LinkPilot sends a secret link that is gone after it is opened. Whether you are searching for a one-time secret or a Privnote alternative, the flow is the same: paste the secret, send the link, and the recipient's first reveal burns it. You can make one without an account at the free secret link generator. Checked 4 October 2026.
Quick comparison: one-time secret tools (checked 4 October 2026)
| Tool | Burn after open | Expiration | Account required to create | Where encryption happens | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LinkPilot | Yes. The recipient's reveal burns the payload; a link preview or a plain GET does not. | Yes. The no-account tool expires a secret after 7 days by default. Signed-in secrets offer 1 hour, 24 hours or 7 days on every plan; a custom expiry date is a Pro feature. | No for the free secret link generator. The Free plan caps active secret links at 5. | In your browser: client-side AES-GCM, with the key in the URL fragment. | Free, $0, with the 5-secret-link cap. Pro $29/mo. |
| OneTimeSecret | Yes: "Once the recipient opens the link, the data is permanently destroyed" (onetimesecret.com, checked 4 October 2026). | Basic plan "up to 14 days"; Identity Plus and Team Plus "up to 30 days" (onetimesecret.com/en/pricing, checked 4 October 2026). | Not verified. The home page shows a create form but does not say whether an account is needed (checked 4 October 2026). | Vendor statement: "Your secrets are securely encrypted on our servers" (docs.onetimesecret.com, checked 4 October 2026). In-browser encryption is not stated. | Basic €0/month; Identity Plus €35/month; Team Plus €125/month, EU pricing as displayed (onetimesecret.com/en/pricing, checked 4 October 2026). |
| password.link | Yes: links "self-destruct after one view" (password.link, checked 4 October 2026). | Configurable per link ("expiration time"); specific limits not verified (password.link, checked 4 October 2026). | No: the home page offers "Create a one-time link" without signing in; an account unlocks attachments, branding and notifications (password.link, checked 4 October 2026). | Vendor statement: "Your secret is encrypted in this browser before it leaves," AES-256-GCM, with "the encrypted secret and the private part sent to our backend" (password.link, checked 4 October 2026). | Free account offered, "no credit card required"; paid plan prices not verified (the pricing page returned 404 on 4 October 2026). |
| 1time.io | Yes: "Links burn after reading by default" (1time.io, checked 4 October 2026). | 1 hour, 1 day, 3 days, 7 days or 30 days (1time.io, checked 4 October 2026). | No: "No signup required" (1time.io, checked 4 October 2026). | Vendor statement: "AES encryption happens in your browser. The server only stores ciphertext," with the key in the URL fragment (1time.io, checked 4 October 2026). | "Free and open source" per the vendor (1time.io, checked 4 October 2026). |
Vendor cells quote each vendor's own public page on the date shown; we did not test their code. The LinkPilot row is taken from our own pricing configuration and client code.
Privnote made one-view notes mainstream: paste, share, gone. For a quick anonymous note it still works. But it is closed source, it offers nothing for teams, and its popularity has made it a target: Krebs on Security has documented lookalike clone sites that read notes and swap the cryptocurrency addresses inside them, in 2020 and again in 2024.[1][2] That is a real problem for a tool whose whole job is receiving secrets. The full safety verdict is in is Privnote safe?; this post is the alternatives list.
Updated 2 October 2026: added Bitwarden Send and scrt.link (seven alternatives, up from five), a security table and a pricing table with every vendor's pricing page cited, a section on why Privnote's encryption cannot be verified based on its live page source, and outbound references throughout. Every price and limit below was checked on 2 October 2026; vendors change them, so re-check before you buy.
What is the best Privnote alternative?
LinkPilot sends a secret link that is gone after it is opened.
For business use, LinkPilot is the strongest Privnote alternative: it adds revocation, a per-secret audit timeline, passphrases, file attachments and team workspaces to the same burn-after-read flow, and encrypts in your browser with the key in the URL fragment. If your team already runs Bitwarden, Bitwarden Send is the lowest-friction swap. For anonymous notes, OneTimeSecret is the trustworthy open-source default, and PrivateBin or Yopass give you encryption whose source you can read if you self-host.
How we evaluated
Six criteria, applied to each tool on 2 October 2026 from its public site, pricing page and source repository where one exists: whether the code is open source and self-hostable; whether the encryption claim can be verified from published source; whether a sender can revoke an unread note; whether there is an audit trail; what the free tier actually limits; and what the paid tiers cost. We did not run every tool under a debugger. Where a vendor does not publish a fact, the table says "Not published" rather than guessing. LinkPilot is our own product, so its row is a claim by the publisher; the security architecture page is the thing to hold us to.
Security and verification, compared
| Tool | Open source | Self-host | Encryption verifiable? | Revoke before view | Audit trail | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LinkPilot | No (hosted) | No | Partly: model documented (AES-GCM-256 in browser, key in URL fragment), source not public | Yes (account) | Yes, per secret (Pro) | Free; Pro $29/mo |
| Bitwarden Send | Yes (server AGPL-3.0)[3] | Yes[4] | Yes: encrypted on creation, source published | Yes (disable or delete)[5] | Event logs on business plans | Text free; files on Premium $19.80/yr |
| OneTimeSecret | Yes (MIT)[6] | Yes (Docker) | Source is public; its docs do not describe in-browser encryption | Yes (burn via API v2)[7] | Minimal | Free; Identity Plus €35/mo |
| Password Pusher | Yes (Apache-2.0)[8] | Yes (Docker) | Source is public; encrypted at rest on the server (AES-256-GCM)[9] | Yes (expire by views or time, deletable) | Yes (audit logs on Free) | Free; Solo $19/mo |
| PrivateBin | Yes (zlib/libpng)[10] | Yes (self-host only, or a public instance) | Yes: AES-256-GCM in browser, key in URL fragment, source public[10] | Delete link only | No | Free |
| Yopass | Yes (Apache-2.0)[11] | Yes (Docker, Kubernetes) | Yes: OpenPGP in browser, source public[11] | Not published | No | Free; files over 1 MB need an enterprise licence |
| scrt.link | Claimed; repository not located on 2 Oct 2026[12] | White-label hosted offering | Claimed: key in the link, never sent to the server; not verified by us | Not published | Read receipts on paid tiers | Free; Secret $1/mo billed yearly |
| Privnote (baseline) | No | No | No: closed source; page ships an AES-CBC library archived in 2018[13][14] | No | No (destruction e-mail only) | Free |
Checked 2 October 2026 from each project's site and repository. "Encryption verifiable" means a third party can read the code that runs in the browser; it does not mean we audited it.
Pricing, compared
| Tool | Free tier and its limits | Paid from | What paid adds | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LinkPilot | 5 active secret links, burn-after-read, default expiry; no signup for the free tool | $29/mo (Pro) | 50 secret links, passphrase protection, custom expiry and the audit timeline, 5 custom domains; Agency $299/mo | uselinkpilot.com/pricing |
| Bitwarden Send | Text Sends up to 1,000 characters, 31-day maximum life, optional password and access count | $19.80/yr (Premium, $1.65/mo billed annually) | File Sends (500 MB desktop, 100 MB mobile); Families $47.88/yr; Teams $4 and Enterprise $6 per user per month | bitwarden.com/pricing, About Send |
| OneTimeSecret | Basic €0: one custom domain, expiry up to 14 days, e-mail delivery, REST API | €35/mo (Identity Plus) | Unlimited domains, branding, expiry up to 30 days, unlimited members; Team Plus €125/mo adds RBAC and SSO | onetimesecret.com/pricing |
| Password Pusher | $0: expiring links by views or time, passphrase, audit logs, JSON API and CLI, no account needed | $19/mo (Solo) | File uploads, branding, custom domain; Team $29/mo (3 users, RBAC, webhooks); Organization $49/mo (5 users, SSO); self-hosted plans priced separately | pwpush.com/pricing |
| PrivateBin | Free software; you run the instance (file upload off by default, size limit configurable) | n/a | n/a | github.com/PrivateBin/PrivateBin |
| Yopass | Free software; expiry 1 hour, 1 day or 1 week; hosted demo at share.yopass.se | Enterprise licence (price not published) | File uploads larger than 1 MB | yopass.se, github.com/jhaals/yopass |
| scrt.link | Confidential $0: text, files to 10 MB, 24-hour retention | $1/mo billed yearly ($1.50 monthly) | Secret: 1 GB files, 7-day retention, password, read receipts; Top Secret $5/mo yearly ($7.50 monthly): 100 GB files, 30 days, API | scrt.link/pricing |
| Privnote | Free: text notes, optional password, expiry 1 hour to 30 days, destruction e-mail | n/a | n/a | privnote.com |
All prices checked 2 October 2026 on the pages linked in the Source column. Annual prices are shown as the vendor states them.
Why Privnote's encryption cannot be verified
Privnote's page says a note is "encrypted in your browser and then stored in Privnote", and in 2020 the company told Krebs on Security that it encrypts notes "so that even Privnote itself cannot read the contents".[1][13] The claim may be true. The problem is that nobody outside the company can check it, and what is visible from outside does not help.
What we verified on 2 October 2026: the live privnote.com page loads
a script named gibberish-aes.js from its static assets.[13]
The upstream Gibberish-AES project on GitHub was archived, read-only,
on 16 October 2018. Its README states that it "only supports CBC AES
encryption mode", that it is built to be OpenSSL-compatible (the
README's own example derives the key with -md md5), and it carries
a deprecation note recommending libsodium or Stanford's JavaScript
Crypto Library because the library "uses an older and
non-authenticated cipher mode, CBC".[14]
What we did not verify: whether that library is the code path that encrypts a new note today, or a legacy path kept for old notes. We did not reverse-engineer the minified application code. So the honest statement is: the only cryptography library Privnote's page ships is one its own author deprecated in 2018 for using an unauthenticated mode, and Privnote publishes nothing that would let you confirm what it actually does with it.
Compare PrivateBin, which documents "256bit AES in Galois Counter mode", encrypted and decrypted in the browser with the key in the URL fragment, in a public repository,[10] or Yopass, which encrypts in the browser with OpenPGP under Apache-2.0.[11] You can disagree with their choices; you can at least read them.
1. LinkPilot: for anyone sharing on behalf of a business
Privnote's gaps are exactly what businesses need: proof a credential
was (or was not) viewed, the ability to kill an unread note, and a
record of who shared what. LinkPilot's secret links burn atomically on
first reveal, log every lifecycle event (created, viewed, failed
passphrase, burned, expired, revoked) to a per-secret timeline,
support revocation from the dashboard, and take file attachments
behind the same passphrase and expiry controls. Slack and e-mail link
previews cannot trigger the burn; a GET returns metadata only and a
view is recorded on an explicit reveal.
Since 29 September 2026 the payload is encrypted in the browser with AES-GCM-256 and the key travels in the URL fragment, which browsers never send to a server. Two trade-offs stated plainly: LinkPilot is hosted-only and closed source, so self-hosters should look elsewhere, and secrets created before 29 September 2026 were stored as plaintext until they expired. The Free plan caps active secret links at 5; passphrases, custom expiry and the audit timeline are on Pro at $29/month. Try the burn-after-read tool without an account, read LinkPilot vs Privnote for the head-to-head, or see the security architecture.
2. Bitwarden Send: the mainstream choice if you already use Bitwarden
Bitwarden Send "is a tool to transmit sensitive text or files directly to anyone through secure, temporary links". Text Sends are free (up to 1,000 characters); file Sends need Premium, with a 500 MB limit on desktop and 100 MB on mobile. A Send lives at most 31 days, can carry a password and a maximum access count, and can be disabled or deleted before it expires.[5] The server is open source under AGPL-3.0 with Bitwarden's additional licences,[3] and Bitwarden documents self-hosting on your own Linux server.[4] What it lacks is a per-secret audit trail for individuals: event logs are a business-plan feature. If your organisation is already in Bitwarden, this is the lowest-friction Privnote replacement on the list.
3. OneTimeSecret: the trustworthy anonymous default
Open source under MIT, long-lived, and simple.[6] If all
you want is Privnote without the clone-site anxiety, OneTimeSecret is
the closest like-for-like swap: a single-use link, optional passphrase,
and self-hosting with one docker run. Its Basic plan is free and
includes a custom domain, expiry up to 14 days and the REST API;
Identity Plus is €35/month.[15] API v2 added burn
operations, so a sender can destroy an unread secret.[7] It
remains single-purpose, with no teams and no real audit trail, and its
documentation does not describe encrypting in the browser. See best
OneTimeSecret alternatives for
that tool's own trade-offs.
4. Password Pusher: the IT department's pick
Apache-2.0 licensed with a Docker Compose deployment.[8] Pushes expire by views and/or time and the data is removed once expired; there is a JSON API (v2) and a CLI. The Free plan on the hosted service includes passphrase protection, audit logs and the API with no account; Solo at $19/month adds file uploads, branding and a custom domain; Team ($29) and Organization ($49) add RBAC, webhooks and SSO; self-hosted plans are priced separately.[9] Encryption is server-side at rest (the pricing page lists AES-256-GCM plus TLS), so the operator of the instance is in the trust boundary, which is fine when the operator is you. Comparison at LinkPilot vs Password Pusher.
5. PrivateBin: the strongest verifiable encryption model
PrivateBin encrypts and decrypts in the browser with 256-bit AES in
Galois Counter Mode; the key is part of the URL after the #, so the
server stores only ciphertext. It offers burn after reading, a
password option, and file uploads (off by default, size limit
adjustable), under the zlib/libpng licence.[10] If your
threat model includes "the operator reads my notes", PrivateBin
answers it in a way no server-side tool can. The cost is operating an
instance (or trusting someone else's) and living without workflow
features: no accounts, no audit trail, revocation only via the delete
link. See LinkPilot vs PrivateBin.
6. Yopass: in-browser encryption without running much
Apache-2.0, encrypts in the browser with OpenPGP, and easy to self-host with Docker and a Memcached or Redis backend; a hosted demo runs at share.yopass.se. Expiry options are 1 hour, 1 day or 1 week, and one-time links are removed after first retrieval. File uploads are supported, with files larger than 1 MB reserved for the enterprise licence.[11] A good pick for developers who want in-browser encryption with less setup than PrivateBin. No revoke and no audit trail.
7. scrt.link: hosted, with big files on paid tiers
scrt.link states that the encryption key "is never stored; instead, it becomes part of the link itself" and is never transmitted to the server, and that its code is on GitHub; we could not locate the repository on 2 October 2026, so treat both as the vendor's claims.[12] The free Confidential tier gives text, files up to 10 MB and 24-hour retention with unlimited secrets; Secret is $1/month billed yearly for 1 GB files, 7-day retention, a password option and read receipts; Top Secret is $5/month billed yearly for 100 GB files, 30-day retention and API access.[16] It is the right pick if the thing you are sending is large. No per-secret audit trail beyond read receipts, and no published revocation.
Self-hosted and open-source options at a glance
- OneTimeSecret:
docker run -p 3000:3000 ... onetimesecret/onetimesecretwith a Redis URL.[6] - Password Pusher: Docker Compose with a
TLS_DOMAINfor automatic Let's Encrypt.[8] - PrivateBin: a PHP application you drop on any web host; no database required by default.[10]
- Yopass: Docker Compose or Kubernetes, Memcached or Redis.[11]
- Bitwarden: full self-hosted deployment documented for Linux.[4]
LinkPilot, scrt.link and Privnote are hosted only.
How to spot a Privnote clone site
From the two Krebs investigations:[1][2]
- The domain is almost right. privnotes.com (plural), privnote.co, privnode.com, privnate.com, pirvnota.com: every documented clone is a typo or TLD swap of the real name.
- You arrived from a search result or an ad. The clone operators buy the traffic. Type the domain.
- A cryptocurrency address in your note changed. The 2020 clone swapped addresses only when sender and recipient used different IP addresses, so checking your own note proved nothing.
- The site is not the one your contact used last time. A link-reputation check like our free link trust score can flag a young or suspicious domain before you paste.
Which one should you pick?
- Client hand-offs, MSPs, onboarding: LinkPilot. The audit trail and revocation are the whole point.
- Already in Bitwarden: Bitwarden Send.
- Personal anonymous notes: OneTimeSecret.
- Self-host everything: Password Pusher for workflow, PrivateBin or Yopass for encryption you can read.
- Large files: scrt.link.
Whichever you choose, send the passphrase through a different channel than the link; it is the habit that does the most work per second of effort. Our secure password sharing guide covers that rule and the four others worth adopting.
What changed in this update
- 4 October 2026: rewrote the opening so the one-time-secret answer and the no-account tool come first; added a dated quick-comparison table (LinkPilot, OneTimeSecret, password.link, 1time.io) and a closing call to action. Vendor sections below are unchanged.
- 2 October 2026: Bitwarden Send and scrt.link added; security and pricing tables added with sources; "Why Privnote's encryption cannot be verified" added from the live page source and the archived library's own README; references added; "self-hosted options" and "how to spot a clone" sections added.
- 29 September 2026: corrected the LinkPilot entry, which had said LinkPilot did not claim to encrypt in the browser. It now does, for text payloads and attachments, with the key in the URL fragment.
References
[1] Krebs, B. (14 June 2020). Privnotes.com Is Phishing Bitcoin from Users of Private Messaging Service Privnote.com. Krebs on Security. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/06/privnotes-com-is-phishing-bitcoin-from-users-of-private-messaging-service-privnote-com/
[2] Krebs, B. (4 April 2024). Fake Lawsuit Threat Exposes Privnote Phishing Sites. Krebs on Security. https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/04/fake-lawsuit-threat-exposes-privnote-phishing-sites/
[3] bitwarden/server. The core infrastructure backend (API, database, Docker, etc). GitHub. https://github.com/bitwarden/server
[4] Bitwarden. Linux Standard Deployment (self-hosting guide). https://bitwarden.com/help/install-on-premise-linux/
[5] Bitwarden. About Send. https://bitwarden.com/help/about-send/
[6] onetimesecret/onetimesecret. Keep sensitive info out of your email and chat logs. GitHub. https://github.com/onetimesecret/onetimesecret
[7] Onetime Secret. REST API documentation (API v2: metadata and burn operations). https://docs.onetimesecret.com/en/rest-api/
[8] pglombardo/PasswordPusher. Securely share sensitive information with automatic expiration & deletion. GitHub. https://github.com/pglombardo/PasswordPusher
[9] Password Pusher. Pricing. https://eu.pwpush.com/pricing
[10] PrivateBin/PrivateBin. A minimalist, open source online pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of pasted data. GitHub. https://github.com/PrivateBin/PrivateBin
[11] jhaals/yopass. Secure sharing of secrets, passwords and files. GitHub. https://github.com/jhaals/yopass; Yopass. Home. https://yopass.se/
[12] scrt.link. Home. https://scrt.link/
[13] Privnote. Home page and page source (checked 2 October 2026). https://privnote.com/
[14] mdp/gibberish-aes. A fully OpenSSL compliant javascript library for AES encryption (repository archived 16 October 2018). GitHub. https://github.com/mdp/gibberish-aes
[15] Onetime Secret. Pricing. https://onetimesecret.com/en/pricing
[16] scrt.link. Pricing. https://scrt.link/pricing
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