fiche vs paste
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted pastebins & snippets options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
| Feature | fiche | paste |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 16 · At risk | 14 · At risk |
| Category | Pastebins & Snippets | Pastebins & Snippets |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | C | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 1,550 | ★ 574 |
| First released | 2015 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Pastebin.com, termbin | Pastebin.com, GitHub Gist |
What are fiche and paste?
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
paste
paste is a minimalist, self-hosted pastebin service written in Go that stores text snippets and returns short URLs. It is designed to be tiny, dependency-free, and easy to run from a single binary.
- Single static binary
- Filesystem-based storage
- Short URL generation
- Simple HTTP API
fiche vs paste: key differences
Fiche is written in C, while paste is built with JavaScript. Fiche is the more established project (first released 2015), while paste arrived in 2018. Fiche has the considerably larger community, at 1,550 GitHub stars versus 574. Paste lists first-class Docker deployment; fiche does not.
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 paste if…
- Extremely lightweight
- Trivial to deploy
Watch out for
- Very minimal feature set
- No syntax highlighting UI
Frequently asked questions
Is fiche or paste 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 paste free and open-source?
Yes. fiche is licensed under MIT and paste under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run fiche and paste with Docker?
fiche: check the project docs for container support. paste: yes.