shhnote vs PrivateBin

shhnote.com runs shhnote, so we are not a neutral party. Everything said here about another service is taken from that service’s own public pages, listed under Sources and checked on 2026-11-03; where those pages don’t say something, we write “not stated” rather than guess. Spotted something wrong or out of date? Tell us at [email protected].

At a glance

	shhnote.com	PrivateBin
Where the secret is encrypted	In your browser, before upload (AES-256-GCM)	In the browser (“256bit AES in Galois Counter mode”)
Where the key lives	In the link after the #, never sent to the server	not stated
One-time view	Yes, or open until it expires	Optional “burn after reading”, if the instance enables it
Lifetime	15 minutes to 14 days	Set per instance; can include “forever”
Files	Yes	Optional, “disabled by default”, size limit set per instance
Passphrase	Optional (Argon2id, checked in the recipient’s browser)	Optional password “required to read the paste”
Account	None, to create or to open	not stated
Licence	AGPL-3.0	Open source (licence in the repository’s LICENSE.md)
Self-hosting	Yes	Yes, with installation and configuration guides

Where they differ

• Both encrypt in the browser with AES-256-GCM, so in both the server cannot read what it stores.
• PrivateBin is a pastebin first: it also offers discussions, previews of images, media and PDFs, and a “forever” expiry, each switched on or off by the instance operator. shhnote does one thing: secrets that are deleted after one view or after at most 14 days.
• With PrivateBin, what you get depends on the instance you use. shhnote.com is one instance with fixed settings, described on its security page.

The shhnote column describes this site; the security page has the details, and the other comparisons are on the overview.

Sources

• privatebin.info, checked 2026-11-03
• PrivateBin on GitHub, checked 2026-11-03