fiche vs sprunge
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted pastebins & snippets options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | fiche | sprunge |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Read-the-docs project |
| Health score | 16 · At risk | 15 · At risk |
| Category | Pastebins & Snippets | Pastebins & Snippets |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | C | Python |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | bare-metal, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,550 | ★ 721 |
| First released | 2015 | 2010 |
| Replaces | Pastebin.com, termbin | Pastebin.com, termbin |
What are fiche and sprunge?
fiche
fiche is a minimalist terminal pastebin server written in C that accepts pastes piped over netcat. Users upload text from the command line and receive a short URL with no client software needed.
- Netcat-based uploads
- No client needed
- Short URL output
- Tiny C server
sprunge
sprunge is a minimalist, command-line oriented pastebin server designed for piping text directly from the terminal. It returns a short URL for any uploaded content with almost no configuration.
- Terminal pipe uploads
- No database required
- Short URL output
- Tiny footprint
fiche vs sprunge: key differences
Fiche is written in C, while sprunge is built with Python. Sprunge is the more established project (first released 2010), while fiche arrived in 2015. Fiche has the considerably larger community, at 1,550 GitHub stars versus 721.
Why pick each one
Choose fiche if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Active community (1.6k GitHub stars)
- Written in C
Choose sprunge if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Written in Python
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is fiche or sprunge better?
Neither is universally better. fiche has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are fiche and sprunge free and open-source?
Yes. fiche is licensed under MIT and sprunge under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run fiche and sprunge with Docker?
fiche: check the project docs for container support. sprunge: check the project docs for container support.