On this page+
Dub is the modern open-source link shortener that developers liked when it launched in late 2023. Built by Steven Tey on Cloudflare, Tinybird, and Postgres, the product moves fast and the dashboard feels current. Trakl is a marketing-first link shortener with UTM workflow as the centerpiece.
Both tools have a place. The question is who creates links on your team.
What Dub is
Dub launched in late 2023 and grew fast inside the dev-tool community. The product is open source under AGPL with a hosted plan at dub.co. The hosted free tier is generous (1,000 links, 1,000 tracked clicks per month, custom domain support out of the box). The paid tier ($24 Pro at last writing) raises the limits and adds team features.
The product strengths: a clean modern dashboard, a strong API, link workspaces with folders, AI-suggested slugs, and Cloudflare-grade redirect performance globally. Dub also ships a CLI and SDK, so a dev team can integrate scripted link creation in a few minutes.
What Trakl is
Trakl is a SaaS link shortener built around the marketing team's weekly workflow. UTM source and medium come from a curated taxonomy, lowercase is enforced, smart-paste autofills the form from an existing tagged URL. Per-link analytics show source, medium, country, device, referrer on every paid tier.
Trakl is closed-source, hosted-only, and priced for small marketing teams. The free tier is 50 active links on trakl.app. The Pro tier ($29) adds custom domains and unlimited links.
Feature-by-feature
Where Dub wins
Dub · Wins
- Open source. Self-hostable under AGPL. If your security team requires that, Dub is the only credible option in this comparison.
- Mature API and SDK. CLI included. Scripted link creation works out of the box.
- Free tier is genuinely usable. 1,000 links and 1,000 tracked clicks per month is more than most solo marketers ever need.
- Custom domains on free. Trakl reserves that for the $29 Pro tier.
- Workspaces with folders and roles. If you run multiple brands or a complex agency setup, the structure helps.
Dub · Lags
- UTM workflow is unopinionated. No source/medium taxonomy, no lowercase enforcement, no smart-paste. The cleanliness of your reports is on your team's discipline.
- Built more around a developer workflow than a marketing team workflow. The defaults reward people who script things; people who build links by hand find the UI less guided.
- Self-hosted setup is real work. Postgres, Tinybird, Upstash, Vercel. Not a Saturday afternoon for non-technical teams.
Where Trakl wins
Trakl · Wins
- UTM hygiene is the entire opinion of the product. Source and medium are taxonomy-driven. Lowercase is enforced. Smart-paste autofills from an existing tagged URL.
- Cheaper Starter tier. $9/mo for 500 links beats Dub's $24 Pro on raw cost for a small team that does not need 50,000 tracked events.
- Branded QR is a first-class feature on every paid tier, including logo upload and error-correction picker.
- Smart defaults pulled from past campaigns. If your team has built campaigns before, the form preloads source/medium/campaign suggestions.
Trakl · Lags
- No API in 2026. Scripted link creation is not on the table until late 2026.
- Not open source. If self-hosting is required, Trakl is not the right pick.
- Smaller free tier. 50 active links versus Dub's 1,000.
- Custom domain reserved for the $29 Pro tier.
When to pick Dub
- Self-hosting is a hard requirement. Trakl does not offer a self-hosted version. Dub does.
- You need an API today. Dub's API ships and is documented. Trakl's lands later.
- Your team is engineering-led. Dev teams who script most link creation through Zapier, Make, or custom code will find Dub's API ergonomics and SDK more natural.
- You need 1,000+ links per month on a free tier. Trakl tops out at 50 active.
When to pick Trakl
- Your team's UTM data is the problem. Mixed casings, channel categories that fall outside GA4's defaults, campaigns that show up in three different rows. Trakl is built to fix exactly this.
- A marketing team owns link creation. Marketers building links by hand benefit more from Trakl's guided flow than from Dub's API depth.
- You want a clean per-link analytics drilldown. Trakl's drilldown shows source, medium, country, device, referrer in one screen.
- You want branded QR design at $9/mo. Trakl includes branded QR on Starter. Most competitors gate it higher.
The piece on branded short links goes deeper on the custom-domain question that both tools solve well.
Frequently filed
Common questions.
Q.01Is Dub really open source?+
Yes. Dub's code is on GitHub under the AGPL. You can self-host the open-source version with your own infrastructure (Postgres, Tinybird, Upstash). The hosted version at dub.co adds managed hosting, a generous free tier, and paid team features.
Q.02Does Trakl plan to open source?+
Not in 2026. Trakl is a closed-source SaaS. The product roadmap focuses on product features rather than self-hosting infrastructure. If self-hosting is a hard requirement, Dub is the right answer.
Q.03Which has better team workflow features?+
Dub's workspaces and link folders are well-designed for an engineering team that creates many programmatic links. Trakl's UTM builder and per-link analytics are designed for a marketing team that creates campaigns. Pick the one that matches who actually creates links on your team.
By the byline
Trakl TeamEditorial team
We build Trakl, a link shortener and UTM tracker for marketing teams. We write here from the cleanup work, support tickets, and campaign reviews that fill the rest of our week. Specifics over slogans, and we cite the source.
Photo: Growtika on Unsplash
