Dub

What is Dub?

Dub is an open source link management and attribution platform. It creates branded short links, tracks clicks with analytics behind them, and connects those clicks to downstream conversion data so you can tell which link actually produced a result. You can run it yourself from the source or use the hosted product at dub.co, which is the usual open core arrangement. Beyond its own function it has a second life as a reference implementation, since the codebase is a real, production grade SaaS product built in the open, and developers read it to see how things like billing, workspaces and analytics are structured in practice. Teams at companies including Framer, Perplexity, Superhuman, Twilio and Buffer are listed as users. If you have been pasting long tracking URLs into posts and guessing which channel worked, this is the category of tool that answers it.

Who is Dub for?

This fits when links are how your marketing is measured and generic shorteners are not telling you enough. Running campaigns across several channels and needing to see which drove signups rather than only clicks, sharing links under your own domain because a neutral shortener looks untrustworthy, or wanting attribution data without adding another analytics vendor to your stack. The self hosting option matters if click data is sensitive or if a policy requires it stay on infrastructure you control. It is also worth a look purely as a codebase if you are building a SaaS product and want to see how a mature one is organized. If you need three short links a year, a free generic shortener is the proportionate answer.

How does Dub compare?

Postiz is the publishing side of the same workflow, scheduling and posting social content, and it pairs naturally with Dub since one puts the link out and the other measures what happened to it. Papercups shares the open source and self hostable philosophy but serves customer messaging rather than marketing measurement, making it a companion in a stack instead of an alternative. Pocketbase is infrastructure rather than an application, the thing you build on when you would rather assemble your own than adopt someone's product. Dub is the finished product among these, with a hosted option if you do not want to operate it, which is the main practical difference.

Compare with: Postiz, Pocketbase

Dub pricing

The catalog records Dub as freemium. That maps to the usual open core shape: the source is open and you may self host it at your own infrastructure cost, while the hosted service has a free entry level with paid tiers for heavier use and team features. Self hosting trades a subscription for servers, a database and the maintenance that comes with running a live service. Check the current plans and the license on the repository before committing either way, since open core terms and limits change over time.