A link shortener with no database
The link carries
itself
A classic shortener stores a short-to-long mapping and dies the day the service does. This one compresses the URL and puts the result in the link. Expanding is pure arithmetic, so there is no lookup to make and no date it stops working. It is free, it needs no account, and nobody is tracking you.
- median: length after / before
- 0.35
- chars: mean shortened address
- 25
- rows stored
- 0
The tool
Paste a link, take a shorter one
All of this runs in your browser. The URL you paste never reaches a server, because there is nothing to store. You do not need an account, there is no limit, and the QR code is right there to download.
−51% shorter80 bits
Why this is different
No database is a guarantee, not a saving.
Everything below follows from one decision: the short link is the URL, not a key to the URL in someone else's database.
Nothing expires
There is no row to delete and no vendor to shut the service down. A link from a five-year-old flyer resolves exactly the same, on any machine that has the code.
No user data
Shortening happens in the browser. There is no log of URLs, no profiling and no consent to collect, because there is nothing to process.
Works offline
Expanding a link is arithmetic over tables that ship with the code. The library runs in Node and in the browser, with no network.
Stateless redirects
The /{payload} route is a pure function of the path, so it caches at the edge. Scaling is a CDN question, not a replica question.
For business
Run it on your own domain
Short links and QR codes under your brand, with no third party in the critical path. One container or one edge function, with no database, no backups, no migrations and no bill that grows with the number of links.
Your domain, your traffic
The links look like yours because they are yours. No traffic passes through anyone else's server, and no vendor can switch all your links off at once.
Stateless, so nothing to maintain
Nothing to back up and nothing to restore after an incident. A deploy is a static build plus two redirect routes, so the cost does not grow with the links you issue.
QR codes that do not die
Packaging, flyers, signage, billboards: a code printed today works for as long as your domain does. There is no subscription to keep alive and no service that can disappear.
GDPR without acrobatics
Shortening creates no dataset: there is no register of URLs, no rows to erase on request and no retention period to describe in a policy.
Integration and rollout
The library drops into an existing product: a TypeScript SDK, QR generation, redirects on your own infrastructure. We can roll out the whole thing or hand over the code and a runbook.
Support and format stability
A versioned wire format with frozen compatibility tests: an update never changes what links already in the wild decode to.
Pricing after a conversation
The price depends on scale and on how much of the rollout we take on, from a licence with a runbook to a turnkey deployment on your infrastructure. Tell us what you want to run and you get a scope and a number back.
For: brands with print and QR in circulation, fintech and regulated sectors, agencies, SaaS products planning a shortener of their own.
Want to look first? demo.stackurl.pl is a running instance: the shortener alone on its own domain, exactly what you get on yours.