

Copy Link

They have a pretty basic UI that looks very much like any off the shelf templated dashboard interface. It's nothing special, and looks quite dated in-fact, especially when looking at the reporting.

User Experience

Copy Link

This is absolutely what drove us to leave Short in the end. They have such a difficult to use interface that is slow to load and extremely buggy. Simply trying to search or filter down your links to find what you're looking for is incredibly painful.

I think what is most clear here is that a back-end developer built this URL shortener, because the functionality of what it does has been quite solid, it's just interacting with the back-end is just frustrating and unbearable.

Pricing

Copy Link

For the most part, you can get away with just the free tier for most usage. This is a positive and negative though. If they charged more, I think they'd actually be able to hire more engineers and designers to improve the product.

Final Verdict

Copy Link

I've been looking for a link shortener that I'd actually enjoy using for over a decade at this point, and while Short is what I landed on the past couple years, I was never actually happy with it, keeping my eyes open the entire time.

Enter Dub Links, the URL shortener that was made by someone that is not only a super talented product person, but also a full-stack engineer that built it using the most modern tech stack. After using Dub, it's difficult to go back to a tool like Short.