Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Etherpad VS CryptPad

Compare Etherpad VS CryptPad and see what are their differences

Etherpad logo Etherpad

Etherpad is a highly customizable Open Source online editor providing collaborative editing in...

CryptPad logo CryptPad

CryptPad is a collaborative office suite that is end-to-end encrypted and open-source.
  • Etherpad Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-07-26
  • CryptPad Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-16

About CryptPad

CryptPad is a private-by-design alternative to popular office tools and cloud services. All the content stored on CryptPad is encrypted before being sent, which means nobody can access your data unless you give them the keys.

A full suite of applications

CryptPad provides a full-fledged office suite with all the tools necessary for productive collaboration. Applications include: Rich Text, Spreadsheets, Code/Markdown, Kanban, Slides, Whiteboard and Forms.

End-to-end encrypted

All data on CryptPad is encrypted in the browser. This means no readable data leaves the user's device. Even the service administrators cannot see the content of documents or user data.

Private Collaboration

CryptPad is built to enable collaboration with features such as team drives, calendar, and sharing. It synchronizes changes to documents in real time. Because all data is encrypted, the service and its administrators have no way of seeing the content being edited and stored.

CryptPad

$ Details
freemium €5.0 / Monthly (Personal 5GB)
Platforms
Windows Mac OSX Linux Android iOS

Etherpad features and specs

  • Real-Time Collaboration
    Etherpad allows multiple users to simultaneously edit a document in real-time, making it an excellent tool for collaborative work.
  • Open Source
    Being open-source, Etherpad allows users to modify and enhance the software according to their needs. This also promotes transparency and security.
  • Customizable
    Etherpad is highly customizable owing to its plugin architecture. Users can add various functionalities such as authentication, analytics, and formatting tools.
  • Easy to Use
    The interface is straightforward and user-friendly, making it simple even for non-technical users to start collaborating quickly.
  • Text Highlighting
    Each user's contributions can be highlighted in a different color, making it easy to track changes and contributions.
  • Version Control
    Etherpad provides a version history, allowing users to revert to previous versions of the document in case of errors or unwanted changes.

Possible disadvantages of Etherpad

  • Limited Formatting Options
    Etherpad lacks advanced formatting features, which might be a drawback for users needing to create complex documents.
  • Performance Issues
    With a large number of simultaneous users or extensive documents, Etherpad can sometimes experience lag and performance issues.
  • Hosting and Maintenance
    Being self-hosted, users are responsible for setting up and maintaining the server, which can be technically challenging for some.
  • Lack of Media Integration
    Unlike some other collaborative tools, Etherpad does not natively support embedding multimedia content such as images and videos.
  • Security Risks
    Without proper security measures, a self-hosted Etherpad instance could be vulnerable to attacks such as unauthorized access or data breaches.
  • Basic User Management
    Etherpad's user management is quite rudimentary, lacking advanced features like role-based permissions and detailed access controls.

CryptPad features and specs

  • End-to-end encryption
  • Fully open source
  • Real-time collaboraton

Etherpad videos

Etherpad Instructional Tool Review

More videos:

CryptPad videos

CryptPad Encrypted collaborative editing without trusting the server

More videos:

  • Demo - CryptPad Sprint #1 Demo
  • Review - CryptPad - FLOSS Weekly 532

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Etherpad and CryptPad)
Office Suites
31 31%
69% 69
Project Management
30 30%
70% 70
Office & Productivity
48 48%
52% 52
Note Taking
22 22%
78% 78

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Etherpad and CryptPad

Etherpad Reviews

We have no reviews of Etherpad yet.
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CryptPad Reviews

5 great privacy-focused Evernote alternatives to keep your notes safe
CryptPad is, as the name suggests, type of a Pad. Pads are created as a transformative way for people to collaborate on text (including code), any change to the code done by any of the participants is seen almost immediately. Such technology allows people who are geographically separated to work on the same project as if they were in the same room. Many projects around the...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, CryptPad should be more popular than Etherpad. It has been mentiond 90 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Etherpad mentions (21)

  • Nextcloud: Open-Source Cloud Apps
    > Try Etherpad (https://etherpad.org/) He should better use OnlyOffice, Collabora or Cryptpad office suite. The Cryptpad server is the only one which is not a nightmare to install and setup. - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Nextcloud: Open-Source Cloud Apps
    > What I need in my stack is a focused Google Docs alternative Try Etherpad (https://etherpad.org/) > I ended up going with Seafile for file backups and have been very happy with it I went through probably dozens of solutions and ended up with Syncthing for synchronization of data (it requires understanding how it works but once you do (usually an eureka kind of moment) this is a very powerful system. For me... - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
  • Software Possession for Personal Use
    I don't know if these will suit the latency requirements that you're outlining, but they might very well be what you're looking for. https://etherpad.org/ https://ethercalc.net/. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Looking for suggestions on a self-hosted note app that can handle multiple users and collaboration?
    Check out etherpad. It's an awesome solution. It's got collaboration, and over 200 plugins. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Looking for simple, browser-based collaborative text editing software
    Etherpad Lite is basically selfhosted Google Docs, and it's pretty straightforward but can be extended with various plugins. https://etherpad.org/. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

CryptPad mentions (90)

  • Ask HN: Hackable Personal Database?
    I'm looking for the same. Open source, self hosted, and end-to-end encrypted. I haven't found anything that really does all of this, but it seems like Cryptpad[0] and Peergos[1] are viable platforms upon which something like this could be built. Except for encryption, Atomic Data[2] seems like a really cool platform to build this on. [0] https://cryptpad.org/ [1] https://peergos.org/ [2] - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Proton launches its own version of Google Docs
    I see that they claim all of their apps and libraries are open source[0]. But they only link to the OpenPGP libraries they're using. Is this actually open source? Following the "Open Source" footer link[1], here they only link to the ProtonMail Github account with nothing mentioning ProtonDrive. And if it is actually open source, I'd love to see a comparison to CryptPad[2] > which is why we’ve made all our apps... - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • Google suspends romance author's account for writing sexually explicit content
    Https://cryptpad.org/ There's a public instance in France to try it out. - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • Edit This Blog Post
    I work for XWiki SAS. Two products we develop have it: - XWiki, a extensible wiki platform, experimentally [1] but soon to be fully supported - CryptPad [2], an end-to-end encrypted collaborative platform. And actually, CryptPad was accidentally born as a first attempt to have this feature in XWiki. [1] https://extensions.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Extension/Realtime%20WYSIWYG%20Editor/ [2] https://cryptpad.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Google Docs adds tracking to links in document exports
    Hey, very happy to see you so enthusiastic! I'll be sure to transmit your feedback to the CryptPad team. I'm not an expert myself so while I might know some stuff, it'd be better to talk to them directly. Come say hello on the Matrix #cryptpad-general channel [1], don't hesitate to open issues on the bug tracker, and to browse the CryptPad's website [2]. [1] https://matrix.to/#/#cryptpad-general:matrix.xwiki.com... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Etherpad and CryptPad, you can also consider the following products

Microsoft 365 - Boost your productivity with reliable access anywhere with services like email, calendar, file sharing, meetings, instant messaging, and Office Online

LibreOffice - Free office suite, open source, and compatible with .doc, .docx, .xls, .xlsx, .ppt, .pptx files. Updated regularly – download for free. Originally based on OpenOffice.org.

SSuite Office - SSuite Office is called to be one of the most accomplished software developers for both beginners and professionals alike.

ONLYOFFICE - ONLYOFFICE is a complete office and productivity suite.

Apache OpenOffice - Apache OpenOffice is an open source, office document productivity suite.

LibreOffice - Writer - Open-source cross-platform word processor.