Ditto has been around for years and has earned its fans. It is free, open source, and it does the core job well: it records what you copy on Windows and lets you search back through it. If you have used Windows for a while and wanted more than Win+V, someone has probably told you to install Ditto. That advice still holds up.
Relic is newer and aims at a different problem. Your clipboard is full of sensitive things, and most of us now work across more than one machine. Relic keeps everything you copy, encrypts it on your device so only you can read it, and syncs it across your devices. The two tools overlap on Windows but pull apart fast once you care about privacy and sync.
At a glance
| Relic | Ditto | |
|---|---|---|
| Keeps everything | ||
| Search | ||
| Syncs across devices | ||
| Works on Windows | ||
| Works on Mac | ||
| Works on Linux | X11 | |
| Works on phone | ||
| End-to-end encrypted | ||
| Open source | ||
| Free tier |
A couple of honest notes on that table. Ditto can sync between your own Windows PCs over your local network, so it is not a flat no on sync, it just stays inside the Windows world and your own machines. And Relic’s Linux desktop app has shipped, while mobile is a browse-and-search companion only. More on that below.
When Ditto is the better pick
Ditto is genuinely the right answer for a lot of people, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
- You are all-in on Windows. If every machine you touch runs Windows, Ditto covers you with no compromises and no subscription.
- You want free and open source, full stop. Ditto is free with no paid tier, and the source has been open for years. That is hard to beat on price and transparency.
- You like local-only by default.Ditto keeps your history on your own PC, and its optional sync stays on your network rather than going through anyone’s cloud. If that is your comfort zone, it is a real strength.
- You want a mature, proven tool. Ditto has years of stability behind it. The interface looks a little dated, but it works, and it keeps working.
When Relic is the better pick
Relic earns its place when you step outside a single Windows PC, or when privacy is not negotiable.
- You work across devices. Copy a link on your PC and grab it from your phone, or the other way round. Relic syncs your history so it is wherever you are, not stuck on one machine.
- You want real encryption. Relic encrypts every item on your device with XChaCha20-Poly1305 and Argon2id. We store only ciphertext and cannot read your content, even if we were asked to. Ditto can password protect its database but is not end-to-end encrypted.
- You never want to lose a copy. The free tier keeps the last 500 copies inside 250 MB, and Pro keeps everything forever inside 25 GB.
- You want more than plain text. Relic tags items on device and runs OCR on screenshots, so you can search the words inside an image, not just filenames.
One thing we will say plainly: Relic captures automatically on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and on phones Relic is a browse-and-search lens rather than a background recorder, because phone operating systems do not allow apps to capture the clipboard in the background. We would rather tell you that up front than imply a full mobile app exists. Like Ditto, Relic never writes to your clipboard on its own. It only puts something back when you pick it.