head to head · open source
goaccess vs Shlink
goaccess has 21,110 GitHub stars, 1,210 forks, 449 open issues and last shipped 6 days ago. Shlink has 5,402 stars, 445 forks, 22 open issues and last shipped yesterday. goaccess leads on adoption by 291% (21,110 vs 5,402 stars). goaccess is written in C under MIT; Shlink is written in PHP under MIT. goaccess has attracted 6% as many forks as stars, Shlink 8%. Shlink 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
| goaccess | Shlink | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 21K | ★ 5.4K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | C | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-10-28 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.2K | ⑂ 445 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick goaccess if
- You weight community size — 21K 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 goaccess
GoAccess ======== What is it? GoAccess is an open source, real time web log analyzer and interactive viewer that runs in a terminal on nix systems or directly in your browser. Designed with system administrators, DevOps engineers, and security professionals in mind, it delivers fast, actionable HTTP statistics and visual server reports on the fly. GoAccess parses your web server logs in real time and presents the data directly in the terminal or via a live HTML dashboard, making it easy to monitor traffic, detect anomalies, and troubleshoot issues instantly. More info at: Features GoAccess parses the specified…
read the full goaccess 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 goaccess or Shlink more popular?
goaccess has 21,110 GitHub stars and Shlink has 5,402. goaccess has the larger community by that measure.
Are goaccess and Shlink free?
Both are open source. goaccess is licensed under MIT and Shlink under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between goaccess and Shlink?
goaccess 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, goaccess or Shlink?
Choose goaccess if you want the larger community (21,110 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Shlink if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.