Is LinkStack really free?

Yes. LinkStack is open source: the code is public and installing it costs nothing. At most you pay for hosting if you put it on a server, often a few euros a month. Beacons, on the other hand, costs €9 a month.

Do I need to code to install LinkStack?

No. The level is intermediate and the install takes about 20 minutes with the prompt from the page: Claude does the work, you answer its questions.

How is it different from Beacons?

LinkStack does most of what Beacons does, without a subscription, and your data stays with you. The point by point comparison is on the page.

Yes. With an open source tool installed on your side, your files stay on your machine or your server. Nobody can close your account or change the price.

Free alternative

Free alternative to Beacons

Beacons costs €9 a month. LinkStack does the same job for free, in open source: you install it on your machine or a small server, and you stop paying.

Public entry price, taken from Beacons’s website (beacons.ai). Over a year, that is €108 that stays in your pocket.

What replaces Beacons

The main alternative

LinkStack

🟡 Intermediate⏱️ ~20 min to installSave €6/mo

LinkStack is Linktree at your place. A page with your photo, your text and your buttons to Instagram, YouTube, your newsletter or your shop, served from your own server on your own domain. It is a PHP app built on Laravel: you drop it on a regular web host, or you run the official Docker image, then a wizard in the browser creates the database, the admin account and the config. No database to install, SQLite is enough. You change the look with community themes, you get built-in click stats, a QR code, a vCard, and you can even open sign-ups to host other people's pages. The project is AGPL v3 licensed with over 3,800 stars on GitHub, and the Docker image has passed a million pulls.

Loucash’s verdict on LinkStack

8/10

This is the free alternative to Linktree, and it holds up where it matters: a clean page, your buttons, your domain, your stats, no vendor logo. Installation is really designed for non-developers: a zip to drop on PHP hosting, or a Docker container, then a wizard in the browser. Twenty minutes and your page is up. What holds it back is the pace. The latest version, 4.8.6, dates from February 2026. Two flaws published in April 2026 (a stored XSS and a permission bypass, rated 3.5 and 5.4 out of 10) were fixed in the code in June, but as of September 7 no new version has shipped: the zip and the Docker image still carry the affected version. Both flaws require an account on your instance, so if you are alone on it with sign-ups closed, the risk is low. Keep it in mind anyway, and update as soon as the next version lands. Another point: you need a server that keeps running, this is not an app you install on your Mac. The maintainers also offer hosted instances, from €1 a month through GitHub Sponsors, and free community instances such as linkstack.fr. If you do not want to run a server, that is an honest way in, but you are back to the "my data at someone else's place" model. And if you want a real website with pages, a shop or a blog, this is not the tool: LinkStack does one links page, and does it well.

Who it is for: You pay for Linktree, or you are tired of its logo and its address, and you have a small VPS or PHP hosting to put your own links page on.

See the full page →See the tool ↗

The prompt that installs LinkStack

Paste this prompt into Claude: it checks the repository, asks you its questions and installs the tool step by step.

Déploie LinkStack sur mon serveur (la page de liens open source et auto-hébergée, repo GitHub LinkStackOrg/LinkStack). Je pars de zéro : j'ai juste un VPS sous Linux (ou une machine chez moi) et un nom de domaine. Vérifie que Docker est installé, sinon installe-le. Utilise l'image Docker officielle linkstackorg/linkstack décrite dans le repo LinkStackOrg/linkstack-docker : crée un volume pour garder mes données, lance le conteneur avec redémarrage automatique, et renseigne mon nom de domaine dans les variables d'environnement prévues par l'image. Explique-moi comment faire pointer mon domaine vers le serveur, puis mets un certificat HTTPS valide (Caddy ou Nginx devant le conteneur, en suivant la doc docs.linkstack.org) et force le HTTPS dans la configuration. Ouvre ensuite mon domaine dans le navigateur, guide-moi dans l'assistant d'installation (base SQLite, compte admin), désactive les inscriptions publiques si je suis seul, et vérifie que ma page de liens s'affiche bien avec un premier lien. Explique chaque étape simplement, je débute.

Review the GitHub repository and check whether it is safe to install given my machine and my infrastructure. Ask me as many questions as possible, using widgets, to clarify my request and be as precise as you can.

Frequently asked questions

Is LinkStack really free?: Yes. LinkStack is open source: the code is public and installing it costs nothing. At most you pay for hosting if you put it on a server, often a few euros a month. Beacons, on the other hand, costs €9 a month.
Do I need to code to install LinkStack?: No. The level is intermediate and the install takes about 20 minutes with the prompt from the page: Claude does the work, you answer its questions.
How is it different from Beacons?: LinkStack does most of what Beacons does, without a subscription, and your data stays with you. The point by point comparison is on the page.
Do I own my data?: Yes. With an open source tool installed on your side, your files stay on your machine or your server. Nobody can close your account or change the price.