justopen.app

Self-hosted deep link generator — paste a social URL, get a short link on your own domain that opens the native mobile app when possible and falls back to the web everywhere else.

This project is a free, open-source alternative to paid SaaS tools that charge for branded short links and app deep linking. You run it on your server; there is no subscription and no vendor lock-in.

You can also use public, shared version of this software.

What it does

1. Home page — You paste a supported URL (YouTube, Instagram, X, Facebook, LinkedIn). The app parses it and returns a short link on your domain (e.g. https://yourdomain.com/yt/dQw4w9WgXcQ).
2. Short link visit — Behavior depends on the device:
   • Mobile (iOS / Android) — A small landing page tries to open the native app via platform deep links (youtube://, intent://, etc.), with a fallback button to the canonical web URL.
   • Desktop — Immediate HTTP redirect to the original web URL (watch page, post, profile, etc.).

Nothing is persisted: links are not stored in a database or on disk. Short paths are derived from the original URL using rules in services.php, and resolved again on each request. Stateless by design.

Requirements

Requirement	Notes
PHP	7.4+ recommended (typed code, closures in config)
Web server	Apache with mod_rewrite (see .htaccess), or equivalent rewrite to index.php
HTTPS	Strongly recommended so mobile apps and browsers trust your links

No configuration file. Upload the project files to your domain’s document_root and it should work. Ensure URL rewriting sends non-file requests to index.php (included .htaccess does this on Apache).

Optional: edit translations.php for copy, or extend services.php to add providers — still no env vars or database setup.

Supported services

Service	Short prefix	Supported link types
YouTube	/yt/	Videos (watch, youtu.be, Shorts, live, embed), channels (@handle)
Instagram	/ig/	Posts, Reels, IGTV (/p/, /reel/, /tv/), profiles
X (Twitter)	/x/	Status / tweet URLs
Facebook	/fb/	Reels, Watch videos (facebook.com and fb.watch), profile posts, profiles (facebook.com/<handle>, fb.me/<handle>)
LinkedIn	/li/	Feed activity updates (urn:li:activity:…), shared posts (/posts/<author>_<slug>-<id>-<code> → /li/p/<slug>), member profiles (/in/<handle>)

Hostnames and parsing rules live in services.php. Pull requests that add providers or fix edge-case URLs are welcome.

HTTP API

For programmatic use there is a single JSON endpoint that mirrors the home-page form — same parsing, same validation, no HTML.

POST /api/shorten — body is application/x-www-form-urlencoded with a single url field.

curl -X POST -d 'url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ' https://yourdomain.com/api/shorten

200 OK

{
  "ok": true,
  "short_url": "https://yourdomain.com/yt/dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "canonical_url": "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ",
  "provider": "yt",
  "provider_label": "YouTube"
}

Status	When	Body
400	Unsupported or malformed URL	{"ok": false, "error": "…"}
405	Method other than POST (response carries Allow: POST)	{"ok": false, "error": "…"}

Like the rest of the app the endpoint is stateless — nothing is stored; the short link is derived from the input on each call. There is no authentication or rate limiting; if you expose it publicly, put rate limiting in front of it (web server or proxy layer).

Project layout

index.php          # Front controller
engine.php         # Routing, parsing, templates, security headers
services.php       # Provider definitions (parse + deep link templates)
translations.php   # UI strings (PL / EN)
templates/         # HTML templates (server-side only; blocked from direct HTTP)
.htaccess          # Rewrite + protect templates/

Author

Jakub ‘unknow’ Mrugalski — mrugalski.pl

Hosting tip

Probably the cheapest place to host this stack is a small VPS — for example Mikrus VPS (Polish micro-hosting, PHP + Apache friendly). Any shared hosting with PHP and rewrite support works too.

Contributing

Bug fixes, new platforms, and documentation improvements are appreciated. Send a pull request on GitHub if you have something to share.

Suggested contributions:

• Additional services or URL patterns in services.php
• Translation tweaks in translations.php
• Template / accessibility improvements under templates/

License

This project is released under the MIT License. You are free to use, modify, and distribute it with minimal restrictions; see LICENSE for the full text.