Firebase Dynamic Links Alternatives: What Actually Replaces FDL in 2026

Firebase Dynamic Links shut down on 25 August 2025. Every link it ever served now returns a 404. This is a working comparison of the replacements — grouped by what you were actually using FDL for, because the right answer is different for a referral program than for an ad campaign.

What actually broke, and when

Google announced the deprecation in 2023 and shut the service down on 25 August 2025. Per Firebase's own deprecation FAQ, after that date all links clicked return an HTTP 404 status — both .page.link subdomains and links hosted on custom domains. There is no automatic migration path, and .page.link domains cannot be kept or transferred.

Details worth knowing, all from that FAQ:

• The failure ramped rather than flipped. Google's wording is that error responses "begin gradually on August 25, 2025 until eventually reaching 100% error response rates after the sunset date has passed." This is why some teams reported links still working for a while, and why "it seems fine" was never evidence of anything.
• The APIs returned different codes than the links. Clicked links return 404. The Short Links API and Link Stats API return 400 or 403.
• The SDKs did not crash, which made it quieter. On both platforms, first-open attribution returned a success response with empty data. Your app kept running and silently stopped receiving link context. Google is explicit that handling the changed responses was the app's responsibility.
• Link metadata was marked for deletion on 25 August 2025 and purged under Google's data retention policy. If you didn't export before then, it is gone.

The scale was larger than most teams assumed. A crawl by NerdyData in June 2025 — two months before the shutdown — identified 636,196 unique FDL links still live across 26,170 domains, spanning 7,769 Firebase accounts.

Method: shutdown behaviour, error codes, SDK responses and data-deletion timing are quoted from Google's Dynamic Links deprecation FAQ. The live-link count is NerdyData's June 2025 crawl, taken before the sunset — it measures links still published on the public web, not links still in use. Checked August 2026.

The Firebase Authentication problem almost nobody mentions

If your app uses email link sign-in, password reset, or email verification, FDL's shutdown affected those flows too — and this is the part that catches teams who thought they had no dynamic links to migrate.

Straight from Google's FAQ:

• Email link authentication and out-of-band email actions continue to work, but only after you upgrade to the latest Firebase Authentication SDKs and migrate to the new solution.
• Older app versions are permanently broken. In Google's words, if you have older versions of your app that do not use the new Authentication SDK, these features will no longer work in those versions. You cannot fix that server-side — those installs need to update.
• Android OAuth flows on Firebase Auth SDK below v20.0.0 (or BoM below 26.0.0) need updating to continue working.
• Cordova apps using the Firebase JS SDK for OAuth are affected, because that flow was implemented on top of FDL. It has to be reimplemented manually.
• Web apps are not affected. The deprecation only touches handling incoming URLs on mobile.

Google publishes migration guides for iOS and Android. Check this before you conclude you were not using FDL.

Work out what you were actually using it for

FDL was several products wearing one coat. Almost every bad migration decision comes from replacing the wrong one. Google's own FAQ lists the feature set as: routing to the correct store from a single click with a web fallback, continuation of journey after install via deferred deep linking, contextual deep-linked content when the app is already installed, click analytics, short-link creation, and social sharing metadata.

The trap is the second row. Deep linking answers where should this user land. Attribution answers who or what brought them here. They feel like one feature and are priced as two. If you run a referral program, pay creators, or need to know whether Reddit or your newsletter drove last month's installs, routing alone leaves you blind — and you find out a month after migrating. We pulled that distinction apart in detail in deferred deep links vs. deep links.

Worth noting the third row too: if all you need is deep linking into an already-installed app, Google's recommendation is not a vendor at all. It is App Links and Universal Links implemented directly, with a migration guide for exactly that. No service required. If you go that route, our deep linking setup guide covers the Apple Team ID, Android SHA-256 fingerprint and associated-domains configuration you will need either way.

Before choosing, answer these:

1. Do you need to know who referred a new user, or only where to send them?
2. Do you spend enough on paid acquisition that a percentage point of measurement accuracy is worth more than a platform fee?
3. Can you ship an SDK update, and maintain it as iOS and Android change?
4. Do you need links on your own branded domain?
5. Is a variable bill acceptable, or do you need a fixed number?

About Google's list of recommended providers

Google's FAQ names Adjust, Airbridge, AppsFlyer, Bitly, Branch, Kochava and Singular as options for teams needing full feature parity.

That list gets cited constantly as Google endorsing those seven vendors. It isn't. Google's own parenthetical, in the same sentence, reads: these providers have not been vetted by Google, but do provide similar functionality to Firebase Dynamic Links.

Two things follow. Being on the list is not a quality signal — it is a list of vendors offering comparable functionality, explicitly unvetted. And not being on the list is not a mark against a product; the list has not been expanded as the market has filled in. Judge the tools on fit, not on inclusion.

Lightweight replacements: deep linking and attribution without an enterprise contract

This tier exists because FDL's users were overwhelmingly small teams, and the enterprise MMPs are not priced for them.

Enterprise MMPs: for teams spending real money on ads

If you are running paid acquisition at volume, the calculation inverts. Attribution accuracy and fraud prevention stop being nice to have and start being the thing protecting your ad budget. That is what these platforms are built for, and it is why they cost what they do.

All of them require an SDK on iOS and Android. Plan for days rather than hours of integration work, plus ongoing maintenance as the SDK and OS both move — iOS in particular pulls in ATT permission handling and SKAdNetwork configuration.

Not sure whether you have crossed into this tier? We wrote a decision framework for exactly that call, including what AppsFlyer actually costs and the minimum commitments involved.

Link managers: on Google's list, but not deep linking tools

Bitly and Dub are link management platforms. They shorten, brand, track clicks, and redirect by device — iOS to the App Store, Android to Play. If that is the entirety of what FDL did for you, they are fine and cheap.

But "deep links" in a link manager's feature list generally means device-based redirects, not iOS Universal Links or Android App Links, and it does not mean deferred deep linking. A user who taps the link, installs, and opens your app will land on the home screen with no memory of why they came. Check the specific product's documentation for whether it handles the post-install case before assuming it does — and remember Google's own note that nothing on its list was vetted.

Building it yourself

Technically feasible, and each component is straightforward in isolation: a redirect server, click-token management, fingerprint capture and matching, Play Install Referrer handling on Android, clipboard tokens on iOS. Together, with the platform edge cases, they run to several weeks of careful engineering plus permanent maintenance — iOS and Android updates periodically break attribution mechanisms, and you find out from a broken referral payout rather than a changelog.

The honest test: build only if attribution is a core product differentiator for your business. If it's infrastructure that has to work so you can get on with the actual product, buy it. We wrote up what production-grade deferred deep linking actually requires if you want to scope the work before deciding, and how SDK-free install attribution works if you want the mechanics.

Side-by-side comparison

Checked August 2026. LinkTrace and Kochava figures are the vendors' own published prices. Where a vendor does not publish pricing we have said so rather than repeat a third-party estimate — MMP pricing is negotiated and varies with volume, contract length and add-ons. Verify with the vendor before budgeting.

Migration checklist

1. Find every link. Search your codebase for page.link, your FDL custom domain, and the Firebase Dynamic Links dependency. Then search outside the codebase — email templates, push payloads, QR codes in print, help articles, app store descriptions, scheduled campaigns.
2. Check your auth flows separately. Email link sign-in, password reset and email verification were affected. So were Android OAuth flows on older Auth SDKs and Cordova OAuth via the JS SDK. This is the step teams skip because they believe they had no dynamic links.
3. Classify what each link was doing. Routing only, or routing plus attribution? This determines your tier.
4. Pick based on the job, not the price. Overbuying an MMP for a referral program is the common mistake; underbuying a link shortener when you needed attribution is the expensive one.
5. Re-point link generation. Wherever your backend created a Dynamic Link, call your new provider's link-creation endpoint and store the returned URL.
6. Re-point first-launch handling. Wherever your app read the pending dynamic link, call your new provider's attribution endpoint and route on the payload it returns.
7. If you reuse your custom domain, update the FDL rewrite rules in firebase.json and redeploy, or the old configuration will interfere with your new provider's links.
8. Test the full install path on both platforms. Fresh device, no app, tap link, install from the store, open. Check that the destination and the referrer both survive. Testing with the app already installed proves nothing about the deferred case.
9. Delete your FDL URL prefixes in the Firebase console once migrated, which marks the project as complete and clears the console reminder.

If LinkTrace is the destination, the integration walkthrough covers the whole path end to end, and the API reference has the full request and response specs for both calls.

Frequently asked questions

Migrating off FDL and unsure which tier you actually need? The LinkTrace team will help you scope it and debug attribution flows regardless of which solution you land on. Related reading: what deferred deep linking actually requires in production, SDK-free install attribution, and how we solved referral attribution for our own app.