A pastebin or text storage site is a type of online content-hosting service where users can store plain text (e.g. source code snippets for code review).
Pastebins developed in the late 1990s to support IRC chatrooms dedicated to computing, where users naturally need to share large blocks of computer input or output in a line-oriented medium
Pastebins are popular with developers for a number of reasons including support for syntax highlighting, temporary storage, ease of use, as well as anonymity. They can also store configuration information.
It’s worth noting that pastebins are not only useful for developers. Anyone can use a pastebin to paste and share any type of text.
This article focuses on the finest self-hosted pastebin tools. Only free and open source software is eligible for inclusion here.
Here’s our verdict captured in a legendary LinuxLinks-style ratings chart.
Click the links in the table below to learn more about each client.
| Self-Hosted Pastebin Alternatives | |
|---|---|
| PrivateBin | Minimalist, online pastebin |
| TextBin | Create, manage, and share text snippets |
| Opengist | Self-hosted pastebin powered by Git |
| Drift | Self-hostable Gist and paste service |
| wastebin | Minimal pastebin |
| NoPaste | Client-side paste service |
| lesma | Simple paste app, friendly with browser and command line |
| bin | Minimal pastebin |
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I personally prefer MicroBin over PrivateBin for personal use. It’s opensource and self hostable.
Thanks Sansbyte. We’ll evaluate MicroBin and still what it’s like.