Let me start with a confession. Bitly's cheapest plan with a custom domain was listed at around $29 a month. I looked at my wallet. My wallet looked back with concern.
So I did what any reasonable developer does when the price is too high: I built my own. That's how Fewly was born.
"Compete with the tech giants" sounds like a movie trailer, I know. One guy, one laptop, one dream, and 47 open browser tabs. But stay with me, because the trick is not what you think.
You don't fight giants. You find the gap.
Big companies are cargo ships. Huge, powerful, and very busy chasing enterprise contracts. Freelancers, students and small creators are not on their radar, so the pricing slowly drifts toward whoever owns a corporate card.
I'm a speedboat. I can't carry 10,000 containers, but I can park in the small harbor nobody else bothers with.
Cuttly is kinder than Bitly, with paid plans from about $12 a month. Prices change, so check them yourself. The point is that the gap I found was not a missing feature. It was a missing price.
So what does Fewly do?
Paste a long URL, get a short one. No account needed. Then it gets more interesting:
- Free: 50 links a month, 30 days of analytics, basic QR codes.
- Pro, $5 a month: unlimited links, branded domains, 1 year of analytics, API.
- Team, $9 per seat: workspaces, roles and an audit log.
Honest note: branded domains are a Pro feature, not free. But branded short links at $5 instead of $29 is a conversation a freelancer can actually have.
The blockers (aka the fun part)
Blocker 1: My first QR generator was embarrassing. It made a QR code for a link. That's it. A QR generator that only does links is a Swiss Army knife with one blade, which is just a knife. So I added WiFi, WhatsApp, vCard, email, SMS, location, social and payment codes.
Blocker 2: DNS. Custom domains need DNS records, and DNS is the one place on the internet where everyone is equally confused. So now Fewly shows you the exact records to add, verifies them, and sets up HTTPS on its own. Fewer tears all around.
Blocker 3: People will shorten sketchy stuff. Of course they will. So every link is scanned for malware and phishing, and anything pointing to private or internal addresses gets refused. Turns out a link shortener also has to be a bouncer.
Fewly now has 73 free browser tools. No signup, no uploads, no watermarks. Everything runs on your own device, which also keeps my server bill small. That's the only reason "free" survives.
My favorites:
- Online DB Viewer. Drop in a SQLite file, browse tables and run real SQL with the online DB viewer. The file never leaves your machine. Perfect for that moment when you pull a database out of an app and wonder what's inside.
- Text to Handwriting. The text to handwriting tool turns typed text into ruled notebook pages. To be clear, it's a handwriting font, not a clone of your own writing. Use it for worksheets and cards, not for crimes.
- QR Code Generator. A free QR code generator with PNG and SVG download. No signup, no watermark, and yes, it does more than links now.
- Payment Fee Calculator. On a $5 sale, Stripe's $0.30 fixed fee eats nearly 9%. The payment fee calculator shows what actually lands in your account. Want to receive exactly $500? Charge $515.24, not $514.50. Math is sneaky like that.
What I learned
1. Hunt for gaps in price, privacy and speed. Features are easy to copy. A fair price is harder.
2. Free tools are a front door. Someone comes for a JSON formatter, leaves in ten seconds, and now knows my name.
3. Be honest. Bitly has a name everyone knows, years of trust and enterprise clients. Fewly is young. I'm not claiming a win. I'm saying one small corner of the market was underserved.
So, can a solo dev still compete?
Not head on. Sideways, absolutely.
Try Fewly and tell me what's missing. I read every message, mostly because I'm the only one here.