Modoboa vs Postal
| Tagline | Web-based mail hosting platform with modern UI for managing domains and accounts | Self-hosted mail delivery platform, a SendGrid/Mailgun alternative |
| Category | Email & Newsletters | Email & Newsletters |
| Replaces | Mailchimp, SendGrid, Gmail / Google Workspace | SendGrid |
| GitHub stars | 3.5k | 17k |
| Language | Python | Ruby |
| License | ISC | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 4/5 Involved | 4/5 Involved |
| Deploy options | Docker Manual | Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | yesterday | 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.
Modoboa
- Still depends on external Postfix and Dovecot daemons; not truly all-in-one
- Webmail plugin (Rainloop/SOGo) requires separate configuration
- No bulk mailing or newsletter campaign features
- Documentation can be incomplete for advanced plugin setups
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. Modoboa has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
Modoboa
Web-based mail hosting platform with modern UI for managing domains and accounts