◆/email-for-startups providers ↗
hub · self-hosted

Self-hosted email

Open-source platforms that run on your own infrastructure. Trade operational ownership for independence from a vendor and the ability to keep all data in your environment.

Open-source email servers and platforms that run on your own infrastructure.

ranking

8 Best Self-Hosted Email Tools (2026), Tested

Open-source platforms you can run on your own infrastructure.

Full ranking →
  1. 01

    Postal

    Self-hosted Transactional

    Most mature open-source SMTP-server replacement.
  2. 02

    mailcow

    Self-hosted

    Full Dockerized mail and groupware suite with admin UI, Postfix, Dovecot, Rspamd, and SOGo.
  3. 03

    maddy

    Self-hosted

    Compact all-in-one mail server with SMTP, MX receipt, IMAP, DKIM, SPF, DMARC, DANE, and MTA-STS.
  4. 04

    Plunk

    Self-hosted Marketing

    Unified marketing plus transactional in a single AGPL app.
  5. 05

    Listmonk

    Newsletter Self-hosted

    Single-binary newsletter manager. Bring your own SMTP.
ranking

12 Best Open-Source Email Tools (2026), Tested

A reference stack for teams that want to own every layer.

Full ranking →
  1. 01

    Postal

    Self-hosted Transactional

    Outbound and inbound delivery server.
  2. 02

    mailcow

    Self-hosted

    Full self-hosted mail and groupware suite with a strong admin UI.
  3. 03

    maddy

    Self-hosted

    Compact all-in-one SMTP, MX, IMAP, and authentication stack.
  4. 04

    Listmonk

    Newsletter Self-hosted

    Newsletter manager and broadcast.
  5. 05

    Novu

    Notifications Self-hosted

    Notification orchestration across channels.
all providers in this category

Directory (8)

All providers →

Ghost

Newsletter Self-hosted

Open-source publishing with built-in memberships and email.

free tier
Self-hosted is free (your infra cost)
starts at
Ghost Pro from $9/mo

Listmonk

Newsletter Self-hosted

Self-hosted newsletter and mailing list manager.

free tier
Free, self-hosted
starts at
Self-hosted only

Postal

Self-hosted Transactional

Open-source mail delivery platform.

free tier
Free, self-hosted
starts at
Self-hosted only

Plunk

Self-hosted Marketing

Open-source unified email platform.

free tier
3,000/mo on hosted free plan
starts at
$19/mo or self-host

Novu

Notifications Self-hosted

Open-source notification infrastructure.

free tier
30,000 events/mo on cloud, free self-hosted
starts at
$250/mo (Business cloud)

maddy

Self-hosted

Composable all-in-one mail server.

free tier
Free self-hosted, GPL-3.0
starts at
Free self-hosted

mailcow

Self-hosted

Dockerized groupware and email server suite.

free tier
Free self-hosted, GPL-3.0
starts at
Free self-hosted

Cuttlefish

Self-hosted Transactional

Open-source transactional email server with a web UI.

free tier
Free self-hosted, open source
starts at
Free self-hosted

reading this as early-stage startups

At an early stage the deciding factors are what the free tier actually covers, what the first paid invoice looks like, and how much of a founding engineer's week the setup costs. Feature depth that only matters at a million sends a month is noise until it is not.

Applied to self-hosted email, that means weighing free tier, best published rate per 1,000, entry price, and developer experience ahead of the rest, against a waitlist, a launch announcement, onboarding email, and the first transactional sends.