Dub
Open-source link management and attribution for modern marketing teams
Dub is an open-source link-management and attribution platform: branded short links, click and conversion analytics, and an API to create links programmatically. For an indie founder it answers "which post, channel, or campaign actually drove signups?" — but it measures growth, it doesn't create it. The harder half is filling those links with content, social, SEO, and outreach that earns the click in the first place.
What Dub is
Dub (github.com/dubinc/dub) is an open-source platform for creating and tracking short links. It is the open-source side of the same category as Bitly or Rebrandly: you point a branded domain at it, generate links, and Dub records clicks, devices, locations, and — when you wire up its conversion tracking — downstream signups and revenue. It is built in TypeScript, offers a hosted plan, and can be self-hosted from the repo.
- Branded short links on your own domain, created in bulk or via API.
- Click + conversion analytics — see which link drove a signup, not just a click.
- Attribution across channels, so you can compare a Reddit post to a newsletter to an ad.
- Open-source + self-hostable, so the link data stays yours.
Where Dub fits in a founder's growth stack
Dub is the measurement layer. It tells you where attention is converting so you can spend your limited time on the channels that work. That is genuinely useful — most early founders cannot answer "which channel got me my last 10 users?", and Dub makes that answerable with a link per channel.
But measurement is only valuable once there is something to measure. A link with no campaign behind it reports zero clicks. The growth itself comes from the work upstream of the link — see the playbook in how do I get my first 100 users.
What Dub doesn't do — and what to pair it with
Dub does not write your content, run your SEO, post to social, or send your outreach. It is deliberately a focused tool: links and attribution. To turn its analytics into actual growth you still need execution across channels.
| Dub measures… | …the work that creates it |
|---|---|
| Clicks from a blog post | SEO content that ranks and gets read |
| Clicks from social | social posts shipped consistently in your voice |
| Conversions per campaign | the campaigns, offers, and follow-ups behind each link |
This is where Ceres — the AI Growth Officer complements a tool like Dub. Ceres is a managed AI marketing team: specialists draft the SEO, social, and outreach that fill your Dub links, you approve what ships, and Dub measures the result. The tool tracks the growth; the team does the growing. For how AI engines fit into that, see generative engine optimization.
FAQ
- Is Dub free?
- Dub is open-source (you can self-host it for free) and also offers a hosted plan with a free tier and paid plans for higher volume and team features. Check the repo and dub.co for current limits.
- Is Dub open source?
- Yes — the code is public at github.com/dubinc/dub and can be self-hosted, which is the main reason teams pick it over a closed tool like Bitly when they want to own their link data.
- Do I need Dub as a solo founder?
- Only once you have more than one channel to compare. If you are still finding your first users, a single tracked link per channel is enough; reach for Dub when you want clean per-channel attribution. The bigger early bottleneck is creating the campaigns the links point to — see /roles/seo-content and /roles/social-media.
You built it. Now grow it.
Ceres is a managed AI marketing team — specialists draft the SEO, social, and outreach that fill your links, you approve what ships. 14-day free trial, from $19/month.