AcyMailing vs Postal
| Tagline | Joomla and WordPress newsletter plugin with automation | Self-hosted mail delivery platform, a SendGrid/Mailgun alternative |
| Category | Email & Newsletters | Email & Newsletters |
| Replaces | Mailchimp, ConvertKit (Kit) | SendGrid |
| GitHub stars | 200 | 17k |
| Language | PHP | Ruby |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 2/5 Easy | 4/5 Involved |
| Deploy options | Manual | Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 1 month ago | 18 days ago |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
AcyMailing
- Tightly coupled to Joomla/WordPress ecosystem
- Advanced automation features gated behind paid plans
- No standalone deployment outside a CMS
Postal
- You are responsible for IP reputation, warmup, and deliverability
- Requires MariaDB, RabbitMQ, and DNS/DKIM configuration to run
- No marketing-campaign UI — it is a delivery engine, not a newsletter builder
- Less hand-holding than managed providers for spam/blocklist issues
Bottom line
Choose AcyMailing if you want the lower-effort setup; choose Postal for the larger community and ecosystem. Postal has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.