sprunge 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 | sprunge | paste |
|---|---|---|
| Deploy effort | Read-the-docs project | Under-an-hour setup |
| Health score | 15 · At risk | 14 · At risk |
| Category | Pastebins & Snippets | Pastebins & Snippets |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Language | Python | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 64 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | bare-metal, source | docker, binary, bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 721 | ★ 574 |
| First released | 2010 | 2018 |
| Replaces | Pastebin.com, termbin | Pastebin.com, GitHub Gist |
What are sprunge and paste?
sprunge
sprunge is a minimalist, command-line oriented pastebin server designed for piping text directly from the terminal. It returns a short URL for any uploaded content with almost no configuration.
- Terminal pipe uploads
- No database required
- Short URL output
- Tiny footprint
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
sprunge vs paste: key differences
Sprunge is written in Python, while paste is built with JavaScript. Sprunge is the more established project (first released 2010), while paste arrived in 2018. Paste lists first-class Docker deployment; sprunge does not.
Why pick each one
Choose sprunge if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Written in Python
- Tiny footprint — runs in 64 MB RAM
Choose paste if…
- Extremely lightweight
- Trivial to deploy
Watch out for
- Very minimal feature set
- No syntax highlighting UI
Frequently asked questions
Is sprunge or paste better?
Neither is universally better. sprunge has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are sprunge and paste free and open-source?
Yes. sprunge is licensed under MIT and paste under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run sprunge and paste with Docker?
sprunge: check the project docs for container support. paste: yes.