Forward Email
Privacy-focused email service, an all-in-one Gmail and SaaS alternative
Overview
Forward Email is a privacy-focused, encrypted email platform offering email forwarding, full mailboxes (IMAP/POP3/SMTP/CalDAV/CardDAV), and a sending API. It positions itself as an all-in-one open-source alternative to Gmail plus Mailchimp and Sendgrid. The entire stack is open source and self-hostable, written in Node.js. It also runs as a paid hosted service.
Where it falls short of Gmail / Google Workspace
- Self-hosting is complex and far less documented than the hosted service
- Newsletter/campaign tooling is thin compared to Mailchimp
- BUSL-1.1 license is source-available, not fully OSI-open
- Running production email requires significant infra and DNS expertise
We list the gaps honestly so you can decide if the trade-off is worth owning your data.
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