what is Zippy
an open-source URL shortener whose links open the native app instead of a walled-in in-app browser.
Zippy ⚡
Zippy is an open-source URL shortener with one trick: on mobile, its links open the native app for a known platform — LinkedIn, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, TikTok, X, Spotify, Amazon, Telegram, Discord, and more — instead of the in-app browser you were tapping from.
It's a single Cloudflare Worker backed by KV. No database, no Durable Objects, no analytics pipeline. Serverless, roughly $0 to run.
The in-app-browser problem
When someone taps a link inside the LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok app, it doesn't hand off to Safari or Chrome — it opens a stripped-down in-app browser (a webview) owned by that app. For a link that points back at a native app (an Instagram profile, a YouTube video, a WhatsApp chat), that webview is a dead end:
- the visitor isn't logged into the webview the way they are in the real app;
- "open in app" banners are unreliable and easy to dismiss;
- follow / subscribe / message actions bounce them through login walls;
- the polished native experience the destination was built for never loads.
Zippy sits in the middle. A tap on a Zippy short link runs a tiny redirect that tries the destination app's deep link first, and falls back to the plain web URL if the app isn't installed. The visitor lands where the native app would put them — or, worst case, exactly where the normal link would have. It never breaks; it only upgrades.
The safety net
A deep-link scheme can drift (apps rename schemes between versions). Zippy's web URL is always the fallback, so a wrong or missing scheme degrades to "opens in the browser", never to a broken link. See how deeplinks work.
What's in this repo (OSS) vs the hosted cloud
This repository is the thin OSS engine — the part that does the redirecting. It is licensed AGPL-3.0.
| OSS engine (this repo) | Zippy Cloud (hosted) | |
|---|---|---|
| The redirect Worker + deep-link table | ✅ | ✅ (builds on this) |
| KV slug → destination storage | ✅ | ✅ |
| Mobile interstitial + native-app open | ✅ | ✅ |
| Minimal Bearer-token API | ✅ | ✅ |
| Self-host on your own Cloudflare account | ✅ | — |
| Multi-tenant custom domains, dashboard, billing, click analytics, teams | — | ✅ |
The engine is deliberately single-tenant and dependency-light so you can read the whole thing in one sitting and run it yourself. The hosted product layers accounts, custom domains, and analytics on top — but the open-source core is fully functional on its own.
Where to go next
- Quickstart — clone, create a KV namespace, deploy, done.
- How deeplinks work — schemes,
intent://, and the interstitial, explained. - API reference — create and read links over HTTP.
- Platforms — the 22 built-in platforms, and how to add one.
- Self-host on Cloudflare — the full walkthrough.