Dub Links vs Bitly

Let us save you the time and research: whether you're a creator, marketer, or a company looking for a link infrastructure there is no better solution than Dub, trust us, we've tried them all.

Dub is the most modern link shortening/analytics platform. If you've tried to use Bitly's analytic dashboards (or Short's), but they are horrendously kludgy 🙈 So much so, that they cause dread to even go into the back-end.

Dub on the other hand, provides a minimal UI, providing you with the analytics in crystal clear dashboard. With Dub you can easily spin up short links, QR codes, add tags for organization, and even enable things like password protection, expiring links, or geo-targeting.

All of this, AND they have the most generous free tier of all the tools out there to try it out. If you're looking for a new link shortener, Dub is hands down the best on the market.

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.