LinkPulse ⚡

The self-hosted Bitly alternative that tells you which social app your clicks came from.

Bitly, Dub, and Shlink can't tell you whether a click came from the X in-app browser or Safari. LinkPulse can — WeChat, LINE, Instagram, X, TikTok, Facebook, QQ, Weibo, DingTalk and more, detected per click, right on your dashboard.

中文版说明

Why LinkPulse

• Know where clicks really come from. Every click is attributed to its host app — WeChat, LINE, Instagram, X, TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Pinterest, Reddit, LinkedIn, QQ, Weibo, DingTalk — plus browser, OS, language, referrer and UTM passthrough. Stop guessing which social channel actually converts.
• Free forever. No $10–$300/mo subscription, no per-seat pricing, no "5 links on the free plan". Your server, your links, your data. They can never be held hostage by a cancelled subscription.
• One-command deploy. docker compose up and you're live. Or paste one prompt into Claude / Codex / Muse and let your AI agent deploy it for you (see below).
• Built-in A/B testing. Split one short link between two target pages by ratio, compare clicks per variant on the dashboard. No third-party experiment tool needed.
• Privacy-first. Raw IP addresses are never stored — only a salted, truncated SHA-256 hash used for 30-minute repeat-click detection. No cookies, no fingerprinting.
• QR codes included. One click generates a shareable QR code PNG per link. Bitly charges extra for this.

LinkPulse vs the rest

	LinkPulse	Bitly	Dub.co	BL.INK	Shlink
Price	Free forever (self-hosted)	$10–$300/mo (free: 5 links/mo)	from $24/mo	Custom (enterprise)	Free (self-hosted)
Self-hosted	✅	❌	✅ (complex setup)	❌	✅
Social in-app attribution	✅ WeChat / LINE / IG / X / TikTok / FB …	❌	❌	❌	❌
Built-in A/B testing	✅	❌	❌	—	❌
QR codes	✅ included	Paid add-on	Paid plans	—	✅
Click analytics	✅	Paid plans	✅	✅	✅
Your data stays on your server	✅	❌	❌	❌	✅
One-command deploy	✅ docker compose up	—	—	—	✅

Quick start

git clone https://github.com/vorojar/linkpulse.git
cd linkpulse
cp .env.example .env   # fill in ADMIN_PASSWORD, IP_SALT, CRON_SECRET, POSTGRES_PASSWORD
docker compose up -d --build

Open http://your-server:8080, enter your ADMIN_PASSWORD — done. The database schema is created automatically on first boot.

For a public domain with HTTPS, put Caddy / Traefik / Nginx in front (e.g. go.example.com → 127.0.0.1:8080).

Deploy with your AI agent

Using Claude, Codex, Muse or any coding agent? Paste this prompt — it deploys the whole stack to your VPS:

Deploy the LinkPulse stack from https://github.com/vorojar/linkpulse to my Ubuntu 24.04 VPS (IP: YOUR_VPS_IP) using docker compose.

1. Clone the repo.
2. Copy .env.example to .env and generate strong random values for ADMIN_PASSWORD, IP_SALT, CRON_SECRET, POSTGRES_PASSWORD.
3. Run docker compose up -d --build.
4. Verify http://YOUR_VPS_IP:8080/api/health returns HTTP 200. Then give me the dashboard URL and tell me where the admin password is stored.

Point your own domain at the VPS and add HTTPS with Caddy (reverse_proxy 127.0.0.1:8080) when you're ready to share links publicly.

Configuration

All settings are environment variables (see .env.example):

Variable	Required	Purpose
ADMIN_PASSWORD	✅	Dashboard login password
IP_SALT	✅	Salt for hashing visitor IPs (privacy)
CRON_SECRET	✅	Protects the daily aggregation endpoint
POSTGRES_PASSWORD	✅	Database password
POSTGRES_DB	–	Database name (default linkpulse)
PORT	–	Web port (default 8080)

Features

• Short links — auto 6-char slugs or custom codes, create / edit / delete from the dashboard
• Click analytics — totals, today / 7-day / 14-day trend (clicks + unique visitors), top channels, top referrers, 24×7 activity heatmap, live click stream
• Social attribution — per-click host app (WeChat / LINE / Instagram / X / TikTok / Facebook / …), browser, OS, language, referrer, UTM passthrough
• Repeat detection — same visitor re-clicking within 30 minutes is flagged, not double-counted as a unique
• A/B testing — two target URLs per link, configurable traffic split, per-variant click counts
• QR codes — GET /api/links/:id/qr returns a PNG, downloadable from the dashboard
• Single admin login — HTTP Basic auth, no user management to babysit
• English / 中文 UI — toggle in the header, remembered per browser

Privacy by design

• Visitor IPs are never stored. Each click stores SHA256(IP_SALT + ip) truncated to 16 hex chars — enough to detect repeat clicks, impossible to reverse.
• No cookies, no fingerprinting, no third-party trackers. The dashboard is a single static page talking to your own API.

API

Method	Endpoint	Description
GET	/:slug	302 redirect + async click logging
GET	/api/links	List links (auth)
POST	/api/links	Create link (auth)
PATCH	/api/links/:id	Edit target / A-B / title / channel (auth)
DELETE	/api/links/:id	Delete link + its stats (auth)
GET	/api/stats/overview	Dashboard stats (auth)
GET	/api/links/:id/qr	QR code PNG (auth)
GET	/api/health	Health check

Auth: HTTP Basic, user admin, password ADMIN_PASSWORD.

Local development

npm install
cp .env.example .env   # needs a reachable Postgres; set DATABASE_URL or POSTGRES_* vars
node migrate.js && node server.js

Stack: Node.js + Express, PostgreSQL, vanilla JS dashboard (no build step, no framework).

License

MIT — see LICENSE. Your links, your server, your rules.