ThirstyAffiliates Alternative: Linkjet as a Free Option for Affiliate Links

A quick note up front, so you know who's writing this: this article comes from us, the makers of Linkjet. So we have a product of our own in the race. Even so, we aim for a fair comparison – ThirstyAffiliates is a solid, widely used plugin, and we're happy to acknowledge that. The goal of this post is to help you decide, not to talk anything up.

Why look for a ThirstyAffiliates alternative in the first place?

ThirstyAffiliates is considered one of the classics when it comes to managing and cloaking affiliate links in WordPress. Many affiliate marketers have worked with it for years. So why do people still regularly look around for an alternative? Usually it comes down to a few recurring points.

The most common reason is the split into a free and a paid Pro version. The free tier handles the basics, but some features you'd want in daily use sit behind a paywall. Anyone who keeps hitting that limit eventually wonders whether the same thing exists without recurring costs.

A second reason is the wish for one tool instead of three. Many websites need not just affiliate link cloaking but also classic 301 redirects, a 404 monitor, and understandable click stats. Instead of combining several plugins for that, a single tool that covers it all is often the cleaner solution.

On top of that come two topics that keep growing in importance: data minimalism and automation. Anyone who wants to work in a GDPR-compliant way pays attention to what data a plugin collects and whether it phones home. And anyone managing many links doesn't want to click through all of it by hand, but wants to control it via an interface.

What ThirstyAffiliates does well

Let's start with what speaks for ThirstyAffiliates. The plugin is purpose-built for affiliate marketing and has earned a firm place over the years. It manages affiliate links centrally, cloaks them behind neat internal addresses, and fits well into an editorial workflow, for example when inserting links into posts.

Because it's so widely used, you'll find plenty of documentation, experience reports, and community knowledge. For many affiliate publishers that's a real advantage: you're working with an established tool that already has an answer to almost every question. If you're already running it productively and not feeling any friction, there's rarely a compelling reason to switch.

Linkjet as an alternative

Linkjet is a lean redirect and affiliate plugin for WordPress. The most important difference up front: Linkjet is 100% free, licensed under GPLv2, and has no Pro paywall. There are no locked features, no recurring license fee, no "upgrade for this feature".

For affiliate marketing, Linkjet brings what matters: affiliate link cloaking with the right link attributes (rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored"), neat short links in the style /go/…, and passing parameters through to the target. That lets you wrap your affiliate links cleanly and keep control over the visible URL.

Beyond that, Linkjet also covers the classic redirect world. You can create redirects as 301, 302, 307, 308, or 410 – from a permanent redirect to a deliberately set "content removed".

When it comes to data, Linkjet stays deliberately minimal. The click stats are IP-anonymized and therefore GDPR-friendly, a bot filter keeps automated traffic out of the numbers, and there's no external GeoIP in use. In fact, Linkjet makes no external calls at all – what happens on your server stays on your server.

On top of that come practical extras: a 404 monitor that helps you find broken addresses and redirect them directly, QR codes generated locally, and CSV and JSON import and export for your links. And for anyone automating or working with AI, there's a full REST API with an OpenAPI description.

Where ThirstyAffiliates is strong

Let's stay honest. There are good reasons to stick with ThirstyAffiliates, or to adopt it in the first place:

• Purpose-built for affiliate marketing and long established there.
• Wide adoption, lots of documentation, and community knowledge for almost any question.
• A well-worn editorial workflow for setting affiliate links inside posts.
• A paid Pro version for anyone who wants extra features and is happy to pay for them.

Where Linkjet wins

And here are Linkjet's strengths that make a switch worth considering:

• 100% free under GPLv2, no Pro paywall, and no locked features.
• Affiliate cloaking, redirects (301/302/307/308/410), a 404 monitor, and stats in one plugin.
• GDPR-friendly: IP-anonymized clicks, a bot filter, no external GeoIP, no external calls.
• A full REST API with OpenAPI for automation and AI workflows.
• QR codes generated locally, plus CSV and JSON import and export for your links.

Notes on switching from ThirstyAffiliates

Honesty matters here: Linkjet has a dedicated import wizard for Pretty Links and Redirection, but no direct ThirstyAffiliates import. If you're coming from ThirstyAffiliates, switching isn't a single click, but runs through one of two paths.

The first path is recreating your most important links directly in Linkjet. Especially if you only have a manageable number of active affiliate links, that's done quickly, and you get to clear out old, dead targets along the way.

The second path runs through CSV or JSON import. If you can export or assemble your existing links from your old system as a list, you bring them into a suitable CSV or JSON format and read them into Linkjet. That saves manual work for larger link inventories. Either way, plan a little time after the move to spot-check that your short links redirect correctly to the right targets.

Honest conclusion

If you're fully satisfied with ThirstyAffiliates, value its workflow, and the cost of the Pro version works for you, there's no compelling reason to switch. An established tool that's working shouldn't be replaced on principle.

But if the split into free and Pro bothers you, if you'd rather bundle affiliate cloaking, redirects, and stats into one free, privacy-minded tool, or if you rely on automation via REST API, then Linkjet is a serious alternative. The switch takes a bit of manual work due to the missing ThirstyAffiliates import – but in return you get a plugin without a paywall and without external data flows. You can find a similarly framed comparison in our post on the Pretty Links alternative, by the way.

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