Opengist 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 | Opengist | paste |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 88 · Excellent | 14 · At risk |
| Category | Pastebins & Snippets | Pastebins & Snippets |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Language | Go | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, bare-metal | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 3,353 | ★ 574 |
| First released | 2023 | 2018 |
| Replaces | GitHub Gist | Pastebin.com, GitHub Gist |
What are Opengist and paste?
Opengist
Opengist is a self-hosted pastebin and snippet manager where every snippet is a Git repository. It supports revisions, syntax highlighting, embedding, and access via the web, Git, and an API.
- Git-backed snippets
- Revision history
- Syntax highlighting and embeds
- OAuth login support
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
Opengist vs paste: key differences
Opengist is written in Go, while paste is built with JavaScript. Licensing differs — AGPL-3.0 for Opengist versus MIT for paste. Paste is the lighter option, starting around 64 MB of RAM against 256 MB for Opengist. Paste is the more established project (first released 2018), while Opengist arrived in 2023. Opengist has the considerably larger community, at 3,353 GitHub stars versus 574.
Why pick each one
Choose Opengist if…
- Released under the AGPL-3.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Active community (3.4k 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 Opengist or paste better?
Neither is universally better. Opengist has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Opengist and paste free and open-source?
Yes. Opengist is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and paste under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Opengist and paste with Docker?
Opengist: yes. paste: yes.
Which is lighter on resources, Opengist or paste?
paste has the smaller minimum footprint at 64 MB of RAM, compared to about 256 MB for Opengist. Real-world usage depends on library size, user count, and enabled features.