Bitly vs Short.io

Bitly was previously the leader in the link shortening/tracking space, but they have fallen far behind newer alternatives, like Dub Links (which we use). Bitly doesn't have a modern UI interface, their link tracking doesn't update in real time, and their users report that it is unnecessarily complicated to pull meaningful reports.

If you're not on a paid tier, heads up, they're running ads against your links. I can't tell you how many links I've clicked on from huge YouTubers or brands, only to get redirected to a spammy ad before my destination 😅

Not to mention, their paid tiers are incredibly restrictive. For example, to get a year’s worth of history of your tracking analytics (which should be table stakes), their tier starts at $199.

If you're looking for a link shortener, our recommendation is to skip Bitly.

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-enough 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.

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 learned about Dub, which is modern link shortening platform that actually has a good user experience and totally reasonable pricing...and wow. Our experience is 1000x better. Yes 1000x! We can actually get accurate and helpful link tracking now. You can read our full Dub Links Review to learn more about why we love it.

We switched and have not looked back to Short, so you're looking for a new link tracking tool, save yourself some time and just use Dub instead.