Maddy Mail Server vs Postal
| Tagline | Single-binary Go mail server replacing Postfix, Dovecot, OpenDKIM, and OpenDMARC | Self-hosted mail delivery platform, a SendGrid/Mailgun alternative |
| Category | Email & Newsletters | Email & Newsletters |
| Replaces | Gmail / Google Workspace, SendGrid, Mailchimp | SendGrid |
| GitHub stars | 6k | 17k |
| Language | Go | Ruby |
| License | GPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 4/5 Involved | 4/5 Involved |
| Deploy options | Docker Manual | Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 23 days ago | 9 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.
Maddy Mail Server
- No webmail interface; users need a separate IMAP client
- Documentation is less comprehensive than established stacks like Postfix + Dovecot
- No built-in web admin panel for managing accounts
- Smaller ecosystem and community compared to traditional mail server components
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
Both are a similar lift to self-host; 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.
Maddy Mail Server
Single-binary Go mail server replacing Postfix, Dovecot, OpenDKIM, and OpenDMARC