mailcow: dockerized
Dockerized full-stack mail server, a self-hosted Gmail alternative
Overview
mailcow is a complete dockerized mail server suite bundling Postfix, Dovecot, Rspamd, ClamAV, and SOGo groupware with a polished admin UI. It provides webmail, calendars, contacts, multi-domain support, and antispam/antivirus out of the box. It is a leading self-hosted alternative to Gmail / Google Workspace for running your own mailboxes. Setup is via Docker Compose.
Setup and operations guides
Use these practical guides to plan the deployment, security, backups, and recovery work behind this project.
Where it falls short of Gmail / Google Workspace
- Requires a dedicated server with proper DNS/PTR and good IP reputation
- Not a bulk-newsletter tool — focused on mailboxes, not campaigns
- Ongoing maintenance, updates, and spam tuning are on you
- Resource-hungry; needs a few GB of RAM minimum
We list the gaps honestly so you can decide if the trade-off is worth owning your data.
Tags
Claim this listing to keep it accurate, add a deploy template, or feature it on relevant pages.
Embed the mailcow: dockerized difficulty badge in your README — it links back here.
[](https://openreplace.com/mailcow)Similar open-source projects
Other self-hostable tools in the same space worth comparing.
Production-ready, config-driven mail server in a single container
Turn any Ubuntu VPS into a complete, self-hosted mail server in one command
Modern all-in-one mail server with JMAP, IMAP4, and SMTP in a single Rust binary
Simple yet full-featured mail server as a set of Docker images