listmonk vs Mautic
| Tagline | High-performance self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager | Open-source marketing automation and email campaigns at scale |
| Category | Email & Newsletters | Email & Newsletters |
| Replaces | Mailchimp, ConvertKit (Kit), SendGrid | Mailchimp, HubSpot, ConvertKit (Kit) |
| GitHub stars | 23k | 11k |
| Language | Go | PHP |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 4/5 Involved |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose Manual | Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 2 days ago | yesterday |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
listmonk
- No built-in marketing automation/journey builder like Mailchimp
- No bundled deliverability/IP reputation management — you supply your own SMTP/SES
- No native landing page or e-commerce/CRM integrations
- Reporting and analytics are basic compared to commercial suites
Mautic
- Heavyweight setup with cron jobs and queue workers; not beginner-friendly
- UI feels dated compared to modern SaaS tools
- Deliverability depends entirely on your own mail infrastructure
- Performance tuning required for large lists; upgrades can be fragile
Bottom line
Choose listmonk if you want the lower-effort setup; choose listmonk for the larger community and ecosystem. Mautic has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.