Should you switch? The short answer
Switch if you want the code generated and downloaded without any copy of it touching someone else’s server, or if you also need barcodes (CODE128, EAN-13, UPC-A, CODE39) from the same tool. Stay with QRCode Monkey if you want a logo in the middle of the code, gradient colours, custom eye shapes, or EPS/PDF export — it does all four and MakeQR does none of them.
Disclosure: MakeQR is our tool. The comparison below is built from QRCode Monkey’s own published claims, linked at the bottom of this page, and we have listed the features where it beats us.
Generate a QR code free — what you actually get
MakeQR generates static QR codes for URLs, WiFi networks, vCard contact details, email, SMS, phone numbers and map locations. There is no account, no watermark, no daily cap and no code limit. Set the size, foreground and background colour and error-correction level, then download PNG, JPG or SVG.
Static means the destination is baked into the pattern itself. Nobody — including us — can change it, expire it, or switch it off later. That is the trade: no scan analytics, but also nothing that can be taken away from a code you already printed.
Where QRCode Monkey puts limits
The generator itself genuinely is free and unlimited — QRCode Monkey says its codes "do not expire and will work forever!" with no scanning limits, and that is accurate for static codes. The limits are elsewhere.
First, storage. QRCode Monkey states plainly: "We cache your qr code image files for 24h on our server." For a restaurant menu link that is irrelevant. For a QR encoding an internal WiFi password, a private booking URL or a staff contact card, it means a copy existed off your machine. MakeQR draws the code in the browser canvas — there is no upload step to cache.
Second, the upsell. Dynamic QR codes, scan statistics, bulk creation and editing, and campaign folders all sit behind the separate paid QR Code Generator PRO product. If your reason for looking at QRCode Monkey was tracking scans, the free tool was never going to do it.
Static vs dynamic: the subscription trap
A dynamic QR code does not contain your destination. It contains a short redirect URL owned by the vendor, which forwards to wherever their dashboard currently points. That is what makes scan tracking and editable destinations possible — and it is also what makes the code stop working the month you stop paying, on signage that may already be printed and mounted.
This is worth being blunt about, because it cuts against us too: MakeQR does not offer dynamic QR codes, so if you genuinely need editable destinations or scan counts, neither the free QRCode Monkey tool nor MakeQR is your answer — you need a paid product, and you should price in what happens to your printed codes if you ever cancel.
For the large majority of uses — a link on a poster, a WiFi code on a table tent, a vCard on a business card — a static code is the safer object. It works offline, forever, with no vendor in the path between the scan and the destination.
Where QRCode Monkey is genuinely better
Design. QRCode Monkey lets you drop a logo into the centre of the code (up to 2 MB), apply gradient colours, recolour and reshape the eyes and the body modules, and export EPS and PDF alongside PNG and SVG. MakeQR gives you a solid foreground colour, a background colour, size and error-correction level. That is it.
If you are producing brand-controlled print collateral and the code has to carry a logo, use QRCode Monkey. It is the better tool for that job and the 24-hour cache of a public marketing URL costs you nothing.
How to switch
There is nothing to migrate — a static QR code is just a pattern, and codes you already made with QRCode Monkey keep working forever. Point your next code at the generator you prefer.
Start with the type you need: a URL QR code, a WiFi QR code, a vCard QR code, or a barcode. Everything is on the same page below with no sign-up step.