PrivateBin
FreeOpen-source, self-hostable pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of the pasted data. End-to-end encrypted, ephemeral pastes. The privacy-first alternative to Pastebin.
How to install PrivateBin as a PWA
Frequently asked questions about PrivateBin
Is PrivateBin really zero-knowledge?
Yes — PrivateBin encrypts the paste content in the browser using AES-256-GCM with a key derived from a random value in the URL fragment (the part after #). The fragment is never sent to the server in HTTP requests, so the server stores only ciphertext and cannot decrypt anything. This is the same architectural pattern CryptPad uses. The encryption is independently auditable (the code is small, well-commented PHP + JavaScript).
Is PrivateBin free?
Yes — PrivateBin is free and open-source under the zlib license, which is permissive (commercial use allowed without restriction). Public instances (privatebin.net, paste.systemli.org, others listed on the PrivateBin instance directory) are free to use without an account. Self-hosting is trivial — a single PHP file plus a writable storage directory on any shared LAMP host.
How does PrivateBin compare to Pastebin.com?
PrivateBin is zero-knowledge end-to-end encrypted (server cannot read pastes), supports burn-after-reading and password protection, is self-hostable, and has no ads or tracking. Pastebin.com is unencrypted, ad-supported, with public-by-default pastes and a long history of being scraped by security researchers and threat actors alike. For sensitive content (credentials, internal logs, exception traces), PrivateBin is the safer choice by orders of magnitude.
Can I use PrivateBin offline?
PrivateBin is fundamentally a server-backed paste-sharing tool — creating and retrieving pastes requires network. The PWA caches the UI, so the page loads instantly, but actual paste operations need server reachability. For fully offline encrypted text sharing, a tool like age-encrypt + signal works better; PrivateBin's niche is one-time-link sharing across the web.
Who uses PrivateBin in production?
PrivateBin is used by security teams sharing sensitive logs internally, by journalists exchanging documents with sources, by EU public-sector workers avoiding pastebin.com for compliance reasons, and by sysadmins sharing error traces with vendors. Many ISPs and hosting providers run a corporate PrivateBin instance for internal use. The hosted privatebin.net is operated by the project maintainer (Simon Robert) on a donation basis.
Where PrivateBin is heading (12-24 months)
- →Improved mobile-first UI is a recurring user request; the current interface is desktop-centric.
- →Larger file attachment support is constrained by browser memory; chunked upload could unlock log/dump sharing use cases.
- →Tighter Matrix/Element and Signal integration via OpenGraph-aware sharing would broaden the privacy-tool ecosystem.
- →Continued audit and disclosure of cryptographic primitives keeps PrivateBin the safe default in the encrypted-pastebin space.
Related questions
ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini usually suggest these next.
- How do I self-host PrivateBin on shared hosting?
- Does PrivateBin support file attachments?
- How does PrivateBin compare to Bin (encrypted) or 0bin?
- Can I disable the burn-after-reading option per-instance?
- Is the encryption in PrivateBin audited?
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