YOURLS: Your Own URL Shortener
YOURLS is a self-hosted url shortener tool. Your Own URL Shortener.
Why self-host YOURLS
The case for running YOURLS at home is straightforward: you get the full feature set, no subscription cost, and no data sitting on someone else’s server.
What it does
YOURLS falls into the URL Shortener category of self-hosted software. It is designed to be deployed on your own infrastructure, whether that is a home server, a VPS, or a local machine running Docker.
Community traction
The project has 11k stars on GitHub, which is a reasonable proxy for how widely it is used. Active repositories tend to ship bug fixes faster and have better documentation than projects that stall after the initial release.
Deployment
Getting YOURLS running usually takes under an hour if you have a working Docker setup. The official documentation covers the basic deployment steps.
Alternatives
If YOURLS does not fit your needs, common alternatives include Bitly. The self-hosted versions of these tools often differ in resource requirements and feature focus, so it is worth testing the one that matches your workload.
Maturity
The current release is 1.9.2. The project has moved past early development and tends to ship stable, documented releases.
License
It is licensed under MIT, making it freely available for personal and commercial use.
Links
Whether you are just starting with self-hosting or adding to an existing setup, YOURLS is a reasonable pick in the url shortener space.