Bento Alternatives After the Shutdown: An Honest Migration Guide (2026)
Bento Alternatives After the Shutdown: An Honest Migration Guide (2026)
Bento.me shut down February 13, 2026 after Linktree's acquisition. Honest comparison of replacement options for former Bento users, including which alternative actually preserves what made Bento worth using.
If you're reading this, your Bento page probably already redirects to Linktree, or it will soon. Bento.me (the Sequoia-backed, design-forward link-in-bio tool launched in 2023) was acquired by Linktree and shut down on February 13, 2026. All Bento pages now redirect to Linktree. All user data has been permanently deleted.
That's a sudden way to lose a bio page you spent time on. And the auto-redirect to Linktree solves the "where does my URL go?" question without solving the "what do I actually want my bio link to look like now?" question.
This guide is for Bento users figuring out the second question. Most articles you'll find right now are written by competitors trying to capture migration traffic. They all conclude with "obviously, you should use [their product]." This one tries to be more useful than that. Where each alternative genuinely fits, where each one falls short, and which one preserves what made Bento worth picking in the first place.
TL;DR: who should pick what
If you valued Bento's visual grid layout above all else:own.page and tini.bio are the closest spiritual successors. Both keep the block-based, drag-and-drop, image-heavy approach Bento pioneered.
If you valued Bento's "destination, not router" positioning (the page as a real personal site, not just a link list): own.page leans into this hardest. Carrd is a longer-standing alternative for the same use case.
If you want creator monetization built in (selling digital products, courses, brand deals): Beacons is the most direct fit; Linktree's commerce tier works but at lower margins.
If you valued curation, audience input, and unlimited collections alongside visual presentation: Shelfy offers a Card view (with auto-fetched preview images and rich link blocks) plus a List view, voting on links, addressable sub-collections, and free custom domains. Different shape from Bento's full layout-canvas approach, but genuinely visual and the strongest fit for curators and recommendation-driven creators.
If you just want the fastest path to "page exists and works": Linktree, where your Bento URL already redirects.
Choose nothing immediately if you can wait 30 to 60 days. Some smaller competitors will refine their migration tools and pricing in response to the Bento shutdown. The first-week-after-shutdown panic is usually the worst time to commit.
The full reasoning is below.
Why Bento mattered (and why you might not want a clone)
Bento launched in 2023 with a clear design point of view in a category that had ossified around vertical lists of buttons. Where Linktree and Beacons treated the bio page as a list, Bento treated it as a canvas: drag-and-drop blocks at multiple sizes, embedded media, image-forward layouts, a structure that felt closer to a personal website than a link tree. For designers, photographers, and creators who cared about visual presentation, that was meaningful differentiation.
The acquisition by Linktree and shutdown surfaces a worth-naming question for every Bento refugee: do you want a Bento clone, or do you want to use this disruption to reconsider whether the visual-grid approach was actually serving you?
Some Bento users picked it because it looked nice. Some picked it because the layout matched how they thought about their work (projects in a portfolio, not links in a list). Some picked it because everyone in their corner of design Twitter was using it. Different reasons lead to different replacements.
Worth pausing on before migrating.
What actually happened with Bento
For context. Most "Bento alternatives" articles skip this and jump to product pitches, but understanding the shutdown shape matters for the migration choice.
February 13, 2026: Bento.me officially closed. All custom Bento URLs (bento.me/yourname) now redirect to a Linktree page Bento created on your behalf, or to Linktree's homepage if no migration was set up.
All Bento user data has been permanently deleted. If you didn't export before the shutdown, you no longer have access to your old page structure, content, analytics, or settings.
The Linktree redirect is automatic but not customized. Most users report the auto-generated Linktree page strips most of Bento's visual structure and converts content into Linktree's standard vertical list format.
The shutdown notice was relatively short. Most users had weeks of notice rather than months, which made thoughtful migration harder.
Practically, this means: your old audience equity (people who've shared your Bento URL, sites that linked to it, social bios pointing at it) now flows to a Linktree page you may or may not want. Setting up a proper migration to a tool you actually want is the next step regardless of which tool that is.
The honest field: eight alternatives by use case
1. own.page: closest visual successor
Best for: Bento users who picked Bento for the grid layout and want the closest spiritual continuation.
What it gets right: Block-based widget system (links, text, images, YouTube, Spotify, GitHub, forms, analytics). Works as link-in-bio, website, or portfolio. Custom subdomain support. Web editor plus mobile app. Clean layout philosophy that prioritizes readability over feature stuffing.
Where it falls short: Newer tool, smaller community than Linktree or Beacons. Less third-party ecosystem. Some users report the editor feels less polished than Bento's was.
Pricing model: Free tier exists; paid plans for advanced features (verify current details before committing).
2. tini.bio: focused Bento replacement
Best for: Bento users specifically migrating who want a tool that has positioned itself as the post-Bento home.
What it gets right: Grid layouts, image blocks, drag-and-drop. Explicitly mirrors the Bento UX patterns. Free tier with content blocks, content pages, and image blocks included. Has actively built migration messaging and tools for ex-Bento users.
Where it falls short: Still establishing itself as a category presence. Fewer integrations and less mature ecosystem than larger competitors. The "we're the Bento replacement" positioning is real but also makes the platform's identity dependent on the prior brand.
Pricing model: Free tier; paid Pro tier (verify current details).
3. Linktree: the default destination (where you already are)
Best for: Bento users who don't want to actively migrate and are willing to accept Linktree's vertical-list aesthetic.
What it gets right: Industry-standard. Massive ecosystem. Strong analytics on paid tiers. Decent mobile UX. Your Bento URL already redirects here, so doing nothing means defaulting to Linktree.
Where it falls short: This is the platform that bought Bento and shut it down. Picking it as your replacement is choosing the company that just deleted your work. Some users will care; some won't. Pricing rose 67% on the Pro plan in November 2025 ($9 to $15/month). For the full analysis of why Linktree's pricing keeps increasing, see why Linktree is so expensive. Vertical-list layout fundamentally cannot replicate Bento's visual grid.
Pricing model: Free / Starter $8/mo / Pro $15/mo / Premium $35/mo. Transaction fees: Free 12%, Pro 9%, Premium 0%.
For a deeper Linktree assessment, the Shelfy vs Linktree comparison covers what Linktree actually delivers at each tier.
4. Beacons: the monetization-first option
Best for: Bento users whose actual goal was selling products or services, where Bento's design was a means rather than the end.
What it gets right: Genuinely built for creator monetization. Storefront, courses, memberships on Creator Plus, brand-deal media kits, AI tools, email marketing built in. If you were using Bento to direct traffic to a Stripe checkout or a course, Beacons does that natively.
Where it falls short: Dense interface. Not Bento's aesthetic at all. Closer to a creator dashboard than a personal canvas. 9% transaction fees on lower tiers.
Pricing model: Free / Creator $10/mo / Creator Plus $30/mo / Creator Max $90/mo. Transaction fees: 9% on free and Creator, 0% on Creator Plus and above.
5. Carrd: for the "make it a real website" Bento users
Best for: Bento users whose actual want was a one-page website with the bio link as a layer of that.
What it gets right: Long-standing, stable, designer-respected. Real one-page websites with full layout control. Strong custom domain support. $19/year unlocks pretty much everything. Not chasing trends.
Where it falls short: Doesn't position itself as "link-in-bio" specifically. It's a website builder that can serve that purpose. Less of a content-discovery vibe than Bento. No native voting, no community features.
Pricing model: Free / Pro Lite $9/year / Pro Standard $19/year / Pro Plus $49/year. Annual billing only.
6. Stan Store: for sellers
Best for: Bento users whose actual goal was running a single-page storefront for digital products or coaching.
What it gets right: Built for selling. Clean product checkout, lead magnets, course delivery. Used heavily by coaches and digital-product creators.
Where it falls short: Not a generalist link-in-bio tool. The aesthetic and functionality are tuned for selling, which is the wrong fit if you mostly wanted a portfolio surface.
7. Bio Sites by Squarespace: for designers and small businesses
Best for: Squarespace users (or those considering it) who want a bio page integrated with a broader website.
What it gets right: Free tier. Decent design options. Integrates with Squarespace's broader ecosystem if you're using it for an actual website.
Where it falls short: Less differentiated than Bento was. Squarespace's design-forward branding doesn't fully translate to Bio Sites' UX.
8. Shelfy: for curators and audience-input creators
Best for: Bento users whose value to their audience is what they find and recommend alongside how it's presented. Newsletter operators, curators, recommendation creators, podcasters, anyone whose work involves collecting and surfacing things with audience signal.
What it gets right: Free forever, every feature included. Two public-page layouts (Card view with rich link previews and auto-fetched OG images, and List view) with a visible toggle viewers can switch between. Unlimited collections, so you can have a main hub plus addressable sub-collections (more flexible than a single grid). Community voting on collections, where visitors upvote what they value and the order reorganizes around audience signal. Free custom domains permanently. Chrome extension for tab-saving. Real REST API for sync from a CMS or spreadsheet.
Where it falls short: Honestly different shape from Bento's full layout canvas. Shelfy's Card view shows rich previews but doesn't offer Bento's full block-based, drag-to-resize, mixed-media-widget approach. If what you loved about Bento was pixel-level layout control and the ability to mix differently-sized image blocks, embedded videos, and custom widgets in a designed grid, Shelfy's Card view will feel cleaner and more standardized. If what you valued was a visual, image-rich way to present links to your audience, Shelfy's Card view delivers that. No native digital-product storefront either.
Pricing model: Free forever, no transaction fees because there's no storefront.
The honest framing: Shelfy is a strong fit for a specific kind of Bento user. Those whose Bento page leaned into "things I'm curating, things I recommend, things my audience cares about" with rich visual presentation will find Shelfy's Card view + voting + unlimited collections actually more capable than Bento for that specific workflow. Those whose Bento page was image-heavy portfolio work with custom layouts may want own.page or tini.bio for closer layout fidelity.
Side-by-side comparison
Feature
own.page
tini.bio
Linktree (Free)
Linktree (Pro $15)
Beacons (Free)
Carrd (Pro $19/yr)
Shelfy (Free)
Visual grid / block layout
Yes
Yes
No (vertical list)
No
No
Customizable
Card view (rich previews)
Image-forward design
Yes
Yes
Limited
Yes
Limited
Yes
Yes (auto OG images)
Free tier with full features
Limited
Mostly
Yes (limited)
N/A
Yes (limited)
Yes (very limited)
Yes
Custom domain
Yes (paid)
Paid tier
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes (free)
Transaction fees on sales
N/A
N/A
12%
9%
9%
N/A
N/A
Native storefront
Limited
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
No
No
Community voting
No
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
Unlimited collections / pages
Limited
Limited
5 (free)
Unlimited Featured
Limited
Unlimited (Pro+)
Yes
Logo removal on free
Varies
Yes
No
Yes
No
Yes
Yes
Analytics on free
Basic
Basic
Basic
Advanced
Basic
Basic
Detailed
Custom CSS
Limited
Limited
Premium
Premium
No
Yes (Pro Plus)
No
Chrome extension for capture
No
No
No
No
No
No
Yes
Migration tools from Bento
Manual
Yes (active)
Auto (default)
Auto
Manual
Manual
Manual
A note: tools update features and pricing frequently. Verify current details on each tool's pricing page before committing.
Already know what you want? Shelfy is free forever with Card and List public-page layouts, voting, unlimited collections, and free custom domains. No transaction fees, no logo, no trial expiration. Try it now →
Or keep reading for the migration steps and FAQs.
How to migrate (regardless of which tool you pick)
The process is similar across replacement tools. The differences are mostly which buttons you press; the underlying steps are universal.
1. Recover what you can about your old Bento page.
Bento's data is gone, but if you have screenshots from any point in the past (your phone's photo library, social posts that featured the page, the Wayback Machine for bento.me/yourname) you can rebuild from visual reference. The Wayback Machine in particular often has archived snapshots of bio pages because they're frequently linked from social media.
2. Audit what you actually had on your Bento page.
Don't recreate everything by default. Use migration as a chance to remove links that didn't matter, update outdated content, and reorganize around current priorities. Most Bento pages had at least one link the user had been meaning to remove for months.
3. Pick your replacement using the use-case verdicts above.
The wrong replacement creates a second migration in 6 months. Worth picking once, deliberately.
4. Set up a custom domain immediately.
This is the single highest-leverage move. Whether you choose own.page, Carrd, Shelfy, or Linktree's paid tier, get on a custom domain (links.yourname.com or similar). Any future tool migration is then invisible to your audience. The URL never changes, only what serves it.
For tools that include free custom domains (Shelfy is the only one on the free plan), this is a free upgrade. For others (Linktree Pro, Beacons Creator+), the cost is built into the paid tier you'd be paying anyway.
5. Update your social bios.
Instagram, TikTok, X/Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, podcast show notes, Discord profile, email signature, business cards (eventually). The order of operations matters: get the new page live and tested first, then update bios. Don't update social bios to point at a half-built page.
6. Notify your audience if appropriate.
If you have a newsletter, mention the migration once. If you have a paid community, let them know. Don't make this a whole thing. Most audiences don't care which bio tool you use, but a single mention prevents "where did your Bento go?" questions for the next few months.
7. Check Linktree redirect behavior periodically.
Even after you set up your replacement, the auto-redirect from Bento.me to Linktree will continue indefinitely. Some users will land on the Linktree page Bento created automatically rather than your new replacement. Periodically check what shows up there. Linktree may make changes, and you may want to manually edit it to point at your real new bio.
What to actually do this week
If you're reading this and haven't migrated yet, here's the practical sequence:
Week 1: Pick a replacement tool from the use-case verdicts above. Set up a custom domain. Build a basic version of your new bio with the most important 5 to 8 links. Don't try to perfectly recreate Bento. That's a trap.
Week 2: Update your most-trafficked social bios to point at the new URL. Test on mobile. Get feedback from one or two people in your audience.
Week 3: Round out the rest of your new bio (sub-collections, gear lists, recommendations, etc.). Update remaining bios.
Week 4: Audit the auto-generated Linktree page and either edit it to redirect to your new bio or accept that some traffic will land there.
The whole migration takes maybe 4 to 6 hours of actual work spread across the month. The trap is trying to do it perfectly in one weekend. Better to ship a basic replacement and refine over weeks than to delay because the perfect version isn't ready.
Try Shelfy free if curation is your shape
If your Bento page leaned toward curating, recommending, and surfacing things with rich visual presentation, Shelfy is a strong fit on this list. Card view with auto-fetched preview images, unlimited collections, voting, free custom domains, all on the free plan with no transaction fees.
If your Bento page was something else (a portfolio with custom layouts, a storefront, a designer canvas), the use-case verdicts above are honest about which tool fits. The Shelfy vs Linktree, Shelfy vs Beacons, Shelfy vs Carrd, and Shelfy vs Stan Store comparisons cover those alternatives in more depth. The Koji alternatives guide covers the other recent Linktree acquisition shutdown.
Frequently asked questions
When did Bento shut down?
Bento.me officially closed on February 13, 2026, following Linktree's acquisition. All Bento URLs now redirect to Linktree pages, and all user data has been permanently deleted. If you didn't export your data before the shutdown, you no longer have access to your old page structure, content, or settings.
Can I recover my old Bento data?
The platform itself has deleted user data permanently, so direct recovery isn't possible. You can sometimes find archived snapshots of your Bento page on the Wayback Machine (web.archive.org) by searching for bento.me/yourname. This is useful for reconstructing your page from visual reference.
Is the auto-redirect to Linktree permanent?
Linktree owns the Bento.me domain and the auto-redirect appears intended to be ongoing. This means traffic to your old Bento URL will continue flowing to a Linktree page indefinitely. Either one that was auto-generated for you, or to Linktree's homepage if no migration was set up.
What's the closest tool to Bento's visual grid layout?
own.page and tini.bio are the closest spiritual successors. Both maintain block-based, drag-and-drop, image-forward layouts that resemble Bento's approach. Carrd is a longer-standing alternative for users who valued the "real website" feel. Linktree, despite owning Bento now, doesn't replicate the grid format and uses standard vertical lists.
Should I migrate to Linktree by default since my page already redirects there?
Not unless you actively want Linktree. The auto-redirect is a convenience, not an endorsement. Migrating means you reclaim control of where your bio link points, get the layout you actually want, and aren't dependent on Linktree's continued goodwill toward inherited Bento URLs. Many ex-Bento users who valued the design freedom find Linktree's vertical-list format limiting after Bento.
Which Bento alternative is genuinely free?
Most tools have free tiers but with meaningful limits. Shelfy's free plan includes the full feature set (unlimited collections, custom domains, voting, follow/notify, API). Linktree's free plan has feature gates (no email collection, no UTM, basic analytics). Beacons' free plan has 9% transaction fees on sales. own.page and tini.bio have free tiers with content-block limits. Carrd's free tier exists but is very limited. "Free" varies; read the asterisks.
Do I have to pay for a custom domain?
It depends on the tool. Shelfy includes free custom domains on the free plan. Linktree requires Pro ($15/month) or Premium for custom domains. Beacons requires Creator Plus ($30/month). Carrd includes custom domains on Pro plans starting at $19/year. own.page and tini.bio offer custom domains on paid tiers. If brand independence matters and budget doesn't allow paid plans, Shelfy is the most flexible option.
Can I move my old Bento audience to a new tool?
Bento didn't have native subscriber capture comparable to a newsletter platform, so most "audience" on Bento was traffic, not a captured list. The audience that exists is the people who follow you on social media and click through to your bio link. That audience moves with you when you update your bio URL. If you collected emails through a Bento integration, check whether that data was exported before the shutdown.
Last reviewed: May 2026. Tool features and pricing change frequently. Verify current details with each tool's pricing page before making a final decision.
