head to head · open source
duckdb vs Shlink
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars, 4,176 forks, 858 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Shlink has 5,402 stars, 445 forks, 22 open issues and last shipped yesterday. duckdb leads on adoption by 691% (42,747 vs 5,402 stars). duckdb is written in C++ under MIT; Shlink is written in PHP under MIT. duckdb has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, Shlink 8%. duckdb was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| duckdb | Shlink | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 43K | ★ 5.4K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | C++ | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 4.2K | ⑂ 445 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick duckdb if
- You weight community size — 43K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Shlink if
- You want the Shlink feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and Shlink fits your workflow better
About duckdb
DuckDB DuckDB is a high performance analytical database system. It is designed to be fast, reliable, portable, and easy to use. DuckDB provides a rich SQL dialect with support far beyond basic SQL. DuckDB supports arbitrary and nested correlated subqueries, window functions, collations, complex types (arrays, structs, maps), and several extensions designed to make SQL easier to use. DuckDB is available as a standalone CLI application and has clients for Python, R, Java, Wasm, etc., with deep integrations with packages such as pandas and dplyr. For more information on using DuckDB, please refer to the DuckDB…
read the full duckdb overview →
About Shlink
A PHP based self hosted URL shortener that can be used to serve shortened URLs under your own domain. Table of Contents Full documentation Docker image Self hosted Download Configure Using shlink Contributing Full documentation This document contains the very basics to get started with Shlink. If you want to learn everything you can do with it, visit the full searchable documentation. Docker image You can learn how to use the official docker image by reading the docs. The idea is that you can just generate a container using the image and provide the custom config via env vars. Self hosted First, make sure the…
read the full Shlink overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is duckdb or Shlink more popular?
duckdb has 42,747 GitHub stars and Shlink has 5,402. duckdb has the larger community by that measure.
Are duckdb and Shlink free?
Both are open source. duckdb is licensed under MIT and Shlink under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between duckdb and Shlink?
duckdb is written in C++ and Shlink in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, duckdb or Shlink?
Choose duckdb if you want the larger community (42,747 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Shlink if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.