MicroBin vs paste
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted pastebins & snippets options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
MicroBin
Tiny, feature-rich pastebin and file-sharing service
VS
paste
Minimalist self-hosted pastebin written in Go
| Feature | MicroBin | paste |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 84 · Excellent | 14 · At risk |
| Category | Pastebins & Snippets | Pastebins & Snippets |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | MIT |
| Language | Rust | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, bare-metal | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 4,563 | ★ 574 |
| First released | 2022 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Pastebin.com | Pastebin.com, GitHub Gist |
What are MicroBin and paste?
MicroBin
MicroBin is a super tiny, configurable, self-contained pastebin and URL shortener written in Rust. Despite its small size it supports file uploads, encryption, QR codes, and expiring pastes.
- Single small binary
- File uploads and URL shortening
- Optional encryption
- QR code generation
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
MicroBin vs paste: key differences
MicroBin is written in Rust, while paste is built with JavaScript. Licensing differs — BSD-3-Clause for MicroBin versus MIT for paste. Paste is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 128 MB for MicroBin. Paste is the more established project (first released 2018), while MicroBin arrived in 2022. MicroBin has the considerably larger community, at 4,563 GitHub stars versus 574.
Why pick each one
Choose MicroBin if…
- Released under the BSD-3-Clause license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (4.6k GitHub stars)
Choose paste if…
- Extremely lightweight
- Trivial to deploy
Watch out for
- Very minimal feature set
- No syntax highlighting UI
Frequently asked questions
Is MicroBin or paste better?
Neither is universally better. MicroBin has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are MicroBin and paste free and open-source?
Yes. MicroBin is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and paste under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run MicroBin and paste with Docker?
MicroBin: yes. paste: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, MicroBin or paste?
paste has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 128 MB for MicroBin. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.