Postal vs SimpleLogin
| Tagline | Self-hosted mail delivery platform, a SendGrid/Mailgun alternative | Self-hostable email alias service to protect your real address from spam and tracking |
| Category | Email & Newsletters | Email & Newsletters |
| Replaces | SendGrid | Gmail / Google Workspace, Mailchimp, ConvertKit (Kit) |
| GitHub stars | 17k | 6.7k |
| Language | Ruby | Docker |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 4/5 Involved | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose Manual | Docker Docker Compose Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 9 days ago | today |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
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
SimpleLogin
- Self-hosted instance requires managing its own MX record and email reputation
- No bulk sending or newsletter features; purely an alias/forwarding tool
- Mobile apps connect to SimpleLogin's cloud by default; redirecting to self-hosted requires manual app configuration
- Spam filtering is inherited from the destination mailbox, not provided independently
Bottom line
Choose SimpleLogin if you want the lower-effort setup; choose Postal for the larger community and ecosystem. SimpleLogin has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
SimpleLogin
Self-hostable email alias service to protect your real address from spam and tracking