Made in Europe
Developed in Germany with a clear focus on European requirements, data protection, and operational sovereignty.
Self-hosted URL infrastructure
URL shortening for teams that need control.
A European open-source URL shortener from Germany, designed for self-hosted operation and full hosting sovereignty.
Product positioning
Built for hosting sovereignty.
URLShortener is a European URL management solution developed in Germany. The base version is open source and the system is designed for on-premises deployment. Organizations decide where the system is hosted, how it is operated, and under which security and compliance requirements it runs.
No mandatory cloud service, no forced vendor-hosting, and no unclear data location. Instead, teams keep full control over links, data, infrastructure, and operations.
Open-Source Foundation
The base version is open source, making the core functionality transparent, inspectable, and extensible.
Self-Hosted by Design
Run URLShortener on your own infrastructure or in a hosting environment of your choice. You decide where the system lives.
Product capabilities
Everything needed to operate short links in your own environment.
Focused features for link creation, redirect reliability, operational visibility, and data portability.
Short link management
Generate Base62 short codes or assign custom aliases with expiration and active-state controls.
REST administration
Create, list, edit, delete, toggle, validate imports, and export mappings through a local admin API.
Operator UI
A Vaadin interface for teams that prefer a browser-based administration surface.
Analytics
Hourly and daily redirect counts with referrer, user-agent, and privacy-aware IP hash signals.
Import and export
ZIP-based bulk operations with validation staging, conflict detection, and invalid-entry reporting.
Persistent storage
Start in-memory for development and switch to EclipseStore for durable production deployments.
Architecture
Small modules, explicit boundaries.
The project is structured around clear runtime responsibilities: domain logic, server endpoints, Java client access, and UI. That makes it easier to inspect, deploy, and extend without carrying a large application framework.
Review architecture
urlshortener-core
Domain model and utilities
urlshortener-server
REST API and redirect listener
urlshortener-client
Java SDK for API access
urlshortener-ui
Vaadin administration UI
Hosting sovereignty
You choose where the system runs.
URLShortener is currently designed as an OnPrem-only solution. This means the hosting location is not dictated by the vendor. Teams can operate the system in their own data center, on a dedicated server, or with a trusted hosting provider of their choice.
This approach gives organizations control over network boundaries, operational policies, backup strategies, logging, monitoring, and compliance requirements.
Hosting model
Currently OnPrem only
Data location
Customer selectable
Vendor cloud
Not mandatory
Operational control
Customer owned
quick-start.sh
git clone https://github.com/svenruppert/url-shortener.git
cd url-shortener
mvn clean package -DskipTests
cd urlshortener-server
java -jar target/urlshortener-server-*.jar
curl -X POST http://localhost:9090/api/shorten \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"originalUrl":"https://example.com","alias":"demo"}'
curl -L http://localhost:8081/demoDeployment path
From clone to first redirect in minutes.
The default setup starts with in-memory storage for local evaluation. Production deployments can enable EclipseStore and keep the public redirect listener separate from local administration.
Open getting started guideSponsor the project
Shape the roadmap — submit prioritized feature requests.
Sponsorship keeps the open-source edition active. From the Backer tier upward, sponsors can submit feature requests that are reviewed and prioritized — integrated into the core, offered as a module, or transparently declined.