Papercups vs Rustpad

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted chat & communication options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
FeaturePapercupsRustpad
CategoryChat & CommunicationChat & Communication
LicenseMITMIT
LanguageElixirRust
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM1,024 MB64 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metal, sourcedocker, binary, source
GitHub stars★ 6,097★ 4,070
First released20202021
ReplacesIntercom, DriftGoogle Docs, Etherpad

Why pick each one

Choose Papercups if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Mature project with 6.1k GitHub stars
  • Written in Elixir
Papercups details

Choose Rustpad if…

  • Extremely lightweight
  • Instant setup
Rustpad details

Frequently asked questions

Is Papercups or Rustpad better?

Neither is universally better. Papercups has the larger community, while Rustpad is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Papercups and Rustpad free and open-source?

Yes. Papercups is licensed under MIT and Rustpad under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Papercups and Rustpad with Docker?

Papercups: yes. Rustpad: yes.

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