Dub.co is developer-first link infrastructure: a shortener with an API, SDKs, and an open source option, built so engineering teams can embed branded links and analytics directly into their own product. Raydar is a link-in-bio page with click tracking, aimed at the person whose problem is one bio slot, not a codebase. If your actual need is building link infrastructure into your own app, Dub is the better answer. That's the whole verdict in one sentence; everything after this is detail on why.
what dub is built for
Dub grew out of the developer tooling world, and it still reads that way. It ships a public API and SDKs, offers custom domains for branded short links, and provides real-time click analytics that a team can pipe into its own dashboards. Because it's open source, some teams self-host it rather than use the hosted version, which is a genuinely different trust and control model than almost anything else in this category. Dub has also leaned into partner and affiliate link programs, letting a SaaS company track referral links tied to specific partners or affiliates as part of the product itself, not as a marketing side project. It's a url shortener at the core, but one built to be embedded, extended, and self-hosted rather than just logged into.
what raydar is built for
Raydar doesn't ask anyone to touch an API to get value from it. It's a page at raydar.bio/yourhandle, or your own domain from the first paid plan, holding a menu of links, a QR code, and a digital business card, with click tracking that captures UTM parameters, referrer, and first-touch and last-touch cookies on everything that happens there. Geo tracking goes to country and city level, and visitor identification runs on IP-hash matching with explicit high-confidence and low-confidence tiers, never device fingerprinting and never a data broker claiming to identify everyone who lands on a page. Qualifier flows sit in front of any link, asking a visitor a short set of questions, graded automatically, before they reach a destination. You don't need a development team to get any of that running. It's built for someone managing their own bio link, not a codebase shipping links as a feature.
the mechanism people miss: infrastructure vs a page
What actually separates these two tools has nothing to do with feature counts. It comes down to who the tool is for. Dub is infrastructure, meant to sit underneath something else: your own SaaS product's referral system, your marketing team's campaign tracking, or a self-hosted instance your engineers control end to end. Its analytics measure events on redirects across a domain that can hold thousands of independently created links, and its value shows up once a developer wires it into a workflow that already exists. Raydar is a destination, not infrastructure. It's the page itself, meant to be visited directly by a human who taps a link in a bio and lands somewhere with content to explore. A visitor identification model, a qualifier flow, and a digital business card only make sense on something a person actually looks at, not on a redirect that fires and forgets in milliseconds. Buying Dub because you wanted a page is a bit like buying a database because you wanted a spreadsheet. It might contain the same data eventually, but you'll be writing code to get there. The reverse mistake happens just as often: a solo developer reaches for raydar to power an affiliate program inside their own app, then finds there's no API to call and no self-hosted deployment to point at, because raydar was never built to be embedded in someone else's codebase.
dub co vs bitly
Dub and Bitly both shorten links and offer custom domains, but they're aimed at different buyers. Bitly is built for marketers who want a dashboard: click analytics, QR codes, and campaign tracking without touching code. Dub is built for developers who want an API and, if they choose, the option to self-host rather than depend on a vendor's infrastructure at all. That's a meaningfully different bet: Bitly asks you to trust its hosted platform long term, while Dub's open source option gives teams an exit if they ever need one. Neither is a link-in-bio tool, so if you're specifically comparing raydar against Bitly rather than Dub, that full breakdown is at raydar vs bitly.
is dub co free
Dub does offer a free tier, and because part of the product is open source, there's also a genuinely free path for teams willing to self-host and manage their own infrastructure. The hosted free tier, like most in this category, caps link volume and limits how much of the analytics and branded domain functionality you get before a paid plan becomes necessary. Self-hosting removes the plan ceiling but adds the cost of running and maintaining the infrastructure yourself, which is its own tradeoff, not a free lunch. Raydar's free plan covers the bio page, click tracking, and QR codes with no card required, with custom domains unlocking on the first paid tier, detailed on pricing.
raydar vs dub at a glance
| Capability | Raydar | Dub |
|---|---|---|
| Primary purpose | Link-in-bio page with click tracking | Developer-first link infrastructure and API |
| API and SDKs | Not the product's focus | Core feature, built to be embedded |
| Self-hosting option | No, hosted only | Yes, open source |
| Custom domain | Yes, from the first paid plan, one page | Yes, for many independently minted links |
| Click analytics | UTM capture, referrer, first and last touch cookies | Real-time click and event analytics via API |
| Geo on clicks | Country and city level | Available, precision varies by plan |
| Visitor identification | IP-hash based, high and low confidence tiers | Not a feature of the product |
| Qualifier flows before a link | Yes, including AI-graded free-text answers | Not a feature of the product |
| Affiliate or partner link tracking | Referral payouts and gift credit links | Built-in partner program tooling |
| QR codes | Yes, plus a digital business card | Yes, per link |
| Free tier | Yes, no card required | Yes, capped, plus a self-hosted option |
when dub is the better pick
If you're an engineering team building link tracking into your own product, whether that's an affiliate program, a referral system, or campaign attribution that has to live inside a larger codebase, Dub is genuinely the better tool, and no amount of bio-page polish changes that. Its API-first design and open source option mean a team can control exactly how link data is stored, queried, and exposed, something a hosted bio page was never built to offer. If you need to track affiliate links as part of a product feature rather than a marketing campaign, or you want the option to self-host and own the infrastructure outright (a real consideration if you've ever watched a vendor change its pricing overnight), Dub is the honest recommendation here, not raydar. Raydar does support referral payouts and gift credit links on its own side, but that's a feature for rewarding people who share your page, not an API a developer can wire into an unrelated product.
when raydar is the better pick
If you're a creator, a small business, or anyone whose actual problem is the single link in a bio that needs to hold several destinations and tell you something about who's clicking, raydar fits without asking you to write a line of code. Geo and referrer data, visitor confidence tiers, and a qualifier flow in front of a link all work out of the box, and tagging your own campaign links with a UTM builder beforehand makes the resulting data, explained in more depth at what click tracking measures, immediately useful without any backend of your own.
dub.co alternatives worth knowing about
Dub sits closest to a small group of other API-leaning shorteners: Rebrandly and Short.io both offer bulk branded link creation with dashboard and API access, and Bitly remains the default choice for teams that want analytics without touching infrastructure. None of them are link-in-bio pages, which means none of them solve the bio-slot problem raydar is built around. If that's the actual need underneath the search, a comparison of linktree alternatives is a more useful place to keep reading than another shortener roundup.
the verdict
Pick Dub if you're building link infrastructure into your own product or want the option to self-host and own that layer outright. Pick raydar if your problem is a single bio link that needs to hold multiple destinations, report back on who's clicking, and qualify a visitor before they reach a link, all without a development team behind it. These are different problems for different people. Match the tool to the job, not to your job title, and you won't be rebuilding this in six months.