bin vs paste
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted pastebins & snippets options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
bin
Minimal, paste-only server written in Rust
VS
paste
Minimalist self-hosted pastebin written in Go
| Feature | bin | paste |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Under-an-hour setup | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 8 · At risk | 14 · At risk |
| Category | Pastebins & Snippets | Pastebins & Snippets |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Rust | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, bare-metal | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 311 | ★ 574 |
| First released | 2020 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Pastebin.com | Pastebin.com, GitHub Gist |
What are bin and paste?
bin
bin is an extremely minimal pastebin server written in Rust with no database and no configuration. It keeps pastes in memory and is designed to be small, fast, and easy to deploy.
- No database needed
- Tiny memory footprint
- Single binary
- Curl-friendly
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
bin vs paste: key differences
Bin is written in Rust, while paste is built with JavaScript. Paste is the more established project (first released 2018), while bin arrived in 2020.
Why pick each one
Choose bin if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Rust
Choose paste if…
- Extremely lightweight
- Trivial to deploy
Watch out for
- Very minimal feature set
- No syntax highlighting UI
Frequently asked questions
Is bin or paste better?
Neither is universally better. paste has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are bin and paste free and open-source?
Yes. bin is licensed under MIT and paste under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run bin and paste with Docker?
bin: yes. paste: yes.