OnionShare vs SecureDrop - which should I run?

OnionShare is lighter-weight, faster to deploy, less hardened. SecureDrop is journalism-grade with formal segmentation. For casual source submission, OnionShare is fine. For investigative-journalism organizational use, SecureDrop.

Does the OnionShare address change between restarts?

Not in persistent mode. The persistent JSON file stores the v3 key. Reboots preserve the address.

Can I run multiple OnionShare modes on one VPS?

Yes. Each mode gets its own persistent file and its own .onion address.

Is OnionShare suitable for high-volume traffic?

Receive mode handles many small uploads well. Share mode for large files is bandwidth-limited by Tor circuit throughput. For multi-GB downloads consider a static onion site with proper web server instead.

Tor Hosting

Persistent OnionShare VPS

OnionShare normally runs on a desktop with a transient .onion address that goes away when the laptop closes. Hosting it on a VPS makes the .onion address persistent across reboots and gives 24/7 reachability. AnubizHost provides VPS preconfigured with onionshare-cli in headless mode for share, receive, chat, or static website deployments. The encrypted persistent state lives on a LUKS partition that you control.

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OnionShare Modes

OnionShare supports four modes: share (one-time file send), receive (others upload to you), website (static .onion site), and chat (anonymous group chat). All four can run persistently on a VPS. The VPS install uses the same onionshare-cli binary that the desktop app uses, just in headless persistent mode without the GUI wrapper.

Persistent mode stores the v3 onion key in a JSON file so the .onion address survives daemon restarts. Without persistence, every restart generates a new address and every existing user loses their bookmark.

VPS-Side Setup

# Persistent OnionShare receive mode
onionshare-cli --persistent /etc/onionshare/receive.json \
    --receive /var/lib/onionshare/uploads/

The persistent file stores the v3 onion key so the address survives restarts. We ship the persistent file path inside an encrypted partition by default so a seized VPS yields ciphertext only.

Use Cases

Persistent OnionShare endpoints work well for: long-running source-submission boxes (lighter-weight than SecureDrop), file-distribution onions for software releases, anonymous group chats for closed communities, static .onion mirrors of clearnet sites. The receive mode is particularly useful: it lets sources submit documents without needing to install anything beyond Tor Browser.

Crypto Billing, Hardening Notes

BTC and XMR. Hardening: bind onionshare-cli to a unix socket consumed by Tor, never to a TCP port. LUKS-encrypt the uploads directory. Rotate the persistent key annually if threat model warrants.

Privacy & anti-censorship guides

Tor in Russia 2026 Tor obfs4 Bridges Guide

Why Anubiz Host

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Delivered in days, not weeks

Full documentation included

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Post-delivery support included

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