Bitly vs LinkForge: An Honest Comparison

We make one of these, so read this with that in mind. What follows is accurate as far as we can verify it, including the cases where Bitly is the right answer for you.

Bitly figures checked against their published pricing page on 11 August 2026.

The numbers

Bitly free: 5 short links per month, 2 QR codes per month, 3 custom back-halves per month, 2 landing pages, unlimited clicks on existing links, basic click totals. Detailed analytics and longer retention sit on paid tiers.

LinkForge free: no monthly link cap, unlimited custom back-halves, QR codes in PNG and SVG, full analytics — country, device, browser, referrer, channel, campaign — with no retention window, password protection, expiry dates, click limits, UTM builder, CSV export and API access.

Where Bitly is genuinely the better choice

Brand recognition. A bit.ly link is instantly recognisable. In contexts where a stranger has to decide whether to trust a link — cold outreach, a first customer contact — that recognition is worth something real, and a domain nobody has seen isn't.

It will outlive most alternatives. Bitly has been around a long time and is a substantial business. If you're printing something with a ten-year life, that stability is a legitimate consideration.

Enterprise features. SSO, team management, SLAs, compliance paperwork. If your organisation needs those, that's a paid enterprise product and we don't compete there.

Deliverability on the shared domain. bit.ly is so widely used that most filters have a nuanced view of it. A brand-new shortener domain has no reputation at all, which cuts both ways.

Where LinkForge is the better choice

Volume. If you make more than about one link a week, the monthly cap becomes the deciding factor.

Analytics depth on a free budget. The breakdowns that answer "which channel worked" are the point of tracking, and they're free here.

Link controls. Password protection, expiry and click limits are free rather than paid.

Your own domain. Both support custom domains; ours is free, which changes who can realistically use it.

Data portability. Full CSV export of links and clicks. Anything you can't export is a lock-in.

The honest caveats

We're new. No track record, no accumulated domain reputation. Those are real disadvantages and time is the only fix.

Smaller team. Bitly has support staff and uptime commitments.

Your links depend on us continuing. Which is exactly why we'd tell you to put them on your own domain — then if we disappear, you repoint the DNS at another provider and every link you ever made keeps working. That option is the single most important feature in this entire comparison, and it's the one we'd argue for even if you choose someone else.

How to actually decide

If you make a few links a month and value the recognised brand, Bitly's free plan does that well.

If you're running campaigns, need to know which channel delivered, and don't want to pay for it, that's what we built.

Either way: get your own domain and put the links on it. That decision matters more than which of us you pick.

Try it free, or read how to judge any shortener first.