A GitHub Gist Alternative
Gist is good software. If you are already inside GitHub and want version history, comments and a snippet you can clone, it is the right tool and this page will not talk you out of it.
Two things it will not do: let someone share without an account, or keep content private from the host. That is the gap MarkdownBin fills.
Side by side
| Feature | MarkdownBin | GitHub Gist |
|---|---|---|
| Share without an accountGist removed anonymous gists in 2018 | Yes | No |
| End-to-end encryptionEncrypted in your browser; the server stores only ciphertext | Yes | No |
| Rendered markdown | Yes | Yes |
| Syntax highlighting | Yes | Yes |
| Mermaid diagrams | Yes | Yes |
| Maths rendering | Yes | Yes |
| Version historyGist keeps a full revision history; pastes here are immutable | No | Yes |
| Comments and discussion | No | Yes |
| Fork and clone as a git repo | No | Yes |
| Embed in another page | No | Yes |
| Multiple files in one paste | No | Yes |
Compiled July 2026. Gist changes; check their docs before relying on any row here.
Sharing without an account
GitHub removed anonymous gists in 2018. Every gist now belongs to an account, which means the recipient can see who wrote it, and the sender needs a GitHub login to write it at all.
That is friction in the common case of handing a config file to a colleague, or posting a stack trace in a support thread. A paste here needs no account on either end — you paste, you get a link, the link works.
Secret gists are not private
A secret gist is unlisted, not protected. It does not appear in search or on your profile, but anyone with the URL can read it, and GitHub can read it too — it is stored as plaintext on their infrastructure.
That is fine for a code snippet. It is the wrong tool for anything with a credential, a customer name or an unannounced plan in it.
An encrypted paste here is different in kind: your password derives a key in your browser, the content is encrypted before it is sent, and the server receives ciphertext it cannot read. The password travels in the URL fragment, which browsers never transmit.
When Gist is the better choice
If you want revision history, Gist has it and pastes here are immutable. If you want to clone a snippet as a git repo, embed it in a blog post, collect comments on it, or keep several files together, Gist does all of that and MarkdownBin does none of it.
The honest summary: Gist is a lightweight repository. This is a sharing tool. If your snippet has a future — edits, discussion, history — use Gist. If it needs to reach someone now, and possibly privately, use this.
Try it
Paste markdown, get a link. Add a password if it should stay private. No account, no email, nothing to install.