YOURLS
Your Own URL Shortener: the veteran PHP script that has run personal short domains since 2010.
About
YOURLS, short for Your Own URL Shortener, is a set of free, open-source PHP scripts (MIT license) that run a personal URL shortening service on your own server. It has been around since about 2010, created by Ozh Richard, and version 1.7.6 shipped recently with a bundled Bitly-like random-keyword plugin (per a 2026 community write-up). Out of the box you get custom keywords, private and public link modes, historical click reports, referrer tracking, visitor geolocation, bookmarklets for one-click shortening, and a developer API, all behind an Ajaxed admin interface. Its real strength is the plugin architecture: the community has built over 300 plugins covering QR codes, geolocation redirects, link previews, and spam filtering. Sponsorship runs through Open Collective.
YOURLS is lighter and older than Shlink but also more basic by default and slower-moving; releases are infrequent and the out-of-box feature set trails modern SaaS. It needs a PHP and MySQL host, and scaling it is your problem. No published independent benchmarks for performance. Still, for a personal short domain on cheap shared hosting, it remains the simplest path.
What it can do
- Self-hosted shortening on your own domain
- Custom keywords for memorable branded links
- Private or public link modes
- Historical click reports with referrer tracking
- Visitor geolocation data
- Developer API for programmatic link management
- Browser bookmarklets for one-click shortening
- Bulk URL shortening
- 300+ community plugins for QR codes, redirects, and more
- Free and open-source under the MIT license
Setup
Upload the PHP scripts to any host with PHP and MySQL, run the friendly installer, and point your domain at it.
Prerequisites
Web hosting with PHP and MySQL; a domain for your short links.
Use cases
Works with
Trust score — 7/10
Scored 7/10 (verified tier, metrics-v1). Evidence: yourls.org and the GitHub repo document the MIT license, the PHP/MySQL requirements, the plugin architecture, and the API; third-party profiles confirm the ~2010 origin, Ozh Richard's authorship, and the 300+ plugin ecosystem. Strengths: dead-simple personal shortener, permissive license, runs on the cheapest shared hosting. Docked for: (1) basic out-of-box features versus Shlink or SaaS rivals; (2) infrequent releases and community-paced maintenance; (3) you own hosting, scaling, and security. License: MIT.
How the trust score is built
Full methodology →- Adoption · stars/downloads, log-scaled vs peers
- 7.0/10
- Maintenance · recency, releases, issue load
- 6.0/10
- Openness · license + docs
- 10.0/10
- Manual review · sanity read + red-flag check
- 7.0/10
- · Your Own URL Shortener; created by Ozh Richard
- · Running since about 2010
- · MIT license; sponsored via Open Collective
- · Version 1.7.6 ships a bundled Bitly-like random-keyword plugin (2026 community write-up)
- · Custom keywords, private/public modes, historical click reports
- · Referrer tracking and visitor geolocation
- · Developer API; browser bookmarklets; bulk shortening
- · 300+ community plugins: QR codes, geolocation redirects, spam filtering
Sources
Every fact above was checked against these sources. Where a claim comes from the provider and couldn't be independently verified, the text says so.